Ruthless: Mob Boss Book One (5 page)

The car zigged and zagged as Dante yelled under his breath. The gun was still at her side, but looser now. Good. Let Luca think she was a complacent little lamb. All the better for the moment when she would make her escape.

She started to get car sick. She prayed to whatever god might exist that they would arrive at their destination soon, then felt the familiar sting of Catholic guilt. If she was going to pray, she should be praying to Jesus, or at least to the Virgin Mother. But she hadn’t attended Mass since she’d left boarding school. She wasn’t even sure she believed all the propaganda she’d been fed since she was a child, but it’s not like she could tell her father that. He’d been going to mass nearly every day for most of his life, and she really didn’t want to be responsible for the heart attack that killed him. Plus, he was still getting his head around the situation with David.

David. Did he know she was missing? Had he tried to text her? What would he do, who would he call when he realized something was wrong?

The car stopped with a sudden jerk. She waited, wondering if they’d hit another red light. But no. One of the front doors opened, and a few seconds later she heard the noise of the city and felt a cold wind on her face.

The pillowcase was pulled off her head, and she squinted against the faint light of dusk.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

She flinched when she heard Dante’s voice next to her and saw that he was standing at her right shoulder. A dark purple bruise covered his left eye, a crack in his lip dried with blood. His eyes roamed her body, and she turned her attention to the building in front of them, anxious to break eye contact with him.

They were standing in an alley outside what looked like the rear entrance to a high-rise building. A service entrance, she guessed. She looked around, hoping for a delivery or maintenance person, anyone who might report the fact that two men were holding a woman at gunpoint outside the building.

But there was no one, and she wondered suddenly if they’d been paid to make themselves scarce. Pulling those kinds of strings would be easy for someone like Nico Vitale.

“I’m taking her up,” Luca said. “And stop swearing. The boss doesn’t like it.”

“The boss doesn’t like anything,” Dante said, his voice cold. “Turned into a little pansy ass, and took the rest of you along for the ride.”

Was he really calling Nico Vitale a pansy? Angelica didn’t know Nico at all, but she didn’t want to think about what might happen to anyone who talked that way about him. She could still feel the chill of his eyes, the animal energy that emanated from him like a warning.

“Watch your mouth,” Luca growled. She turned to look at him and was surprised to see that his brown eyes had gone cold. It was the one and only time he’d seemed as dangerous as everyone else.

“Someday you’re going to see that I’m right,” Dante said. “Then you’ll have to pick a side.”

“I’ve already chosen a side,” Luca said.

“What am I supposed to do while she’s up there?” Dante asked.

Luca nudged her toward the doors. “I don’t care. Just be ready when I call.”

They stepped inside the building and started down a long concrete hallway.

“What are we doing?” she asked.

“Following orders,” Luca said, his voice suddenly impersonal.

She kept quiet after that, assuming Luca was agitated by his conversation with Dante. Clearly they had differences, and while it was obvious Dante was less than loyal to Nico, that didn’t do a thing to help her. Nico scared her, but only because of the raw power she sensed in his presence. Dante was something else; a loose cannon with an undercurrent of for-the-hell-of-it violence. She didn’t know much about the real life mob, but she was pretty sure there was some kind of honor code. That was something, and if it was true, she’d rather wait it out with Luca than roll the dice with someone like Dante.

They came to a bank of elevators, and Luca pushed the Up arrow. A minute later a set of doors opened, and they stepped into a plush, mirrored elevator that stood in stark contrast to the concrete hallway they’d left behind. No one was inside. Nico’s men had covered all the bases.

Luca inserted a key next to the button marked with a “P”, and they stood in silence as the elevator began to ascend. She was acutely aware of the fact that she hadn’t had a shower, hadn’t been able to wash her hair in days. She almost felt sorry for Luca until she reminded herself that he was at least partially responsible for her current predicament.

She watched the numbers climb past the sixtieth floor before the elevator slid serenely to a stop at the penthouse level. The doors opened, but Luca remained in place.

