The Gun Runner (Mafia Made) (2 page)

Chapter Two

Michael

I didn’t need to look up from my desk to know it was Cap who was coming down the hallway, I could tell by the distinct sound of his footsteps. He stepped into my office and stopped ten feet in front of my desk. I wanted his stay to be short and his concerns to be about anything but business.

He didn’t need to know it, but my mind was still focused on the girl from the coffee shop. Her attitude, spunk and gorgeous looks made her difficult to dismiss as
just another woman
. Without shifting my eyes up from my mountain of paperwork, I acknowledged his presence.

“Good evening, Cap,” I said flatly.

“Alarm wasn’t set.”

“Door sensors are broken. I need to call it in.”

He cleared his throat. “Might wanna do that. Hope your day went good.”

I met his gaze. “What?”

“I hope your day went good.”

“It’s still going, and what the hell does that mean? You hope it went good?”

“Means I hope your day went good. Mine’s been a shit sandwich.”

I waved my hand over the top of my desk. Typically organized, it was covered in piles of paperwork. “Sorry yours was hell, but I’m nowhere near done, so it’s too early to call it. Delivery went well?”

“Kind of.”

“Kind of? Did you drop off the weapons?”

He nodded. “Yep.”

“Were they pleased with the quality?”

“Yep.”

His “shit sandwich” remark made me feel slightly uneasy. Knowing all of my customers paid in advance prior to receiving a shipment of weapons left very little to go wrong.

“I’m not interested in playing guessing games, Cap. The AK-47s we were supposed to get from Virginia are coming in late, and when they get here, we’ll be fifty short. I’m going to have some mad Bulgarians on my hands if I can’t find out a way to fix it.” I pushed my chair away from the desk. “So, enlighten me on why you’re here telling me about your shit day.”

“I was plannin’ on it.” He drew a long deep breath and folded his arms in front of his chest. “Some fucker came up to the truck and knocked on the window. After I figured out what was goin’ on, I rolled down the window, and he starts sayin’ how we’re done sellin’ weapons in Kansas City. Said somethin’ about makin’ money, too.”

Anyone attempting to interfere with my business would be met by force, and Cap’s words fell on wary ears and a retaliatory mind. I glared back at him. “Done selling weapons? What?”

“He said
you’re done sellin’ guns in Kansas City
. I couldn’t really hear him over the music, so I got out. Then he started lookin’ at me all crazy and talkin’ shit, so I just started smackin’ him.”

“Who the hell was he? And what did he say about money?”

“Dunno who he was, and I couldn’t really tell what all he was sayin’, I was too busy hittin’ him while he was tryin’ to talk.”

“Goddamn it, Cap. What else did he say?”

“I don’t remember what all he said, I was pretty fuckin’ mad.”

“You don’t remember?” I walked around the corner of my desk. “Why don’t you give it a good goddamned try? Where, specifically, were you? And who was she? A fed? A cop? Did you get a name?”

He shot back a look of confusion. “She? He was a him, not a her.”

“What?” I no more than spoke, and realized I had said
she
instead of
he
. It seemed odd during all of the excitement and confusion, thoughts of Terra were still lingering.

“Goddamn it; you know what I meant. Answer the question.”

“I was at I-435 and Metcalf at the gas station gettin’ gas,” he said. “And he wasn’t a cop or a fed, that much I know. He just got out his Cadillac and walked up to me and started bumpin’ his gums and talkin’ shit, so I busted him in the mouth.”

I clenched my teeth and attempted to maintain my composure. “Where is he now?”

He shrugged. “I stomped the hell out of him and left him in the parkin’ lot beside his car. Figured someone was bound to call the cops or start askin’ questions, so I just beat feet. You know, came right here to tell you what happened.”

I wondered how the problem could be solved if I had no idea who the mystery man was. I believed Cap would have found his ID if he had one, but felt compelled to ask anyway. “He have an ID on him?”

“Nope,” he said. “No nothin’. Well, nothing but a piece stuck in the waist of his pants. Oh, and the fucker was dressed like you.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Like me?”

“Yep. Had on a suit. Looked expensive. No tie though. Had his shirt unbuttoned and was wearin’ a big gold chain around his neck. Oh, yeah, and a gold bracelet.”

“I’m guessing you took his weapon?”

“Yep. Cheap fucker. Ruger P-85. It’s in the truck.”

I recognized the weapon to be an inexpensive 9mm recalled for safety issues in the mid-1980s. I was surprised that anyone wearing an expensive suit and gold chains would have such an unreliable weapon.

