Vendetta: A DeLuca Family Novel (The DeLuca Family Book 2) (6 page)

T
he rest
of the drive to Carlo and Mia’s home was silent. The ramification of the flower realization was huge. Very few people knew me well enough to know some of the intimate details that this stalker knew, and even fewer people knew that Enzo still sent me flowers on my birthday every year. I’d lived alone for years, and he always had them delivered to my house. I’d never told anyone, not even Mia.

I wasn’t sure I could ever look at those flowers the same way again, and as irrational as it was, that was the thing that was most upsetting. I was shaken to the core that someone could take the one thing that I still shared with Enzo after all these years of emotional torment and defile it.

As soon as we walked through the door, Leo ushered us into a conference room towards the back of the house that I hadn’t even known existed. A petite woman in her early thirties was sitting at the conference table. Her blonde hair was pulled up in a tight bun and she wore jeans and a sweatshirt, definitely not trying to impress anyone. I liked her instantly. She’d been talking to Angelo but turned her attention to us expectantly when we walked in the room.

“Hi, I’m Mallory,” she introduced herself politely. “Do you have the document?”

Enzo handed the letter over to her but didn’t back up; instead, he towered over her with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. She eyed him curiously, but she wasn’t intimidated. She did, however, look annoyed.

“You’re in my light. You mind backing up a bit and letting me do my job?” she asked, her polite demeanor still in place but her eyes held an edge of authority. Enzo grunted and took a step back. It wasn’t a big one though, which earned him the stink eye from Angelo.

“Where’s Mia?” I asked, hoping to divert their attention for a while so they’d let the poor woman work.

“Antonio took her down to Salem to visit Pauline and Michael,” Angelo replied, one eye still on Enzo.

“Did you tell her about the letter?” I asked, hoping like hell he hadn’t.

That got his attention. “No, I haven’t spoken to her since Enzo called. Why?”

“I’d just rather not worry her. She’s got the wedding to plan and she’s nearly five months pregnant; she doesn’t need the added stress.”

He eyed me curiously, but nodded. “Okay, I’ll keep my mouth shut, but you better check with Carlo; he might’ve already said something.”

“I’ll talk to him before I leave,” I agreed.

“Okay, so the envelope is a lost cause. Since it clearly went through the postal service there’s no telling how many people touched that thing. However, I was able to lift a few prints from the letter. Which of you touched it?” Mallory asked from her seat.

“We both did,” Enzo answered curtly.

“Okay, so I’ll need to get samples of both your fingerprints to rule you out and see if there are prints from any unknown persons.”

Pulling out a card and ink pad, Mallory waved me over to go first. She rolled each finger in ink and transferred the print onto the card and repeated the process with Enzo.

“How long will it take to match the prints?” Enzo asked when he was finished wiping the ink from his fingers.

“Not long. Have a little patience big guy,” Mallory said without looking up from her magnifying glass.

Enzo went back to his brooding while she worked. I, on the other hand, was racking my brain for who it could possibly be. The letter and address on the envelope had been typed, so there weren’t any clues to be found there. The fact that we had nothing to go on was driving me insane.

“It’s clean,” Mallory announced, much to everyone’s disappointment. “Don’t shoot the messenger,” she said in response to our accumulative groans and curses.

“Back to square one,” I complained.

“There
is
something that might be useful. See here,” she said, pointing to a particular part of the text. “He uses positive contractions but not negative contractions.”

“He? So it’s for sure a man?” Angelo asked.

“The letter is aggressive and direct so you’re most likely dealing with a man, yes.”

“Is it unusual? The thing with the contractions?” I asked.

“I’m not an expert, but yeah, I’d say it’s unusual. It’s not the fact that he’s sometimes using them and sometimes not. What
is
strange is that he only uses positive contractions. Not many people do that. If you were to read this out loud, it would sound strange and stilted. The good thing is, if you get a hold of something else this person has written, there’s a good chance you’ll find the same pattern.”

