Ruthless: Mob Boss Book One (27 page)

And that had never been pretty, even before the situation with Angel.

It was a fool’s errand, trying to protect her from the truth, but ever since he’d met her, all he’d wanted was to keep the light burning in her eyes. He’d even posted someone near her brother’s school, hoping to insure the safety of the person who seemed to matter most to her. But he couldn’t save her from everything. She would find out. When this was all over, she would find out the kind of man her father was. There was nothing Nico could do about that, but he could control the how of it, could try and insure that the blows were delivered in a way she could bear.

And he would keep his word. He would make every effort to keep Carlo alive, to pass the burden of responsibility in deciding his fate to the Syndicate where it wouldn’t be connected to him and to Angel and to the surprising thing that had begun to build between them.

He finished his drink and went inside to find his rosary, pushing aside the feeling that he was no longer in control. That he was on a journey with an ending he couldn’t shape and probably wouldn’t like.

42

Angel was up with the sun the next morning, her eyes dry and gritty. Nico had come to bed at some point after she’d turned off the light. He’d reached for her, and she’d gone to him without speaking. This was how it was with them. How it had to be. A separation of their undeniable feelings and everything that should have made those feelings impossible.

In bed they belonged to each other. Time would tell about the rest.

She sat on the balcony while Nico and Luca plotted out how to get into the safe house. Their murmured conversation was irrelevant to her, and she spent the day lost in her own thoughts.

“You’ll be okay while I’m gone?” Nico asked when night finally fell across the city.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. And she would. She had to believe she would.

He cupped her face and ran his thumb along her cheek. “I love you, Angel. Don’t forget that in all of this.”

She stretched to kiss him softly on the lips. “Don’t you forget it either.”

He nodded, seemingly satisfied, and left with Luca. She waited a half hour before leaving the apartment and hailing a taxi.

“Twenty-one George Row,” she said to the driver.

He looked back at her. “George Row? In Bermondsey?”

“I… I guess.”

“You sure that’s where you want to go, luv?”

She sat back in the seat. “I’m sure.”

He sighed and started the meter, then pulled out into traffic.

She looked out the window, her mind turning to her father. She hadn’t seen him in at least six months. It made her feel shitty, despite everything she’d learned about him. Had he always been this man? Or had he become this way after her mother died? Was there any way back from all of this? Would he be happy to see her? She hoped so, especially since she planned to walk up to the door and knock. Luca and Nico had gone to great lengths to plan their entry to the safe house in a way that allowed for the possibility of armed guards. Angel was hoping her status as Carlo Rossi’s daughter would make her entrance considerably easier.

She thought back to that day at Vitale headquarters, the day her father’s men had come for her. Nico had been right; they’d been willing to sacrifice her. Could she really count on her father’s love to keep her alive?

It didn’t matter. This was the end of the road. She had to know who her father really was, and she wasn’t going to get it secondhand from Nico or Luca. She had no doubt they would tell her a version of the truth, but it would be watered down, filtered through the lens of their desire to protect her.

People will tell you who they are if you listen.

It was time for her father to tell her who he was.

They’d been driving about twenty minutes when the the car pulled over to the side of the road next to a row of rundown brick houses.

“I can wait if you won’t be long,” the driver said, turning around to look at her.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll have a ride back.” She passed him some cash she’d found on Nico’s bedside table. “Thank you.”

He hesitated, then nodded and put the car in gear. She watched him drive away before turning to the row houses in front of her.

43

Nico ducked through the window in front of Luca, careful not to knock anything over as he slid to the floor. The house was small and shabby. No surprise. Carlo was a lot less likely to attract attention in a neighborhood like Bermondsey, although Nico had no doubt it was well below Carlo Rossi’s usual standards. The realization gave him a hit of pleasure; Carlo had been afraid of him.

Very afraid.

Some kind of comedy was on the TV beyond the kitchen, and Nico used the laugh track to cover his steps as he inched forward toward the noise, wanting to get a handle on how many men were in the house. They’d seen one posted near the front door on their way to the back of the house, and he assumed Carlo had at least one man with him at all times. That meant he and Luca would be outgunned by at least one man.

