Drop Dead Beautiful (4 page)

When Enzio was shot, it was sixteen-year-old Anthony who’d comforted Francesca and stayed by her side. Santino and his brother, Carlos, attended the lavish funeral, but neither of them stayed around.
Fuck Santino Bonnatti
, Anthony had thought.
And fuck his fat wife and asshole kids
. He wanted nothing to do with any of them, just as they had wanted nothing to do with him.

After Enzio’s death, Francesca encouraged Anthony to put everything Enzio had taught him to good use. He didn’t let her down.

Six years later when Santino himself was killed, Anthony hadn’t felt one shred of emotion. Why would he? His so-called father had treated him as if he didn’t exist, so there was no reason for him to care.

By the time Anthony reached his early twenties, he’d forged major contacts with the biggest drug overlords in Mexico City, Colombia, and Bolivia.

Anthony got off on having money and power, realizing early on how attractive those two things were to women. Plus he was not bad-looking in a darkly brooding way. Unfortunately, though, he was only five feet seven, not as tall as he’d like to be, and his lack of height pissed him off, but it didn’t stop him from sleeping his way through most of the models, would-be actresses, and young socialites in New York and Miami.

Francesca was proud of his success, but she was also wary of his playboy ways, so one day she informed him that it was time he found himself a
nice
girl, got married, settled down, and started a family.

A family he would start, but settling down was for old men with nowhere left to go.

After a few months of Francesca’s nagging, he decided he’d better do as she suggested and start looking for The One.

It wasn’t long before he met Irma at a party in Miami. She was seventeen and he was twenty-four.

He’d taken one look at the well-endowed, pretty teenager and come to the conclusion that she might be the one—
especially
when she confided she was still a virgin.

After obtaining Francesca’s approval, Anthony and Irma were married in a church in Mexico City where Anthony was negotiating to buy a large estate outside the city.

Irma—virginal in a white lace dress—made a delightful bride. They honeymooned in Europe, and shortly after their honeymoon Irma became pregnant.

Their son, Eduardo, was born the day before Irma’s eighteenth birthday. A year later she gave birth to a girl, Carolina.

Anthony
and
his grandma were satisfied. Irma had delivered the perfect family, and Anthony decided that she should now concentrate all her energy on being a nurturing mother, while
he
continued to build up his business, travel the world, and whore around.

Grandmother Francesca had taught him well. Women, she’d assured him in an authoritative tone when she’d first brought him to America, were either mothers, wives, sisters, or daughters—other than that they were
puttanas
, whores and sluts.

After the birth of his two children, Anthony decided that sex with Irma was over; he didn’t care to stick it in the same place his precious children had emerged from.

Although Anthony’s main residence was in Mexico City, he also spent plenty of time in Miami and New York, with twice-yearly trips to Colombia and Bolivia. The drug trade he’d fallen into was already making him more money than he’d ever imagined, but in spite of his wealth and good fortune, Anthony was not completely at ease. Francesca expected
him
to be the one to avenge the murder of his grandfather and his piece-of-shit father. And she never let him forget it.

“The Bonnatti name must be avenged,” she was always telling him. “You
know
the history only too well.”

Oh yeah, he knew the history, and even though he’d legally changed his surname to Bonar, he was a Bonnatti by birth.

Francesca often regaled him with stories of the bad blood between the Bonnattis and the Santangelos. It was a feud that went way back.

According to Francesca, Gino Santangelo and Enzio Bonnatti were once close boyhood pals, going into business together, scoring huge amounts of money. Both teenage sons of immigrants, they’d been quick to seize all the opportunities America had to offer, from running numbers to loan-sharking, gambling, and hijacking trucks loaded with illegal booze. They’d stayed together several years, until Enzio had begun to pursue a different line of business—drugs and prostitution, two areas Gino Santangelo refused to be involved with.

Gino Santangelo must’ve been some dumb fuck, Anthony often thought. What kind of man turns his back on making mega bucks?

Apparently Gino did, because instead of continuing his partnership with Enzio, he’d built hotels in Vegas, legitimizing his business to a degree, and then allowing his daughter, Lucky, to move in and run things.