She looked at him. “What now?”

He relinquished his hold on her arm and folded his hands in front of his body, still looking straight ahead. “Now you go inside.”

“What is this place?” she asked, daring to hope that her father might be waiting, that maybe this was some kind of drop-off point.

“It’s fine. Just go inside,” he said. “I’ll be back to pick you up later.”

Her stomach dropped a little. No end to her imprisonment then. Not tonight. At some point she would be back in the little room under Vitale headquarters.

“Thanks for nothing,” she muttered, stepping out of the elevator.

The doors closed behind her with a soft hum, and she turned her attention to the expansive room in front of her. It was all white furniture and gleaming wood floors stretching to a wall of glass, the city sparkling in the setting sun, lights just coming on in the skyscrapers scattered like jewels across town.

Definitely New York City.

“I see you made it.”

A fire was already starting in the center of her body as she turned toward the voice.

Nico Vitale stood against the wall, arms crossed over his impressive chest. The suit was gone, replaced by a pair of jeans that hugged his thighs like a caress and a long-sleeve t-shirt that covered everything yet somehow made him seem more erotic than ever.

It took her a minute to find her voice. “What am I doing here?”

His eyes burned into hers. “You’re here because I want you here. And that’s all you ned to know.”

10

Nico leaned against the wall and watched her. She stood straight, the only sign of fear the fists clenched at her sides. She’d been through a harrowing ordeal, but she still seemed up for a fight. He had no doubt that she wouldn’t go quietly, however this ended for her.

“Follow me.” He pushed off the wall and started walking down the hallway.

“And if I don’t?”

He didn’t turn around. “You will. One way or another.”

“You don’t even have a gun,” she said behind him.

He turned around, meeting her green-eyed gaze. “Do you think I need a gun to get you to do what I want?”

She licked her lips, and his eyes were drawn without his permission to their velvety softness. “I... I don’t know,” she admitted.

“Then I suggest you don’t test the theory,” he said, resuming his walk down the hall. “Besides, I assume you might like a shower.”

He felt her presence behind him a moment later.

He led her to the guest bedroom where he’d laid out clothes on the bed. “There are fresh towels in the bathroom. Take your time. I’ll be waiting in the living room.”

He left in a hurry. He didn’t want to stand close to her, didn’t want to imagine her taking off her clothes in the steamy bathroom, letting the hot water wash over her alabaster skin.

Closing the door behind him, he took a deep breath, then headed for the living room where he poured two fingers of vodka into one of the crystal glasses that had belonged to his parents. He drank it all before crossing the room to the wall of glass overlooking the city.

The sun was almost gone. Central Park stood below him, spots of light illuminating large expanses of darkness. Beyond were the lights on the high rise buildings of 5th Avenue, and beyond it, those of Madison and Lexington Avenues. It was a multi-million dollar view, but he didn’t enjoy it the way he usually did. He was too aware of Angelica in the other room. Too aware that they were alone in his apartment. That he was treading on dangerous territory allowing her a glimpse of his private residence.

Of course, once she realized her place in the grand scheme of things, her lips would be sealed about everything that happened to her while she was under Nico’s control. It was the only reason he’d been able to risk having her at Headquarters, that Luca and Dante had been able to show her their faces. She didn’t know it yet, but she had every reason to keep quiet about her abduction.

He ran a tired hand through his hair and watched as his reflection performed the same image. He felt like he’d aged ten years since his parents’s murder. Taking over the family had been a big enough undertaking; remaking it had taken monumental effort. The mafia was old-school, built around rules and traditions that had existed for more than a century. Many of his father’s men hadn’t taken kindly to Nico’s vision for the organization. Carmine, the Consigliere and advisor Nico had inherited from his father, had questioned the wisdom in limiting the use of weapons, developing a cyber division, letting go of the men who were unwilling to embrace change.

Nico had done it all anyway, giving generous retirement bonuses to the ones he fired—those who went quietly anyway—and even more generous packages to the ones he kept.

