Scars and Sins (Brooklyn Brothers Book 2)

by Melanie Munton

  It was possible that Dominic was learning the business from his uncle, but what the hell was I doing here? Papà usually never wanted me anywhere near his dealings with the families. Wasn’t that why he’d sent me off to boarding school in the first place? He’d never said as much, but I’d always assumed it’d had something to do with the families.

  Not that an explanation would have made his abandonment of me right after my mother’s and brother’s deaths any less painful.

  I glanced up from my chicken risotto to find Dominic’s eyes once again on me. His attention was growing tedious, and my patience for it was diminishing. He wasn’t doing anything overtly rude, and he always met my annoyed stares with genial smiles.

  But there was something lurking beneath that civilized façade…

  He was a snake in the grass.

  That was my assessment by the time our dessert arrived.

  And someone my instincts were telling me to stay far away from.

  My phone buzzed inside my clutch that I’d left on my lap. I discreetly pulled it out to check my messages, hiding my smile behind my wine glass. I had a pretty good idea of who was texting me.

  Ace: What are you doing?

  Knowing I wouldn’t be able to mask my schoolgirl giddiness, I excused myself from the table and headed for the restrooms, which were located at the top of an ultra-wide marble staircase. I quickly used the facilities because I actually did have to go, and afterwards stood at the balcony that overlooked the entire dining room.

  Me: Out having dinner with my father. Almost done. Why?

  Ace: Can’t stop thinking about you. Figured I’d wait at least 48 hours to contact you so I didn’t sound too eager to see you again….

  I let out a long breath, unaware I was even holding it.

  Ace: It was 48 hours three minutes ago.

  My heart fluttered like the romantic fool it was. But damn, he had a talent for making me smile.

  Me: Is that your roundabout way of saying you want to see me?

  Ace: Yes. As soon as humanly possible.

  Me: Where?

  Ace: My place

  Oh, Lord.

  That meant… If I went over there, then we’d probably… We would both want to… Was tonight the right night?

  I dismissed that thought. Any night with Ace would be right because he would never hurt me. He’d make it special and as enjoyable as a girl’s first time could be.

  At least I was wearing one of my best dresses. A siren red number that clung in all the right places, with a side tie at my waist that flattered my hourglass figure. Well, hourglass minus the boobs. But the way the material was cut made them appear bigger than they were, so it was perfect. I’d even worn bright red lipstick, something I rarely did. I wasn’t a big makeup person. I was the girl who needed YouTube tutorials to know how to apply most of the products in my makeup bag. I’d pinned the front few strands of my hair back to keep them out of my face and gone with silver jewelry. Best of all, I’d been able to wear my favorite strappy black heels that hardly ever came out of my closet because I didn’t have a social life so I didn’t often need them.

  Subconsciously, I think I’d chosen this particular look in hopes of seeing Ace tonight. Not that we’d made plans, but there was always the hope for them.

  But I had to consider the fact that a relationship between us was still forbidden. A fact that couldn’t have been more poignant than it was tonight at this restaurant with the three men at my table.

  Papà finding out about me and Ace was one thing.

  But what the hell would Santi do?

  Considering my suspicions about his involvement with the car crash that killed Mamà and Filip, the answer could very well be life-threatening.

  Panic seized me.

  I wasn’t sure that staying away from Ace was an option anymore, which meant we had to be careful.

  Extremely. Careful.

  Me: I should be there within an hour.

  I shoved my phone back inside my clutch and turned around to head back downstairs.

  I crashed right into Dominic.

  Gasping in surprise, my hand flew to my chest in an effort to calm my racing heart.

  Dominic smiled amiably. “My apologies, Roxanna. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  I tucked my hair behind my ear, attempting a casualness I didn’t feel around him “You didn’t. I was just checking some email.”

  He nodded, though his eyes glinted with something I couldn’t name. “Of course. I hope everything is in order? You seem rather flushed.”

  Damn my “raw responses” to Ace and his sexiness.

  “I’m fine,” I insisted. “Wine just has that effect on me.”

  “And a most attractive effect, I must say.” Dominic’s gaze raked over my body in a lazy perusal, lingering too long in certain areas. “The color of your cheeks matches that of your dress. I’ve always had a special appreciation for red.”

  And there it was.

  That snake in the grass coming out.

  His personality was just…smarmy. I couldn’t come up with a better word for it. My skin crawled every place his eyes touched, and his come-ons made me feel like I needed to take a shower.

  Sensing my discomfort, he backtracked. “I apologize for being forward. You are just a very beautiful woman. I’m finding it difficult to control my reactions around you.”

  His continued leering rendered his apology meaningless.

  I’m finding it impossible to believe a damn word you say.

  “Then I ask that you try, Mr. Gabbiano, for I have no interest in being gawked at.”

  I eased around him, worried I might burst into flames if I actually made contact with him. Just as I reached the marble staircase, his voice stopped me in my tracks.

  “Again, I apologize. But I feel it pertinent to warn you I might struggle with that, considering how much time we’ll be spending together in the future.”

  I reluctantly met his gaze over my shoulder. “What do you mean by that?”