Although Enzio and Gino had parted on cordial terms, over the years they’d become dire enemies, creating a feud between the two families that had festered and only gotten worse throughout the years.

Frankly, Anthony wasn’t interested in vendettas and revenge; that kind of thing was for old-timers, mustache Petes, men of his late grandfather’s generation. But he knew Francesca would never quit until he did something about the Santangelos.

The Bonnattis and the Santangelos. Not a match.

Chapter 4

The Heavenly Spa in Pasadena was the one place Lucky felt that she could truly relax. She and Venus, her closest friend, always made the effort to meet there at least a couple of times a month. It wasn’t easy, as they both balanced hectic schedules, but somehow or other they managed it.

Lucky rushed in aware that she was late, still pissed about Max mouthing off, although she couldn’t be
too
mad, for at sixteen she’d had exactly the same bad-ass attitude.

Ha! Like mother like daughter. And there wasn’t much she could do about it except keep a watchful eye out.

“How’s Billy?” she asked once she and Venus were settled in the mud-wrap treatment room while two formidable-looking Russian women slathered thick mud all over their bodies.

“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” Venus sighed, lying back totally naked except for an animal-print thong.

“Hey, whatever turns you on,” Lucky remarked, stretching out her leg as one of the large Russian women applied a healthy coating of mud to her well-toned thighs. “If you’re still into Billy, that’s your prerogative. Believe me, I’m the
last
person to judge anyone
—especially
a major diva like you.”

“Major diva, my ass,” Venus retorted, laughing.

“Go ahead, deny it,” Lucky teased. “Everyone’s got your number.”

“Look,” Venus said, suddenly serious, “I know how fond you were of Cooper—”

“Still am,” Lucky interrupted, choosing her words carefully. “Only just ’cause
I
liked him doesn’t mean that you had to do time in a marriage that wasn’t working.”

“
I’m
not the one to blame,” Venus said, shifting onto her side. “The man screwed around on me, and if that wasn’t enough, Mister Life and Soul of the Party turned into Mister Boring—a man who insisted on being in bed every night by
nine!
I mean, can you imagine?” she added, rolling her eyes.

“Men get that way,” Lucky said sagely, enjoying the sensation of the cold mud on her body. “It’s on account of a little something called marriage.”

“
Lennie’s
not like that,” Venus pointed out.

“Doesn’t mean we haven’t had our differences,” Lucky retorted.

“Which you’ve always managed to work out.”

“This is true.”

“So … what did
I
do wrong?”

“Nothing,” Lucky said, shrugging. “Except that you became a bigger star than him.”

“You think?”

“C’
mon
, Venus, you
know
you did. Shit happens. Egos go trippin’. Cooper has a
giant
ego—surely you noticed?”

“Believe me,” Venus said with a secret smile, “that’s not all Cooper had….”

“No details,” Lucky said, quickly interrupting. “I do
not
get off on details.”

“Not that I miss it,” Venus mused. “Because I can assure you, Billy is
certainly
a member of the well-hung club. In fact—”

“Goddammit!” Lucky exclaimed. “Didn’t I just say no details? Other people’s sex lives bore me shitless!”

“Aren’t
I
the fortunate one,” Venus boasted, laughing. “Got me two in a row.”

“Yeah, and let’s not forget the other half-dozen in between,” Lucky murmured, sotto voce.

“Ha!” Venus said vehemently. “Jealous?”

Lucky raised an eyebrow. “Have you
met
Lennie?”

“Yeah, yeah, I
know
, Lennie is the greatest everything,
and you’re both ecstatically happy, and neither of you cheats. But I must say, if
Cooper
had turned up with an illegitimate kid, I’m not sure I could’ve—”

“Don’t go there,” Lucky said in a warning voice. “Ancient history isn’t my thing.”

Much as she loved Venus, sometimes the platinum-blond superstar overstepped certain boundaries. The truth was that Lennie had fathered a child under extreme circumstances— he’d been kidnapped, trapped in an underground cave in Sicily, and made love to a woman, Claudia, who’d helped him escape. It was a onetime thing, and he’d never seen the woman again until she’d turned up on their doorstep in Malibu with Leonardo, a boy she’d claimed Lennie had fathered.