We thanked Mallory and left. I couldn’t find Carlo, so I was sure I’d get a call from Mia at some point berating me about not keeping her in the loop, but I didn’t care. All I wanted to do was go home and curl up on the couch. The events of the day had left my mind spinning and my emotions drained.

“You don’t think it could be someone from your past do you?” I asked Enzo on the ride home.

“I’m not sure; but if it was, it would be someone we both know.”

He was right. We’d grown up together, so everyone he knew, I knew as well. Except... “What about the guys in your unit? Did you ever show anyone my picture or anything? Tell them about the flowers?” I was legitimately asking because it was a possibility we hadn’t explored yet. It wasn’t just because I wanted to know if he talked about me.

“Well, yeah,” he said distractedly. “I mean, I had a picture that I kept on me, and one of us together hanging in my bunk. Anyone could have seen it, but no one ever knew about the flowers. And if it had been one of them, this would have come to a head a long time ago. I haven’t been in the military since before we got married.”

I inwardly flinched every time he said the word married. It was as if he thought since the cat was out of the bag, he could just bring it up whenever. Ignoring the ache in my chest, I pressed further.

“What about after the Marines? You did private security for a while, right? What about those guys?”

“No,” he said immediately, his entire demeanor changing.

“No? Care to elaborate?”

“It wasn’t the same thing. The people I worked with, and especially the people I worked
for
, weren’t the kind you open up to. You don’t give them anything they can hold against you. I didn’t talk about you, ever. The one picture I kept on me? No one ever saw that.”

“Is that why I could only send emails and couldn’t write you letters?”

“Yeah.”

We’d never talked about that job. It was as if he went from the Marines to Carlo with just a black cavern of nothingness in between. After his second tour overseas, he’d been a little rougher around the edges, but he was still my Enzo. The three years he’d spent working private security though; they’d changed him. Only, I was starting to realize he might not be as different as I’d originally thought.

“Why are you different around them than you are when we’re alone?” I asked suddenly.

Enzo’s eyebrows slammed together. “What do you mean?”

“We haven’t spent a lot of time alone together in… a while, but you act differently with me. But then today when Mallory was looking over the letter, you were a total asshole.”

“You call me an asshole daily, so am I really that different?” he laughed.

“See, right there! You cracked a joke and then laughed. You’d have never done that at the house.”

“I guess you’re right. When I’m around those guys I’m working. Even when I’m not, I still keep the mentality. But with you, it’s different. I don’t have to prove anything to you, you already know everything there is to know.”

“Yeah, right,” I scoffed.

“What don’t you know about me?” he asked.

“Plenty.”

P
lenty
.

The word kept rolling around in my brain as we made our way back into the city. She’d said there was plenty she didn’t know about me; I wondered if that meant there was plenty I didn’t know about her.

Frankie headed straight for her room to change when we got back to her apartment. I’d never understand that. Those legging things she wore all day were basically pajamas, so why she felt the need to change as soon as she got home was beyond me. Although, on second thought, if it meant she broke out those shorts again I was all for it. I was still having dreams about those things.

She came rushing out of her room a few minutes later murmuring “No, no, no,” under her breath as she tore through the living room and kitchen searching for something.

“What is it?” I asked.

“My sweatshirt—the hoodie I was wearing earlier—have you seen it?” she asked as she frantically lifted up the couch cushions and tossed throw pillows out of her way.

“What? No, I haven’t seen it; you probably just forgot where you put it,” I said sitting on the couch she’d just ransacked.

“No, I didn’t. I always put it on the chair in my bedroom when I take it off. I
never
put it anywhere else. Why are you still sitting there? Get up and help me find it!” she screeched.

My hackles went up immediately; she wanted me to get up and search for some guy’s sweatshirt? Like hell.

“Why do you care so much about the thing. It’s just a hoodie.”

“Because it’s mine!”

“It looked like it was a men’s sweatshirt,” I said offhandedly.

