Hit and Run: A Mafia Hitman Romance (4 page)

“If the shoe fits,” she spits back at me. “I didn’t interrupt your vows. Don’t interrupt mine.” She clears her throat again. “Elizabeth. I love you even though I can’t seem to buy the right flowers.” She looks down at yet another wilted bouquet, this time of red roses. “Even though I’m just a minion for my family, never once stopping to consider the ethics of roughing up other men for a living, my pea-brain can’t help but love you. Maybe one day I’ll consider talking about something other than sex, but that day isn’t today. Forever may we fuck.” Elizabeth ends her speech.

I applaud. “Well fucking done.”

She bows her head in recognition of my applause. “It was easy. I just channelled the hairy guys from that insurance commercial. Done.”

I take a sip from my glass of wine. “One thing, though.”

“What’s that?”

“You say that I do what my family wants me to do. We have that in common, I think.”

Elizabeth rolls her eyes. “I’m marrying you under heavy protest.”

I shrug. “You work here, don’t you?”

“And what’s your point?”

I set down my wine glass and tap my fingers on the glass-covered tabletop. “Eh, you know. Would you be working here if your dad didn’t want you to be?”

She shrugs, but I think I see tears in her eyes. “It’s not my
first
choice.”

“And what
is
your first choice?”

She pauses like she’s wondering whether or not it is safe to tell me. “I’ve been wanting to go to college to study chemistry.” She flips her hair over her shoulder. “But my dad worries about my safety. And he’s my family. I want to make him happy.”

“And having his twenty-something intelligent daughter work as a hostess at a restaurant that never has customers is his way of being happy?”

Elizabeth’s face turns stony. “You don’t have any right to say that.”

“I think I do. I’m just calling it like I see it. You’ll learn that about me. That’s just how I am.”

She leans forward, her eyes flashing with anger. “You have no right. You think I don’t know what
you
do?” She takes a deep breath like she’s gaining steam. I think she might actually breathe fire in a second. “I know who you are, Cain Maggiano. You’re a thug. You’re muscle. You’re a walking sack of flesh and bones and steel, and you go to people’s homes and threaten them. You’ve probably killed people. You’ve definitely intimidated wives and children. That’s what you
do
. I might just be some little restaurant hostess, but I know things. You have blood on your hands, one way or another.”

Her words sting and prick at my skin. It’s my turn, though, and I can give it better than I can take it. “Yeah? Who’s worse? The guy who follows the orders or the guy who gives them?” I look at the back corner of the restaurant at the empty booth where I sat days before with her father and his men. “Your dad is like my dad.
They
give the orders. They make the decisions. They are the generals. I’m just a soldier.” I drink the last of my wine. “I didn’t sign up to be in my family any more than you signed up to be in yours. You can play high and mighty all you want, princess. But we’re the same, you and me. You just carry menus. I carry a gun. You make cocktails and shrug off the ass pats from men old enough to be your father. I make people bleed and shrug off my guilt as best as I can.” I lean close to her, and her breath catches in her throat. I swear I can hear her heart beating. I stare into her brown eyes. She’s challenging me. This is a standoff. Who’s gonna break first? Not me. “As far as I can tell, you and I are a match made in heaven.”

The front door of the restaurant opens and both of us pull away from each other. I think for a moment Elizabeth is actually going to kiss me. I look over and see her father wrapped up in furs, his gang of men close behind him.

“Kids! How in the hell is it going?” he asks ebulliently, walking over to our table. He kisses Elizabeth on the cheek.

“Hey, Dad,” she says. “Cain and I were just having some dinner and getting to know each other. Like you wanted.” Her voice is dripping with sarcasm.

Mr. Romano laughs and points at Elizabeth’s nearly-full plate. “Lizzy, you cannot stop eating! You’ll waste away into nothing.” He turns to me. “You’ve gotta make sure she eats. Sometimes she forgets.” He pats her on the head. “She gets caught up in her head a lot, daydreaming and I don’t know what else. You promise me she gets three solid meals a day when you’re with her, you understand?”

I nod. “Understood.”

Mr. Romano turns back to his daughter. “Lizzy, we’ll need drinks!”

I look at Elizabeth and see that getting drinks is the last thing she wants to do. “Actually, sir,” I say, putting on a serious and what I hope is earnest tone. “I promised Lizzy we could go get some frozen hot chocolate down the street. Maybe go ice skating at the plaza?”