I began to attempt assembling the pieces to the puzzle. “Think, Cap. Did anything stand out about this guy?”

After a moment’s thought, his shoulders raised slowly, all but dismissing his final bit of information as unnecessary or possibly useless. “Sounded like he was from New York or something. You know, he had that east coast accent thing going on. Maybe Boston. Definitely from somewhere back east.”

“Go get the Ruger. I’ll have Trace run the numbers on it.”

“Got it, Boss.”

In a short moment, Cap walked in with the weapon, using a rag to prevent his fingerprints from coming in contact with the gun. Holding it at arm’s length pinched between his thumb and forefinger as if it were a disease, he carefully placed it at the corner of my desk.

“Jesus, Cap. It’s not a fucking bomb.”

“I ain’t lookin’ to leave my fingerprints on some throwaway piece. And, you never know with these junk fuckers. They’ll go off if you drop ’em.”

He was right. They were
that
cheap. I reached for the gun. Covered in scratches and with half the finish worn off, it appeared to have been run over by a truck.

“Was it like this when you got it?”

“Yep.”

I studied the weapon and pieced together what I knew for sure.

Kansas side of the river.
Expensive suit.
East coast accent.
Cadillac.
Gold chains.
Inexpensive throwaway pistol.
No identification.

I sighed heavily. “Fuck.”

“What?”

“I think I’ve got an idea of who this might be. Or who
they
might be.”

“Who?”

“Agrioli,” I said. “Sooner or later I knew he’d stick his nose in my business. We’re moving too damned many weapons.”

After spending ten years in the US Marine Corps, I’d opted for a discharge as soon as they were no longer able to deploy me into combat. Immediately following my release, I started a gray-market weapons business in Kansas City of all places.

The gun laws in Kansas allowed me to distribute as many used guns as I wanted without any of the normal formalities associated with new gun sales. I walked along a razor’s edge regarding legality, but had the freedom to sell what I wanted to whoever I wanted without intervention. The lack of involvement from any faction of the government was nice, but it caused me to be a prime target of the mafia and their system of paying
taxes
.

So far, I had been fortunate.

His eyes grew wide. “The godfather of the fuckin’ mafia?
That
Agrioli?”

“Think about it. Expensive suit. Carrying a throwaway. Driving a Cadillac. Wearing gold chains. East coast accent.” I shrugged. “Who else wears gold chains?”

He laughed. “Pimps and Italians.”

Pimps and Italians.
It wasn’t that funny. I chuckled nonetheless.

“So what now?” he asked.

“How bad did you tune this guy up?”

His mouth twisted into a guilty smirk. “Beat him like he owed me money.”

I winced at the response. If it was one of Agrioli’s men, he’d undoubtedly try to get payback for what happened. Although I wouldn’t change how Cap reacted if I was able, being at war with the Italian mafia definitely wasn’t on my bucket list.

“Bad?” I asked.

“Pretty damned bad. Hadn’t had my coffee yet, and I was up late watchin’ Netflix, so I wasn’t in the mood for someone to be all up in my face.”

Cap was a former Force RECON marine and a trained assassin. With the body of a weight lifter and a face that appeared to be chiseled of stone, he was an intimidating man. His comedic behavior and random ridiculous comments often made it difficult for me to take him seriously.

I fought against my urge to laugh, and wrote down the serial number of the pistol. After removing $2,000 from the drawer, I tossed the money on top of my desk and shook my head. “You and that fucking Netflix.”

“
New Girl
. You seen that shit?”

Mentally, I rolled my eyes. “No.”

“Try it. That guy Schmidt is funnier than fuck.”

“I work until eight, get coffee, eat and work out until eleven. When do you suggest I watch Netflix?”

He reached for the money. “That’s the good thing about Netflix. You can watch that fucker whenever you want. You can watch a whole year of shit in one weekend. Start, stop, pause, fast-forward, rewind, you got it all right there at your fuckin’ fingertips.”

“Don’t think so.”

He ran his thumb along the edge of the bills. “Hey, there’s two here.”

It was the least I could do considering the trouble he went through. “One for the delivery, and one for defending my best interests. Keep this between you and me. I’ll try to look into it without raising too many eyebrows.”

“Appreciate the extra,” he said.

“I appreciate your devotion, Cap.”

He turned toward the door. The moment he reached the threshold, he stopped. “I ain’t likin’ the thought of the fuckin’ mob messin’ with us. You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m golden. Why?”