But they had the element of surprise, and that gave them some advantage.

He flattened himself against the wall between the kitchen and the living room. A commercial was playing on the television, and he held his breath, hoping Carlo and his men didn’t decide to use the opportunity to take a leak. A couple minutes later, the show they were watching returned, and Nico peered out into the living room.

Three men; Carlo and two others.

Carlo sat on the sofa with a sandwich in his lap while an overweight man took up space at the other end. Next to it, an old recliner was occupied by a beefy guy with a bald head. A cross tattoo snaked up the back of his neck.

Nico pulled back into the kitchen and held up three fingers to Luca, standing on the other side of the doorway. Now Luca would know how many men they were dealing with.

Luca nodded, and Nico raised five fingers and started counting down on them.

5… 4… 3… 2… 1

They came through the door at the same time. Carlo’s guards were on their feet, guns pointed at Nico and Luca before Carlo even knew what was happening. Lazy.

“I wouldn’t,” Nico said, pointing his gun at Carlo’s head while Luca aimed at the shorter of the two men. “You might be able to take us, but at least one of you is going along for the ride. Besides, we just want to talk.”

Carlos stood, brushing crumbs off his perfectly tailored trousers. “Nico Vitale. If you’d wanted to make a social call, you should have let me know. I would have cleaned up a little.”

He had changed in the year since Nico had seen him. His face had grown thinner, his hair grayer, and there were lines etched around his eyes that Nico didn’t remember. He was still tall, imposing in the way that tall men are, even when they were lean like Carlo. But he didn’t look well.

This is Angel’s father. His Angel.

He pushed the thought aside. Carlo was a murderer, and that was the only way Nico would afford to think of him.

“Give me the tape,” Nico said. “Give me the tape and I’ll let you live.”

“This again?” Carlo held up his hands in a gesture of confusion. “I told you in the Syndicate’s hearing, I have no idea what you’re talking about. They believed me. Why can’t you?”

“Because you’re a murderer and a liar. They may not know it, but I do.”

“Yes, but it’s not what you think you know that counts, is it? It’s what you can prove,” Carlo said calmly. “And right now, you can’t prove a thing, while I can most certainly prove that you kidnapped my daughter.”

His mention of Angel made Nico see red. “You don’t deserve her.”

Carlo’s brow furrowed, like he was trying to complete a complicated math equation in his head. “That’s interesting.”

“Shut up.” Nico cocked his weapon, and everyone went still.

“Give us the tape,” Luca said. “At least you’ll live.”

“I’m afraid I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Carlo said. “But if you won’t listen to reason, I have no doubt Raneiro and the Syndicate will understand my position. You kidnap my daughter, come in here, hold me at gunpoint… “ He shrugged. “A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.” He glanced at his men. “Do it.”

44

She walked up to the door, glancing around for any sign of danger. But it was just a house, at least from this vantage point. She took a deep breath and knocked.

A moment later the door was opened by a thin man with mean eyes. He looked her up and down. “Yeah?”

“I’d like to see Carlo Rossi,” she said. “I’m his daughter.”

The man’s expression changed, the light of interest coming into his eyes. “Carlo’s daughter?”

She nodded.

“Stay here.” He shut the door.

She looked around, half expecting someone to come at her from behind or shoot from the street. It was too normal for all the preparation Nico and Luca had done, although she doubted they’d knocked on the door.

The door opened, and before she knew what was happening, she was being yanked across the threshold into a cramped entryway. It wasn’t until the door was slammed and locked behind her that she realized the man standing in front of her was Dante.

She had a flash of his rough hands on her breast, his leering face looming over her in the basement at Nico’s headquarters. She shrunk back instinctively, every cell in her body rebelling against his proximity.

He grabbed her arm and brought his face close to hers. “Looks like the kitty cat has finally come home.”

“This isn’t my home,” she choked out. “And you better take your hands off me. Now.”