  He raised both eyebrows. “Your father didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  He waved his hand between us. “My uncle and your father have come to an arrangement of sorts. To use an antiquated term, we are in a sense, betrothed to one another.”

  Dear God, he can’t be serious.

  This had to be a joke. Papà would never do that to me.

  But his behavior during dinner was damning in light of this information. The way he’d maintained a tight grip on his silverware every time Santi spoke to him. The way Papà smiled at the man, though it never reached his eyes. The guilt that shone in his expression every time he glanced over at me.

  Papà was actually trying to arrange a marriage for me.

  What the hell is happening to my life?

  “It would be a most advantageous marriage, Roxanna,” Dominic added. “If you’ll let me, I’ll do everything in my power to make you happ—”

  I put my hand up to stop him. I couldn’t hear anymore. “Listen carefully, Mr. Gabbiano. I don’t believe in judging a person’s character based on that of their family members’ because I certainly don’t want others to judge me based on my father’s actions. But I will say right now that while I don’t know enough about you yet to distrust you, I can safely assure you that I will never marry you. Ever.”

  I turned my back on his startled expression and left him standing there looking dumbfounded. He could take his advantageous marriage and shove it right up his smarmy ass.

  I walked back down the staircase, but I had no intention of returning to our table.

  I wouldn’t have been able to look Papà in the eyes.

  There was only one person in the world who could have made me briefly forget everything I’d just heard.

  I wished my emotions weren’t in such turmoil as I rang Ace’s doorbell. Between my combination of hurt and outrage over Papà’s actions and my nerves over being forty feet away from Ace’s bed, everything in m
y head felt discombobulated. By the time he answered the door, I had wrung my hands together so severely I barely had any feeling left in them.

  And when he opened the door, all the blood drained from my face.

  He stood there in a pair of loose black sweats and no shirt.

  I repeat… He. Was. Sans. Shirt.

  Everything that happened at dinner seemed like a distant memory.

  Ace stared back at me slack-jawed. His arm fell limply to his side as his gaze traveled over me, rapidly heating by degrees with every inch it traveled. I felt those eyes on me like a physical caress.

  “I’m either dreaming, or I’ve died and this is Heaven.”

  Butterflies took flight in my belly at the compliment.

  A strong gust of wind blew that sent my hair flying out of its pins and my dress whipping wildly around my legs. My hands frantically tried to hold the material in place, but I suspected I wasn’t entirely successful in concealing the goods.

  “Definitely Heaven,” he said in approval.

  The wind finally subsided, allowing me to push my hair out of my face. “If this were Heaven, then I’d have hair that was much easier to manage.”

  His eyes dragged back up my body, eventually stopping on my thick mane of untamable hair. “Not in my Heaven, you wouldn’t.”

  The horde of belly butterflies started swarming my insides like they were on crack.

  “Are you going to invite me inside, or just stand there staring at me all night?”

  His mouth tugged up in my favorite half-grin. “Haven’t decided yet. I’m pretty partial to this view right now.”

  My own gaze flitted down his bare torso for a split second before lifting back up to his face. “As am I.”

  The half-grin disappeared.

  His mouth parted, pupils dilating.

  “But you know what they say…” I added with a saccharine smile. “Location, location, location. And if we move this inside, you might be able to get an even better view.”

  He lunged forward and yanked me across the threshold.

  I laughed, expecting him to push me up against the nearest wall and have his dirty way with me. But after closing the door, he took a purposeful step back and several deep breaths through his nose.

  Once he’d seemed to get control over himself, he crooked his finger and led me further into his Crown Heights brownstone that used to be owned by his parents. I’d spent a majority of my childhood in this place, having slumber parties with Gia and spying on Ace from afar. Despite the years that had passed, I still knew it like the back of my hand.

  I followed him past the entryway and through the French doors on our left that led into the living room. He had obviously renovated the place over the years, updating a lot of features and touching up the old construction. The brownstone had been built in the ‘50s, but he’d managed to make it look modern. The furniture was sleek and short-backed, the lamps and ceiling lights were art deco, and the coffee and end tables were made of glass.

  And almost everything was white.

  The walls, ceilings, and most of the furniture were white with touches of gray and silver here and there. He’d kept the original light-colored hardwood floors, preventing his home from looking like an asylum. But even with the monochromatic color scheme, it somehow still felt homey. Lived-in, which was more than I could say about my childhood home these days.

  And of course, there were traces of Ace’s career and lifestyle all over the place. I’d noticed a camera above his front door when I’d been waiting outside. There was a security pad on the wall right inside the front door that looked pretty high-tech. There were three tablets of different sizes on his coffee table. A Mac laptop sat opened on the couch, along with two cell phones—at least I thought the other one was a cell phone. The flat screen TV on the wall was huge, and there was another touch screen pad on the wall by the stairs. Thermostat, maybe?

  “I guess there’s no need to show you around, huh?” he asked, glancing at me over his shoulder.

  “It’s been a while, but I think I still know my way around. You’ve done a nice job making it your own.”