Elizabeth looks surprised, but she swallows the expression. “Yeah, Dad. Can I go out tonight?”

Mr. Romano looks uneasy. “I think you should take Ed with you. That’s all I ask.”

I stand up and put my hand on his shoulder, leaning into his ear to whisper conspiratorially. “I think I’m well equipped to defend Lizzy, don’t you think?”

He whispers back to me, out of earshot of Lizzy. “You carrying?”

“Yes, sir,” I reply.

It’s his turn to pat me on the shoulder. “Alright, son. Lizzy. You two stay out of trouble. I want her back before midnight, you understand?”

“Of course, sir,” I reply. Elizabeth stands up before I can offer her my hand.

“Let me grab my coat from the back,” she says.

“Meet you outside,” I reply. I make sure to glare at the guy who got handsy with her the other day. He quivers a little bit under my gaze, and I distract him enough to stop him from gazing at Lizzy’s ass as she walks by him. I turn back to Lizzy’s dad. “Mr. Romano, it’s been a pleasure.”

“You’re a good kid,” he says to me, shaking my hand back. “I’m glad you and Lizzy are getting along. I was starting to think I’d have to strap her to a gurney and wheel her up to the altar.”

Now
that
would be a sight to see.

I step outside into the bitter cold and bounce up and down in an attempt to warm my own blood a little. My breath exits my mouth in a dense fog. The streets smell like roasting chestnuts, cigarette smoke, and exhaust. A taxi cab horn blares somewhere down the road, and its call is answered by another vehicle.

The restaurant door opens and Elizabeth is at my side, a furry earmuff wrapped around her head. “Ready,” she says. She stops. “You alright?”

“Just enjoying the symphony of the city,” I say cryptically. She looks confused. “You know. People yelling at each other to drive fucking faster. Honking. Car alarms going off.”

She laughs and starts walking. “You don’t like the city much, do you?”

I nod. “Yeah, you could say that.” She walks faster than I expect her to. I jog a little to catch up to her deceptively long stride. “My family has a country house. I always preferred to be there over the city.”

“I like the city,” she replies. “It’s exciting. All these people…” She trails off.

“But you don’t really get to experience it much, do you?” I finish for her.

She doesn’t respond to this. “I can’t ever remember a November quite this cold.” She wants a subject change. That’s fine for me.

“Me either,” I reply.

Elizabeth glances behind us. “You know that my dad sent Ed to follow us, right?”

I laugh. “Of course he did.” We keep walking and the crowds grow thicker as we get closer to the big Christmas tree.

“This is it, right?” Elizabeth asks.

“This is it.” We step into the famous shop that sells frozen hot chocolate. I give a nod to the manager. The place is standing room only.

“Two of the usual?” he calls out to us.

I nod. “Thanks!”

Elizabeth looks up at me, surprised. “We get to skip the line?”

“Manager is a buddy of mine. He owes me,” I reply.

It’s only another five minutes until we’re holding our own enormous glasses of chocolate confection. Elizabeth digs in eagerly.

“So you
were
hungry,” I say to her over the noise of the crowded restaurant.

“I guess I just needed some fresh air to wake up my stomach,” she replies. “It was probably all that arguing we did back at the restaurant, actually. I worked up an appetite.”

“What arguing? I thought that was just foreplay,” I say.

She blushes again.

I could get used to this.

CHAPTER NINE

ELIZABETH

“Tina said you two were pretty cozy at the restaurant the other night,” Maria says. We’re standing in the kitchen of her apartment. It’s plain and kind of small, but she’s made it as cozy as she can.

I plop down on her beige, squashy sofa. “Just doing what dad wants, as usual.”

“Mmhmm,” she says pointedly. She looks out toward the hallway. “You think I should invite Ed in here?”

I shake my head. “Nah, he hates listening to our conversations. I mean, he’s never
admitted
that. But I can tell.”

“How?”

“Amazing how much you can read body language when you’re with somebody eighteen hours a day. I can tell by his breathing if he’s annoyed, bored, nervous, or angry,” I explain.

She hands me a mug of tea. “Ed’s kind of cute, too,” she says.

“Ew,” I reply. “What’s gotten into you?”