“Just surprised you didn’t snap.”

I had a reputation for having a quick temper, something Cap had seen firsthand on many occasions. I thought of my altercation in the parking lot of the Starbucks and laughed to myself. I felt it best I keep the incident to myself. “I’m turning over a new leaf.”

“Good to hear,” he said over his shoulder with a laugh. “But I ain’t buyin’ it.”

As soon as he exited my office, my mind went not to my work, worries of the mob, or Cap’s beating a man and leaving him in the parking lot of a gas station. It drifted to where it had been almost all day.

Terra.

Considering the possibility that Agrioli and his men may be attempting to infiltrate my organization, the last thing I needed to be thinking about was a woman. Dismissing her, however, had proven close to impossible. She was gorgeous and she had courage. The combination was undeniably attractive.

I glanced at my watch. It was an hour before I normally left, but since my day had quickly turned into a shit sandwich, staying and maintaining focus would be difficult at best.

I looked around the office, decided my ability to continue was nil, and called it a day. A cup of coffee would relax me, and a two-hour-long workout would exhaust me. A good night’s sleep should follow, and then I could simply begin a new day.

A cup of coffee, meal and the exercise would allow me to forget about Agrioli for a night.

But I had no idea what I was going to have to do to clear my mind of Terra.

And I didn’t really know that I wanted to.

Chapter Three

Terra

Based on my limited experience, I believed all men to be inconsiderate assholes. If there was a socially and morally acceptable way to have sex without the annoyance of a boyfriend, I sure would have given it a try.

Following Michael’s display of gallantry, I changed my mind. Now filled with a newfound belief that only Italian men were assholes, I sat at the coffee shop in hope of seeing him again.

Only to come up with nothing.

Two consecutive unsuccessful mornings later, and I decided to try the night shift. He said the coffee shop was his
new place
, so I didn’t believe my wide-eyed stares out the window were all for naught.

Several hours and six double lattes into the night, and I’d already spent close to $4,000 in a caffeine-induced NET-A-PORTER online shopping spree. With my heart beating a hundred times a second and every hair on my body feeling as if it were standing on end, I released a heavy sigh and closed my laptop.

I walked to the trash can and dropped my half-full cup into it. One more sip of coffee and I would undoubtedly die of a heart attack at twenty-four years old. As I walked back to my seat, the headlights of an approaching car caught my attention. A hopeful glance out the window as it turned into a parking stall caused my heart to race and my palms to go sweaty.

A black BMW sedan with a personalized plate.
TRIPP.

I ran to my seat and frantically opened my laptop. After fumbling with the
on
button for an inordinate amount of time, I peered through the window and into the parking lot.

Dear God.

I could easily get lost in simply watching him walk. Dressed similarly to the day we met, the only real change was the color of his clothes. Now wearing a navy-colored suit and no tie—but with the same confident swagger—he walked up to the door and pulled it open.

I stared straight ahead and tried to get the computer past Starbuck’s product page and to a website of some sort. I wanted to appear preoccupied, but I needed it to at least seem real. As NET-A-PORTER’s website came into view, his calming voice made me tingle all over.

“Terra?”

I flipped my hair over my shoulder and turned toward him. “Oh, wow. Michael, right?”

“Yeah. Any more problems with your ex?”

He seemed taller than before. I stood from my seat and grinned. “No, I haven’t heard from him since.”

He tossed his head toward the register. “Can I get you a drink?”

Another cup of coffee would surely be the death of me, but I didn’t dare refuse. “Sure. A double latte.”

He nodded, grinned and turned toward the register. I sat down and tried not to stare. A few over-the-shoulder glances while he ordered and waited for the coffee went unnoticed, but provided all of the reassurance I needed to convince me he was well worth waiting for.

He handed me the latte and sat down beside me. “I’ve looked for you in here since the day we met.”

You what?

Instinctively, I raised the cup to my lips. “Oh really?”

The smell almost made me vomit.

He took a sip of his coffee. “I thought I might catch you here.”

“I come in here from time to time.” I forced myself to take a drink. “If you want, I can give you my phone number, and the next time you’re coming up, maybe I can meet you.”

“Sounds good.”

I did an imaginary fist pump.
Yes!

“What’s your number,” I asked. “I’ll just send you a text.”

He gave me his number and I sent him a text with my first name as the message. When his phone beeped, he pulled it from his inner jacket pocket and peered down at the screen. “Terra what? It just says Terra. What’s your last name?”