She stopped her searching and whirled around on me. “Did you take it? I swear to God, Enzo…”

“No, I didn’t fucking take it, but I’d like to know who’s it was.”

“I told you, it’s mine,” she said, returning to her search.

“I meant before it was yours. Did it belong to an old boyfriend? Is there someone you’re not telling me about? Because even if you don’t think this guy is capable of it, he could still be the stalker.”

“He’s not,” she protested.

“How do you know?” I challenged.

“Because he’s you!” she snapped, turning to face me once again.

“What?”

“It’s the sweatshirt you gave me before you left for boot camp,” she admitted.

“You kept it this whole time?”

“Yes, okay! I like to…” she trailed off mid-sentence. “No,” she breathed and took off down the hallway towards her bedroom and I followed close behind.

Coming to a stop at the doorway to her bedroom I watched her pick up a picture frame that had been set facedown, with an unsteady hand. “The first time I came home and this was facedown I thought it’d just fallen over,” she explained, flipping the frame over. She screamed and dropped it as soon as she caught sight of the picture inside.

Confused, I picked the picture up off the floor to examine it. Through the cracked glass I could see what had caused her reaction. I remembered the picture well. It was Eddie, Frankie, and me when we were kids, except my face had been scratched out and the words ‘he’s a dead man’ were carved cruelly over my body.

“He was here again,” she breathed. “How did he get in? You changed the locks; we were only gone for a few hours.”

“Calm down. At least now we know this isn’t just about you, it’s about both of us. It might help us find this guy. Is there anything else that looks out of place or missing?” I asked.

Fear crossed her face and tears started to fill her eyes. She started to shake her head violently then turned and dove to the floor at the foot of her bed. Reaching underneath, she pulled out an old hat box and scrambled to remove the lid, letting out an agonizing moan when she was finally able to get a look at the contents of the box.

“Why?!” she wailed between sobs.

I walked around the bed and sunk to my knees in front of her. She was screaming ‘why’ over and over again so loud that I was sure someone would call the cops. I reached for the box and pulled it toward me to inspect the contents.

Inside the box were hundreds of bits of paper crudely cut up into pieces. I noticed one of the larger pieces looked like the corner of an envelope and had the words ‘Free Afghanistan’ written on it in lieu of a stamp. They were my letters.

There were a lot of pieces that were black with white splotches too, but I couldn’t tell what they’d been. I moved the box out of the way and scooted closer to Frankie who’d curled into herself, her entire body heaving with her sobs.

“Franny, baby,” I said softly, stroking her hair from her face so I could get a look at her. I wasn’t sure if it was the stress of the stalker thing coming down on her all at once or the loss of her keepsakes that was causing her to break down, but I just wanted to fix it. I’d write her a thousand more letters if it meant she’d stop crying.

“Franny,” I tried again, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her into my lap. She burrowed into me and I held her tight while she cried. It took nearly an hour to calm her down enough to get her to talk but even then, she didn’t say much.

“Were those my letters?” I asked when she’d finally regulated her breathing again.

She pulled away from me slightly, swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah, your letters and some pic- pictures.” Her voice broke on the last word and I squeezed her tight again.

She had a paper clutched in her hand. It was a corner piece—not from one of the letters—that looked like it was a picture, but the paper wasn’t quite right. The part of the picture that was visible was just black surrounded by a thick white boarder, but she was holding it so tightly that I knew it had to mean something to her. I wanted to know what it was exactly that had pushed her over the edge, but it wasn’t the time for those questions.

“I need you to pack a bag. We’re leaving,” I said firmly, praying that she wouldn’t argue.

She nodded, “Where are we going?”

“My place.”

T
welve months
.

It’d been twelve long months since I’d seen her. Anticipation buzzed through my body as I made the four-hour drive from Seattle to Spokane to see her.

My wife.