She sighs dramatically, flipping her long, thick hair over her shoulder and sitting down in an armchair. “I’m sex-deprived. I barely leave the apartment. Dad tells me I should stay close to home right now.”

“Why?” I ask her. “He usually lets you do whatever you want?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m either here or I’m at work at the library shelving books. And Anthony is always off somewhere, doing something for someone.” She rolls her eyes. “And he’s exhausted when he gets home. Too exhausted for sex.” She reaches over to the coffee table and picks up a beauty magazine. “So it’s usually just me and my vibrator and sometimes I think of your fiancé.”

“Maria!” I exclaim, blushing.

“Oh, come on, Lizzy. Like you haven’t gotten off to the image of your tattooed beast of a fiancé fighting in the boxing ring.”

I bite my lip. “That’s none of your business.”

Maria shrieks with laughter. “
That
was basically a confession. I knew it. I knew that you liked to get down and dirty in your bedroom. With all your teddy bears and everything. Do you cover up Justin Timberlake’s eyes with sticky notes so he can’t watch you?”

“I took that poster down months ago,” I say to her. “I’m not a little kid. I’m almost twenty-three years old.”

“Your bedroom is still baby pink and I
know
you sleep with that teddy bear. Mr. Ruffles? Is that his name?”

I flash to Mr. Ruffles, my tutu-wearing teddy bear, currently occupying the space underneath my pillow. I hide him there every morning. “Yeah, well. At least I’m not married and sleeping alone.”

Once again, I’ve said something I regret in front of my sister.

Maria shrugs it off, but I know it wounds her. “I know that Anthony is probably cheating on me. That’s why he has no sex drive.” She flips pages absent-mindedly. “Probably that hussy from the restaurant. What’s her name? Marcy?”

“Yeah, Marcy. God, I hate being on a shift when she’s working.”

“I don’t know why dad even keeps her around. It’s not like she has anybody to serve.”

“I’m sure she serves plenty,” I say. “If you know what I mean. Probably goes into the back room with whatever goon needs a romp.”

“She does have a banging body,” Maria says. “I wouldn’t blame Anthony for fucking her on the side. She’s hotter than I am.”

“Don’t say that.” I chew my lip. “You want me to look into it? Find out if he’s cheating?”

Maria looks at me incisively. “What? Are you going to have your fiancé spy on my husband?”

She always reads my mind. “Just thought I’d offer his services.”

“The only services I want from your fiancé is him stripping naked in front of me so I can see his enormous-“

DING DONG
.

The doorbell rings. “I’ll get it,” I say, shoving myself off the couch. I look through the peephole and nearly drop my mug of tea. “It’s
Cain
!” I whisper to Maria.

She grins and wiggles her eyebrows suggestively. “I hope he’s wearing a policeman’s uniform with tear-away pants.”

“Stop it!” I hiss. I run my hands over my hair before I open the door. “Hi,” I say. “What are you doing here?”

“Can I come in?” he asks.

I look over to see that Ed is still standing next to the door. “Um, alright,” I say.

Cain brushes past me, taking up far more room than he needs to. “Hey,” he says to Maria.

“Are you my strip-o-gram?” she asks with a smile.

Cain looks at me for half a second before glancing at Maria. “I could be.”

“I knew I liked you. You play along. That’s nice,” Maria says. She stands up. “I’ll leave you two
alone
for a few minutes.” She raises her eyebrows suggestively.

“That’s not necessary!” I call after her, but she’s already gone. I shut the front door. “You can sit anywhere.”

“I was actually thinking I could take you out,” Cain says.

“Take me out?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Just for a little while. Don’t worry, I’m sure Ed is happy to get out of the hallway. Not much to look at out there.”

“I’m not really dressed for anything-“

“You look perfect,” Cain says. His eyes travel down my body to my jeans. I’m suddenly thankful that I put on my favorite, ass-hugging pair.

Wait. Does that mean I
care
about what I look like in front of him? Dammit.

I do.

I say goodbye to Maria, who mimes several lewd gestures at me before I slam her bedroom door shut.

Soon, Cain and I are walking down the crowded holiday sidewalks.

“I hate these fucking tourists,” Cain says. “They all stop in the middle of the goddamn sidewalk to take photos. Move out of the fucking way!”

I laugh. “You really do hate this city, don’t you?”