He stared her down before holding up his hands with a smile. “Hey, now we know who’s side you’re on. No hard feelings.”

“I am not on your side, Dante. And I never will be. Now take me to my father.”

Dante laughed, then looked at the thin man who had first opened the door. “Do you believe this broad? Mouthy, isn’t she?”

The other man nodded. “Uppity, too.”

Dante sighed. “True, but she is the boss’s daughter. We better let him decide what to do with her.”

The words send a trickle of ice water into her belly. As if her father would decide to do anything to her. As if he wouldn’t just let her go when she wanted to because she was his daughter.

“Come on,” Dante said. “He’s in the living room.”

She followed him down the darkened hall into the house.

* * *

Nico was weighing his options, trying to figure out if he could hit one of Carlo’s men before they took him or Luca down, when Angel stumbled into the room. She looked back, and Nico saw that she’d been pushed by Dante.

When he followed her into the room, Nico saw that Dante had a gun in his hand. And it was pointed at Angel’s head.

Fuck.

* * *

She should have been scared by the gun pointed at her head, especially since it was wielded by Dante. But there was no room for fear. She was mesmerized by the scene in front of her; Luca and Nico with their guns pointed at two men whose guns were pointed back at them, her father standing like some kind of benevolent king in the center of it all.

“Angelica,” Carlo said, crossing the room to her. “You’re finally here.”

He tried to embrace her, but she stood stiffly in his arms. She already knew this man wasn’t her father. Not the father she thought she knew.

He put an arm tightly around her shoulder and faced Nico. She had the sense of the gun at her back, the feeling that Dante was still pointing it at her head without comment from her father.

“I think it’s time for you to leave now, Nico,” he said. “Angelica and I have a lot of catching up to do. It seems a lot has happened in the past couple of weeks.”

“Give me the tape,” Nico said.

“I’m afraid you’re being short-sighted.” Her father glanced at Dante. “You have a loyalty problem, but you also have a brand ID problem.”

“Brand ID?”

Her father nodded. “We don’t do modern, Nico. It’s not what our business is about. And while I admire your financial acumen, the truth is that your methodologies will kill our organization as we know it.”

“Now you’re the one being short-sighted,” Nico said. “My organization is thriving. And if I have a loyalty problem, it’s only with men who no longer suit the needs of my business. Outdated and obsolete. Good riddance.”

Angel stood very still, her father’s arm too tight around her shoulders.

“You’re rationalizing,” he said. “It was a fault of your father’s, too,”

“What are you talking about?” Nico asked.

“Didn’t you know? Your father had been petitioning the Syndicate for years to alter its code of conduct. It seems bleeding hearts run in the family.”

Nico turned his gun on Carlo.

“Don’t,” Luca said.

“We tried reasoning with him.” Her father didn’t seem at all concerned by the gun pointed at his head, and he warmed to his subject as he continued. “We reminded him about tradition and ritual, the need to make people feel like they belong to something special, something… apart from the modern world. But he wouldn’t listen. He’d gone soft, and he wanted to make the rest of us soft, too. But our business is no place for soft men, Nico. I think deep down you know that.”

“I’m not going to stand here and discuss business practices with you,” Nico said. “Give me the tape.”

“That would be foolish,” her father said. “And I am not a foolish man. Besides, I wasn’t alone that night, and Dante here has entrusted me with the confidentiality of the security tape. What kind of leader would I be if I violated that trust?”

She closed her eyes as the words worked their way into her mind. Nico had been right. Her father had murdered Nico’s parents in cold blood. And Dante had helped him do it.

“Motherfucker,” Dante cursed behind her.

Nico pointed his gun somewhere beyond her head, and she realized he was aiming at Dante. She saw the fury in his eyes and knew that if she hadn’t been there, he would have burned the whole place to the ground even if he had to burn with it.

She should have been wrecked by the proof that her father was a killer, but instead a kind of peacefulness settled over her. Now she knew. Now she knew and she had to get out of here, tell David, find a way to move forward with Nico.