I loved the way that sounded, but only in my head. If I said it aloud, she’d laugh. To be fair, she’d probably think I was joking, but it still stung. As much as I wanted her, as much as I wished one day she’d be mine in every way, I knew it was impossible. I’d made a promise to Eddie, my cousin, my brother in every way that counted, that I wouldn’t be with her.

It’d been four years since I’d made that promise and I’d been kicking myself every day since. I married her two years ago, but aside from the innocent kiss we’d shared in front of the judge and our parents, I hadn’t touched her. A marriage of convenience, her mother had called it, but it was anything but convenient to me. No, being legally bound to your best friend that had grown up to be the woman of your dreams and being forbidden to touch her was most definitely not convenient.

Pulling off the interstate, I followed the directions the electronic voice on my GPS was giving me. The last time I’d come up for a visit, she was still living in the dorms. But while I was away this past year, she’d moved into a small apartment off campus. At least this time I wouldn’t have to stay in a hotel. I sent her a quick text to let her know I was five minutes out and popped a breath mint.

My knee was bouncing and my heart was thumping double-time when I pulled into her complex. I didn’t know why I was so nervous; we’d played this game for years. I’d go away, then come back, and after the initial excitement wore off, all was exactly as it’d been before. Except this time, we were older, married, and unsupervised. I pulled my truck into a guest parking spot and hopped out, grabbing my rucksack from the back.

Frankie was hurling down the stairs as I walked up the sidewalk to her unit. On the third step from the bottom, she flung herself at me and I had to drop my rucksack in order to catch her. She laughed as I spun her around and around. I kept going until I was dizzy, just so I could hear her laugh a little bit longer. Less than a minute with her in my arms, and the dark cloud I’d been carrying over my head for the past two years was already starting to fade away.

I am such a fucking sucker.

“I can’t believe you’re here!” she squealed when I finally put her down.

“It’s good to finally be back home,” I said, pulling her in for another hug.

“Come on,” she insisted, pulling me up the stairs to her apartment. “I’ll give you the grand tour.”

S
he pulled
me through the crowded pub, not stopping until we reached the far end of the bar near the small dance floor.

“I don’t really go out very often, but I thought we should celebrate,” she yelled over the music.

“You going to tell me how you got your hands on a believable fake ID?” I asked, leaning down to speak directly in her ear.

“Never,” she laughed and turned to waive down the bartender. The place was so packed that I had to stand directly behind her in order to stay out of the way of the cocktail waitresses that were running from the floor to the bar and back again.

“What’ll it be?” the bartender asked.

“Four shots of tequila and two coronas,” Frankie called out slapping cash on the bar.

“Don’t do this often, huh?” I whispered in her ear.

“Shut up and drink,” she said turning in place and handing me a shot. She sprinkled salt on both of our hands and handed me a lime. “On the count of three, one, two, three!” she screamed.

I winced as the liquor burned my throat, but Frankie didn’t look like it’d fazed her at all. She immediately handed me another shot and repeated the same process as before. Once both shots were down, she handed me my beer and led me to a table in the corner between the jukebox and the dance floor.

“I call bullshit,” I said as soon as we were seated.

“What?”

“I call bullshit,” I repeated. “This isn’t your first rodeo,” I said pointing to the bar.

“I said I didn’t go out
much
. I didn’t say
anything
about not drinking,” she laughed and took a swig of her beer. The light from one of the neon signs reflected off the ring she was wearing. When she put her beer down again I caught her hand, inspecting it.

“You’re wearing your wedding ring?” I asked, confused. I was certain I’d never seen her wear it after I put it on her finger two years before. My mother had insisted that we exchange rings; it was the only thing she’d put her foot down about.

“I wear it on the rare occasion that I do go out so guys won’t hit on me,” she explained.

“Why don’t you want guys to hit on you?” I asked, praying she answered in a way that didn’t make me want to commit murder, because if she told me she had a boyfriend, I might just do it.

She shrugged. “Just not interested.”

I could live with that response.

“What about you?” she asked. “Do you ever wear your ring to ward off the hordes of women that flock to you?”