  He shrugged as he closed the laptop and straightened up the couch. “It just made sense to buy it from Mom and Dad after they moved to Prospect Park. It’s a good amount of space, and it wasn’t in bad shape, considering what year it was built.”

  My eyes drifted over his belongings. Like the wall-to-wall bookcases that took up an entire section of the living room.

  “I like it. It suits you.”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “Geeky, you mean?”

  I laughed. “Hey, I embrace my inner geek. That’s not an insult. At least you have space for all your books. I had to start stacking mine in the corners of my old dorm room.”

  “Oh, you want to see geeky? Come with me.”

  He grabbed my hand and pulled me down the hallway.

  As we took the three brick steps that led down to the kitchen, my mouth spread into a smile. For whatever reason, I’d loved this kitchen ever since I first saw it. The curved archway over the stove, the white-washed brick of the floor and walls, and the giant butcher’s block in the center that also acted as an island. It all reminded me of what the kitchen of an Italian cottage in an Old World Sicilian village would look like.

  My father was one of the five bosses of the New York mafia, for God’s sake, and I’d never even been to Italy before.

  In fact, I’d never been anywhere outside the country.

  I’d mentioned doing Doctors Without Borders once to Papà and he’d nearly given himself a coronary.

  My desire to travel came in third place behind my desire for Ace and my desire to become a doctor.

  He ducked under another curved archway that led into what once had been the laundry room. It was still the same room I remembered, except for the door on the right that appeared to be brand new. He opened it to reveal another room, clearly a new addition, where everything glowed.

  I stepped into a whole different world.

  Computer screens were everywhere. Covering almost every inch of the wall, each one displayed a different image, at different angles, and obviously, at completely different locations. A block of them in the bottom right were obviously from cameras placed around his home. The front stoop, the living room, the stairwell to the second floor, the hallway upstairs, and the back door.

  “Holy shit,” I said. “This looks like something I read in a Tom Clancy novel.”

  Ace rubbed the back of his neck, looking somewhat embarrassed. “Yeah, I know it’s a bit over-the-top. But this equipment has saved our asses more times than I can count.”

  I assumed by “our” he meant his family.

  “Plus, security is my thing. It would almost be weird if I installed these systems all over the city and my place wasn’t locked down to the hilt.”

  I squinted at one image that looked familiar. “Is that the Rossetti Enterprises building? Cris’s company?”

  Ace nodded, pointing at a few other screens. “Yep. And Luka’s gym, Rome’s gun shop, and a couple of breweries that Nico owns.” He swiped his finger over a few buttons on the touch screen in front of him, switching some of the images out for others. “I also have access to the exterior camera feeds at all of their private residences. It alerts me if there’s a security breech at anyone’s place when they’re not home. Of course, they’re also notified if their alarm is triggered. I’m just extra eyes.”

  “I think Tom Clancy could write a book based on your life.”

  He chuckled. “Believe me, it’s not that exciting. Shit goes down once in a blue moon that keeps it interesting, but otherwise, it’s usually pretty quiet.”

  “Is that why this room is also rigged up to be a safe room?”

  His head jerked around to me. “You noticed that?”

  “The reinforced steel locks on the door were kind of a giveaway.”

  His face hardened. “I like to take precautions. You never know who might be harboring ol
d grudges or plotting new vendettas.”

  My lips pursed as I read between the lines.

  He was talking about his family’s former affiliations with the mafia—with my family.

  Being part of the mafia was always a risky life, no matter how you were connected, or unconnected, to it. Outside of his import/export business, I didn’t know the details of what Papà did on a daily basis. Though it was obvious that he and the other bosses were dangerous men who performed dangerous, and sometimes deadly tasks.

  But being an enemy of the mafia could be even deadlier.

  Ace was considered an enemy of the five families and therefore, an enemy of mine.

  Not that I would ever look at him that way. It was just that being inside this room brought into sharp realization how serious the situation was. He wanted nothing to do with my family, and vice versa with Papà. But judging from all of his security measures, Ace clearly understood that anyone from the families might come after him.

  Wait…

  Was that what the Gabbianos were doing in town? Were they coming to take revenge against Ace’s family?

  I’d heard the bare bones of what had gone down between the Rossettis and the Espositos months ago, starting with Cris getting Raphael arrested for racketeering, bribery, attempted murder, and a laundry list of other charges. Then his son Stefano was killed back in February, and the rumor was that the Rossettis had been involved in that one, too.

  Would Ace tell me the whole story if I asked for it? Did I even want to know?

  Or, in this case, was ignorance bliss?

  “What are you thinking?” Ace asked.

  I shook my head, snapping myself out of my bleak reverie. “Nothing. Just that I haven’t had to worry about all of this in so long. No one knew who I was up in Connecticut. And if they did, they didn’t care.”

  Ace came over and tipped my chin up, forcing my eyes to meet his. “You don’t have to worry about it now either, Rox. Not as long as I’m around. You know I’ll protect you, don’t you?”

  My smile saddened. “You know I’m not your responsibility, don’t you?”

  “I don’t have to be obligated to look out for you in order to want to.”