It was a difficult time to get through, but they’d done so, and when Claudia was killed, Lucky had adopted Leonardo as if he were her own. Somehow it had made their marriage stronger, bonding them even closer.

“So,” Lucky said, moving on. “Will you be bringing Billy to Gino’s party on Sunday?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Venus said, narrowing her eyes.

“’Cause I had to invite Cooper,” Lucky explained. “Y’know how close he is to Lennie.”

“Fine with me.” Venus sniffed. “I suppose he’ll be with that coke-snorting
child
he’s been banging.”

“You sound bothered,” Lucky said.

“Are you
kidding
me? The only thing that bothers me is that he takes her out with Chyna, and that’s not right.”

“Chyna’s a smart kid,” Lucky said, thinking about Venus’s young daughter. “She can handle it.”

“She shouldn’t have to,” Venus said adamantly. “Cooper’s latest girlfriend is a drug- and sex-addicted nineteen-year-old wannabe actress
whore
. What the hell is Cooper
thinking?
He’s old enough to be her
grandfather.”

“Hey, maybe we should hook her up with Billy,” Lucky joked. “They’re almost the same age.”

“Fuck you,” Venus drawled.

“I leave that chore to my husband,” Lucky murmured dryly.

“For God’s sake,” Venus said, “I have to take enough shit from the press, don’t
you
get on my case.”

“It was a bad joke. Sorry.”

“Billy might be only twenty-eight, but he’s an old soul,” Venus felt obliged to explain. “The age difference doesn’t bother either of us. The only people who seem to care are the goddamn tabloids—and oh yeah, the nighttime talk-show hosts who make a living ragging on us ’cause their dumb writers can’t come up with anything more original.”

“Okay, I get it.”

“I love Billy, and I
know
he loves me.”

“As long as you’re sure. I wouldn’t want to see you get hurt.”

“Why?” Venus said suspiciously. “What’ve you heard?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“You’d tell me if you heard anything.”

“Stop obsessing.”

“I can’t help it. Billy gives me chills. I feel as if I’m sixteen!”

Lucky’s cell rang. She reached for it and exchanged a few sentences with Lennie, finishing off with, “I miss you—love you. See you later.”

“Exactly how long is it since you two have seen each other?” Venus asked, raising an eyebrow. “Fifteen minutes?”

“Not my fault if he’s crazy in love,” Lucky said, hardly able to wipe the smile off her face because it was true, they were still crazy in love.

“Goddammit!” Venus exclaimed. “You and Lennie make me sick you’re so damn
happy.”

“I gotta tell you, when it works, it
really
works,” Lucky said. “And believe me, I am
not
complaining.”

“Nor should you,” Venus sighed. “Everyone knows that Lennie’s the greatest.”

Lucky nodded and smiled. “And
nobody
knows it better than me.”

Chapter 5

Francesca Bonnatti was a wise and canny woman. She’d observed much in her life, both good and bad. Now, at eighty-four, she was not at all ready to give up her vendetta against the Santangelo family. Sicilian by birth, Francesca had come to America with her parents, a hardworking immigrant couple, when she was eleven. Sent straight to school, Francesca soon found she was the odd one out—the Italian girl with the fancy name who could barely speak English. She applied herself, diligently learning the language, and by the time she was thirteen, she’d succeeded in absorbing herself into the American way of life.

At fifteen she left school and started training as a bookkeeper.

“A bookkeeper is a good job for a girl to have,” her father assured her. “With that skill you will always find work.”

Fifteen, smart, and quite a beauty—it wasn’t long before boys came flocking around.

When she was sixteen she met Enzio Bonnatti, a man eleven years older than her. At the time she was working for a grizzled old accountant who looked after some of Enzio’s accounts.

Enzio Bonnatti was tall and dangerous-looking. He was also of Italian origin, which she knew would please her father. The eleven-year age difference would not.

Enzio started visiting the cramped office where she worked on a regular basis. He always had a pretty girl hanging on to
his arm. He got a big kick out of teasing Francesca, showing off as he swaggered around the office.