“Wilson,” I lied.

When people found out my last name, things ended before they ever got started. An odd glare, an
oh really
, or, the inevitable
are you related to Anthony Agrioli
question seemed to always follow. With Michael, I wanted him to give me a chance to show him who I really was, and not categorize me for what my family was involved in.

“Terra Wilson,” he said. “Got it.”

“And yours is Tripp. You said that was a long story. So, have you got time to tell it?”

He chuckled as he considered his response. “I went in to get plates for the car, and the lady gave me the next tag in the drawer. It said USN 666. I’m a former marine, and although we’re technically under the Department of the Navy, we look at the navy as being beneath us. The letters USN stand for the US Navy, and I didn’t want them on my car. I knew I didn’t want 666 on it either, so I asked if I could get a different plate. She said ‘not unless you get back in line and go to a different station.’ It took me three hours to get to where I was, so I just ordered a personalized plate. I tossed USN 666 in the trunk, and drove on the expired dealer plate until the new one showed up.”

His fighting skills had led me to believe he was something, but a marine wouldn’t have been my first guess. “So, you were a marine?”

“Ten years.”

“Oh wow. Well, that explains the, uhhm. Yeah.” I stared back at him in admiration. “But not anymore?”

“Not for a year.”

“So what do you do now?”

“Investor,” he said flatly.

“What do you invest in?”

“Opportunities. I invest in opportunities.” He seemed to convince himself of it as he spoke.

I waved my open hand toward him. “Well, it looks like a rewarding career.”

“So far, it’s been pretty lucrative. With any luck, it’ll continue. I plan on retiring in a few years and moving to Belize.”

“Really?”

“Hopefully. I mean, if everything continues. It’s beautiful down there.”

I buried my fingers in my hair and tossed it frantically. Not to be cute, or to bring attention to myself, but because I felt like I had bugs in my hair. My evening’s diet of almost seven double lattes and no food was wreaking havoc on me. I shook my hair and let it drape down over my shoulders.

He leaned back and watched observantly.

I lowered my hands into my lap and grinned, satisfied my little fit was over. “I’ve never been down there, but I’d sure like to one day.”

“You are...” His mouth twisted into a smirk and he shook his head lightly. “Fucking gorgeous.”

Excuse me?

I wasn’t sure if he actually said what I thought I heard, or if the caffeine-induced state of delirium I was slipping into had my mind playing tricks on me. “Excuse me?”

“Sorry, but I’m blunt.”

I really wanted to hear him say it again. “What did you say?”

“Sorry, but I’m blunt?”

“No, before that.”

“Before that? I said you were gorgeous.”

I felt like I did in fifth grade when Salvadore Tarrucci passed me my first note in class. When I opened it,
will you be my girlfriend
stared back at me, causing my heart to go aflutter and my mind to fill with a combination of pride and self-confidence.

Michael was making me feel like I was in fifth grade again. My face felt like it was on fire. A tingling sensation ran from my pussy to my nipples. The six months of abstinence was apparent.

I crossed my legs nervously and grinned. “Thank you.”

It seemed too good to be true. A well-dressed handsome investor who was protective of me and wanted to retire on a remote island south of Mexico. And, it just so happened that he thought I was gorgeous and he wasn’t afraid to say so. He was a far cry from the men I was used to, the majority of which made profit from their criminal activities and shady behavior.

“So, other than kick guys in the nuts, what do you do?” he asked.

“Huh?” I was still wallowing in the compliment. He had just gone from a handsome ass-kicker to irresistibly adorable.

He tilted his head toward my computer. “What do you do?”

I wrinkled my nose. “With what?”

He coughed out a laugh. “Are you flustered? I guess I could have waited until I left to tell you that, but when you did that thing with your hair, it was just, I don’t know. You looked gorgeous.”

I was far from a teenager, and although prior to meeting him I would have described myself as confident, mature and fairly established in life, he was making me feel like a little girl again.

And I liked it.

“Sorry, I might have got all starry-eyed there for a minute.” I fanned my hand in front of my face. “So, you asked what I do?”

“You know,” he said. “For work.”

I
did
nothing. It sounded terrible to admit, but since my twenty-first birthday, I received an annual allotment from my trust fund. My family was wealthy, therefore, I was wealthy. I didn’t work, and if I hinted at getting a job, my father would throw a fit.

“I uhhm. I. Well...” I murmured.