I barked out a laugh. “I can’t say that I’ve ever had hordes of women flock to me, but if I ever do, I’ll make sure to slip on this bad boy,” I said, patting my chest.

Frankie cocked her head to the side and eyed me curiously. Reaching into my shirt I pulled out the necklace I’d worn since my first communion. On the chain right next to my Saint Christopher medallion, was my gold wedding band. She smiled softly at me, holding my gaze a fraction of a second longer than usual before taking another drink and looking out over the dance floor.

I wanted her to look at me like that again, like I was good, like I was worth something. I hadn’t felt like a good person in a really long time. Pulling the chain off I unclasped it and let the gold band drop into my hand and slipped it on my left hand before tucking my medallion back under my shirt.

“What are you doing?”

I shrugged, “I don’t feel like getting hit on.”

She tried to hide her smile, but I caught it.

“Do you want another beer?” I asked.

“Yes, please, and two more rounds of tequila.”

“Are you sure?” She was tiny after all.

“I’m fine. I promise, I’m not going to get sloppy drunk and make you hold back my hair.”

“I’m going to hold you to that,” I called over my shoulder before getting swallowed by the crowd. The number of people in the bar had nearly doubled in less than an hour. No wonder Frankie insisted on getting a table right away.

It took me nearly twenty minutes to get our drinks and navigate my way back to our table. When I finally broke through the crowd, I saw that Frankie was no longer alone. There was a guy sitting next to her at the table. He’d leaned in to say something in her ear, and she was straining her neck to get away from him.

“Frankie,” I called out in question as I approached the table. She didn’t seem scared, just annoyed. I didn’t want to make a scene if she knew this guy, but the way his arm was casually thrown over the back of her chair made me want to shoot him.

The guy didn’t turn towards me when I placed our drinks on the table. “Fuck off, she’s busy.”

“Get off me, Chad,” Frankie growled and pushed him away. Her rejection didn’t deter him for long because he dived back into her neck.

“Come on, baby. You know you want to,” he cajoled, this time wrapping one arm around her shoulders and placing the other on her thigh, either in an effort to keep her from getting away or convince her to stay; I didn’t know which, and I didn’t care.

I’d been trying to play it cool so I wouldn’t embarrass her. This was her school after all. She had to see these people every day and they didn’t live in my world—the world where the consequences weren’t the same, where killing was as natural as breathing. But seeing his hands on her had the last strands of my self-control snapping.

Walking around the table, I gripped him by the collar of his Polo shirt with one hand and ripped the hand that had been groping her thigh away with the other. Hauling him up and out of the chair, I turned him to face me.

“Leave her alone,” I said coldly, releasing him once he was steady on his feet.

“Who the fuck are you?” he sneered, jerkily righting his disheveled clothes.

Ignoring his question, I looked to Frankie. “You good?” I asked roughly.

She gave me a sharp nod, but her eyes darted around the bar. I followed her line of sight, noticing a group of large men at the edge of the dance floor watching the altercation. “I’m good, Enzo,” she confirmed, telling me with her eyes to let it go.

Satisfied with her answer, I turned back to the asshole. He was still standing there, waiting for me to respond to his earlier question. We were about the same height, and while he had an athletic build, I had at least thirty pounds of muscle on the guy. A fact he seemed to take notice of when I stepped forward—into his space.

“All you need to know is, the next time you see Frankie, you’re going to turn around and head in the opposite direction.” I said, my voice low and calm. “Now, I’m going give you a free pass for the shit you just pulled and let you walk away and keep your pride intact, but know this, if you so much as breathe in her direction again, I’ll make sure you’re breathing from a tube for the rest of your life. Do you understand me, Chad?”

He swallowed thickly and cleared his throat before darting his eyes behind me to his friends. Puffing out his chest, he took a step back and scoffed, “Whatever,” he said loudly so his friends could hear, “I don’t want her anyways; she’s a pain in the ass.”