It had been an uncertain time, but the proof was in the result; a team built on respect and dedication instead of fear, and a hundred and twenty percent increase in revenue due to their interests in high-level hacking and information exchange. Thanks to their new business endeavors, Nico had been able to phase out some of the more distasteful income streams, many of which had sustained the family for generations. The New York City territory was now the Syndicate’s most profitable, outpacing even the operations in countries where law and order was essentially non-existent, and Nico made a point of giving a significant portion of his profits to the philanthropic organization run by MediaComm. Even Raneiro had been forced to admit that Nico had been right.

The scent of garlic and basil drifted through the room, and he turned away from the windows and made his way to the kitchen.

He picked up a wooden spoon from the counter and stirred the clam sauce—his mother’s recipe—in the pan on the stove. His men had given Angelica nothing but take out food since they’d taken her almost a week ago. No wonder she wasn’t eating. He’d thought about having Maria, his housekeeper, make a meal before she left for the day but had decided at the last minute to do it himself.

He didn’t want to think too long about his motives. The girl had gotten under his skin the day he’d confronted her in the basement, and he wasn’t quite sure why. He told himself it was because he’d been sleeping with prostitutes too long. A product of his busy, and very private, lifestyle. He’d gone right from post-college bachelorhood to the all-consuming need for revenge and the high-octane task of running the Vitale family interests. He didn’t have the time or inclination for anything real. Sex, by necessity, was like everything else in his life; all business. He had a couple of escorts that he met in high-end hotel rooms, but he’d never had a woman in his apartment.

He put down the spoon and turned off the heat on the sauce, then dumped the pasta he’d started before Angelica arrived into a colander in the sink. When he looked up, she was leaning against a wall in the living room, staring at him.

His breath caught in his throat at the sight of her. She was wearing the drawstring trousers and green blouse he’d set out on the bed in the guest room, her feet bare on the travertine floor. Her blonde hair—darker after being washed—fell around her shoulders in damp waves. For a split second, he forgot to breath. Her emerald eyes pierced the darkness of the living room, and he had the sudden and powerful urge to close the distance between them and take her delicate face in his hands, claim her lips with his own.

“Hello,” he said.

She didn’t anything.

“Please,” he said, “make yourself at home.” He came around to the living room and turned on the table lamps flanking the couch. “Are you hungry?”

“Bringing me here doesn’t change anything,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’m not going to eat.”

Her defiance lit a spark of anger inside him, but there was something else too. Something he was forced to acknowledge was excitement. No one defied him. Ever. She was physically in his possession, but she was making it clear that he couldn’t bend her to his will. Not voluntarily anyway.

He thought about calling Luca, having him come and get her. Nico was trying to make things easier for her. If she didn’t want his help, so be it. Let her rot in the basement until he got what he wanted.

But he knew almost as soon as he thought it that he wouldn’t send her away. Not yet. His curiosity had gotten the better of him. And why shouldn’t it? He had a professional interest in her. He needed to understand Carlo’s next move and where he might be hiding. Angelica knew these things and more about her father. It was worth a little inconvenience to find out what he could about the other man. He ignored the voice in his head that called him a liar and made his way back to the kitchen.

“I admire your ingenuity, but starving yourself isn’t going to improve the situation.”

She stood straighter, and he recognized the jut of her chin from the altercation in the basement. “You need me for something. You wouldn’t be keeping me alive otherwise.”

He couldn’t help the smile that touched his lips. “It will take you at least three months to starve to death. It’s a very painful way to go.” He heaped pasta onto two plates. “And the truth is, I don’t need you alive.”

Uncertainty flashed in her eyes. It was gone a moment later. “Then why haven’t you killed me?”

He spooned food onto the plates. “It will be easier in the long run to keep you alive, and more in line with my business principles. But sometimes I don’t have the luxury of standing on principle.” He let his gaze settle on her eyes. “This is one of those times.”