I felt terrible for telling him my last name was Wilson, and decided to keep my little white lies limited to that and just one more. I couldn’t dare tell him the truth about my being rich and not having an actual job. I sighed heavily in anticipation of telling him a lie.

“I’m in the shoe business,” I blurted. “I inherited a store on Long Island. I kind of run it from here.”

Jesus
,
Terra.
Where the fuck did that come from?

I had no idea where the response came from, other than I loved shoes and everything about shoe shopping. And, although it was a lie, it wasn’t. I was in the shoe business. The business of buying them.

He offered a slight smirk. “Shoes, huh?”

I narrowed my eyes. Maybe I wasn’t convincing enough. “Yeah, why?”

“Nothing.”

“You had a shitty grin on your face.”

“It wasn’t shitty. It was just a smile. Like,
that’s nice
. Nothing more than that. I was just thinking,
shoes
. It explains the red bottom you dropped at the door the other day.”

I found it hard to believe he knew what a red bottom was. “You noticed.”

“I tend to.”

I sat with my lips pursed and a slight grin on my face and stared. I felt tremendous comfort in his presence. It was a nice change to talk to someone without having them sending a text message or updating their Facebook status every ten minutes. I also liked it that he was observant, protective and didn’t hesitate to step in when Vincent was trying to drag me away against my will. Considering how we met, I decided to pry a little further.

“So, what did you think I did?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m sure you thought something,” I said. “You seem like an observant person.”

“You really want to know?”

I didn’t see the harm in it. I shrugged. “Sure.”

“Actually, I was wondering what your father did.”

What?
My mouth went dry. “Why uhhm. Huh?”

“You told your ex you’d have your father cut him into little pieces and toss him in the Missouri River. So I wondered what he did for a living.” He reached for his coffee and cocked an eyebrow playfully. “Obviously not shoes.”

If my father found out what Vincent had done to me, he
would
cut him up and toss him in the Missouri River. I’d painted myself into a corner with my lies, so I had to continue. “He’s not crazy protective of me or anything, but he’d be really protective of me if he thought someone was abusing me.”

“As he should be.”

I decided to change the subject back to me, or at least attempt it. “So what did you think I did? We were talking about that. Your sixth sense or whatever.”

“My guess was a trust-fund baby, or something similar,” he said. “You’re obviously wealthy.”

Holy shit.

I stared back at him. I took slight exception to what he said. Well, as much as I could, considering it was all true. “Oh really? Based on what?”

He leaned forward and locked eyes with me. “Well, you drive a Mercedes S550 Coupe. The shoe you lost by the door the other day was a Louboutin, and you’re sitting in Starbucks shopping at NET-A-PORTER on a Wednesday night. You’re single—or at least you do a damned good job of acting like it—and you’re wearing, oh, I’d say that’s about a one-and-three-quarter carat diamond on your wedding finger.”

I nervously covered my ring with my right hand and stared back at him in shock. Or maybe I was impressed. Whichever it was, I sat in my seat and glared at him with wide eyes and an open mouth.

He leaned away from the table and gestured toward my lap. “My guess is it’s to keep guys from trying to hit on you.”

I continued my openmouthed stare.

He paused and cocked an eyebrow. “How am I doing so far?”

Wow.

“How...” I shook my head in disbelief. “How’d you know what I drove?”

“You drove off in it the other day, remember?”

He was right. About everything. In spite of his observations, he still felt I was worthy of his time, and I appreciated it. With him driving a $100,000 BMW and dressing the way he did, it was obvious he wasn’t after me for my money, and I sure wasn’t after him for his.

I was after him for other reasons. And it appeared the list was growing.

“My dad bought me the ring. He said it would keep the creeps away. And, you were right about everything. That’s crazy that you caught all that.”

“I stay pretty conscious of my surroundings. Sometimes I think it keeps me from living a normal life,” he said.

“How so?”

“I develop opinions based on what I think, and not necessarily what I know to be fact. As far as I’m concerned, if I believe it, it
is
fact. So, I walk into a room, survey the people and the situation, and then make decisions based on what I see. Some might call it arrogance. I say it’s confidence. There’s only a hair that separates the two, you know.”

He was becoming more interesting with each passing minute.

The woman in me needed to know more. “So, what decisions or opinions or whatever did you make based on what you’ve seen with me? The other day when we met, and tonight?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m positive.”

“Remember, I’m blunt.”

There was nothing he could say to scare me. I wanted to hear it, even if he was direct in his response. “I’m a big girl,” I assured him.