“That’s why I married her,” I smirked, grabbing my beer off the table and taking my seat next to Frankie.

Chad looked from Frankie to me and back again, his eyes wide. “Whatever dude, I’m out.”

I laughed and watched him hurry off to his group of friends. Frankie smacked my arm and mumbled something that sounded a lot like ‘asshole’ under her breath.

“What was that?” I asked, handing her one of the shots I’d brought back.

“Nothing,” she said grabbing the tequila shot and downing it without the fanfare. “What did you say to him? I couldn’t hear over the music.”

“Nothing much, just told him to stay away from you,” I shrugged, because it was basically what I’d said.

“Yeah fucking right, and for the record, you did not marry me because I’m a pain in the ass.”

“That’s what you think,” I laughed.

“What the fuck ever, buddy. Now shut up and drink!” she yelled, handing me the last shot.

I paused before taking my shot to watch her throw hers back. Her throat worked as she swallowed, and I was instantly turned on. Adjusting myself discreetly under the table I racked my mind for something that would distract me from the growing bulge in my pants. But that was the thing about Frankie; nothing could deter my attraction to her. For the past four years, even though it was wrong and I’d made the conscious decision not to go there, my desire for her had never waned.

“So, who was that guy?” I finally asked. I’d tried to ignore it, but it bothered me that someone felt they could get that close to her without her permission and the fact that she didn’t seem to think it was a big deal.

“Ugh, Chad. He’s the resident playboy, but he’s harmless. He hit on me at a frat party last semester and I turned him down; he’s been smitten ever since. Just another guy that’s never heard the word ‘no’ before. Eventually he’ll get bored and move on,” she said with a wave of her hand.

“Just be careful, Franny. Guys like that don’t take rejection well, and I just wounded his ego.”

“Well I’m pretty sure you telling him we’re married was enough to scare him off, but I’ll be careful. I promise.”

“You have the mace I gave you?”

“Yes,” she said rolling her eyes.

“And the Taser?”

“Fuck, yes. Enzo, I’m perfectly safe. I promise.”

“And what were you doing at a frat party anyways?” I questioned.

“Jesus, come on let’s dance,” she suggested, ignoring my question.

I shook my head. “I don’t dance.”

Walking around the table, she stood in front of me and wiggled her hips. “Come on, you don’t always have to be the tough guy,” she urged.

“No.”

“Fine, I’ll go find someone else to dance with,” she said and disappeared onto the crowded dance floor.

Motherfucker.

I took a long pull of my beer before getting up and following her. Because I’d follow her anywhere, even the goddamn dance floor.

She’s going to pay for this one.

I pushed through the crowd of sweaty bodies searching for her. She was small so getting a glimpse of her before I was standing right in front of her was going to be difficult. Luckily, it was a small place so after shaking off two blondes that had latched themselves onto my arms in an effort to convince me to dance with them, I found her. Thankfully, she was dancing by herself, but much to my dismay, there were several guys standing around her waiting for their chance to jump in.

Not today, assholes.

I came to stand beside two guys that were watching Frankie’s hips roll and sway to the beat, trying to figure out what my next move was going to be. I wasn’t lying when I’d told her that I didn’t dance, but I was sure as hell not going to stand by while some other guy’s hands were all over her.

“The things I’d like to do to that ass,” one of the guys commented as I pushed my way past them.

“That ass belongs to my wife. Back the fuck off!” I growled, giving the guy that’d spoken up a healthy shove before I broke through the circle that had formed around Frankie.

Apparently I’d become exceptionally comfortable with calling her that in the past eight hours.

Hooking her around the waist, I pulled her back into me so her back was pressed to my front. She stiffened suddenly and stopped dancing.

“It’s just me,” I whispered in her ear before she could break away. She instantly relaxed, her body melting into mine as she began moving her hips to the beat again. I didn’t do much dancing, instead opting to let her dance around me while I swayed back and forth and glared at anyone that looked in her direction.