Convenient Mafia Vows (Ruthless Billionaire Mafia Kings)

8. Caleb

8

CALEB

I head back to my office before the meeting with my brothers. I need time to think.

Kyle was involved in a road traffic incident on New Year’s five years ago. Cash and Bash pulled him out. They got him to the ER, got his leg patched up, fabricated a whole story about an accident on a motorcycle, made sure it didn’t reach the press while I was fucking Sandy in a friend’s apartment, too busy to check the messages on my phone. They said the woman he was with was dead.

Fuck! I knew I should’ve checked it out for myself. You want something done, you’ve always got to do it yourself.

I ignore Lauren trying to catch my attention from her desk. Inside my office, I half-fill a glass with brandy and down it in one, disappointed when the burn vanishes almost immediately.

Same accident? What are the chances…?

Kyle and Sienna? I wrack my brain trying to recall the name of the woman Kyle left the party with, or the costume she was wearing, something to erase this crazy story from my head and stop me from jumping to any more conclusions. Because already I’m thinking there’s a tiny possibility that if Sienna was at the same party as me and Kyle, she might know Sandy.

Might.

A powerful word with a gigantic question mark attached to it.

But still… Can I afford to let it go? The best PIs in the city haven’t even come close to finding her, and here’s Victoria walking into my life with a best friend who might just happen to be the missing link.

Fate?

Perhaps. Do I believe in fate and chance and coincidences? Nah. We make our choices and we shape our lives into what we want them to be.

And what do I do about Kyle? Ruthless mafia boss—I’ll take on the likes of Don Dragonetti and his nutjob daughter any day of the week. But when it comes to my family, I will literally do whatever it takes to protect them.

Kyle might be my big brother, but I’ve always been his protector. His mentor. His wing man and buddy. He had asthma as a little kid, and it used to melt my heart seeing him reach for his inhalers whenever our father started kicking off at our mom for his dinner not being ready when he came home, or for leaving toys lying around the house, or giving one of his own sons the last cookie in the jar.

Our dad’s anger issues affected Kyle more than it affected the rest of us. Cash and Bash were too young to understand. Mom would bundle them into their bedroom and close the door, telling them it was a game of sleeping lions and the first one to make a sound was the loser. I was too busy shielding Kyle to let anxiety take hold. But when he hurt Mom real bad, I stood guard over Kyle, a bread knife in my hand, and waited for the paramedics to arrive, muttering the entire time, “Touch my brother and I’ll kill you.”

It was an easy role to step into. It’s almost like it’s what I was born to do.

Kyle withdrew into a shell. For a while there, when Mom was out of the hospital and struggling to keep a roof over our heads, his asthma got worse. I’d sit up at night watching him breathe, waiting for his chest to go concave with the effort of filling his lungs, knowing that was the time to get him medical help. At school, the other kids would pick on him because he didn’t fight back, and that made me see red. Literally.

The teachers told Mom I had anger management issues, and I know now that she was scared I had too much of my dad in me. I got into fights every day, until the bigger kids realized that they always came off worse. I got a rep in middle school for being a scrapper. But kids started treating me with respect, keeping their distance, trying to be my friend, and backing off when they understood that it was me and my brothers, and no one else was welcome.

Then, when Mom met Terry, he recognized in me the same qualities his own parents had seen in him. Terry, despite being a mafia mobster, took me under his wing. He nurtured me, gave the anger an outlet, something to focus on, a direction, and it became the unspoken legacy that someday, I would take over from him.

Which is why it still grips my heart and squeezes until I can hardly breathe, that the one time Kyle needed me, I wasn’t there for him.

After, he was obsessed with finding out what had happened to the girl in the car with him. Almost as obsessed as I was about finding Sandy. I scoured the media for the story of the dead woman pulled from a burning car wreck, and when I found nothing, I assumed it had been a cover up. That was the world we lived in—that kind of shit happened all the time.

But what if Sienna was that woman, and I just happened to have fake-married her best friend? How would Kyle feel about it? Should I tell him now or get all the information about Sienna first?

Kyle’s mental health is stable now. Two years of therapy has taught him to deal with his obsessive survivor guilt—do I really want to undo all that hard work and plunge him straight back into all those scary emotions? Kyle with asthma is one thing, but Kyle locked inside his own head is quite another.

I’ve answered my own question.

And then there’s Victoria. Vicky . She believes that the guy Sienna was with that night was an asshole who saved his own skin and left her to die. She has lived with that belief for five years; I’m not going to change her mind overnight. Probably best to let her meet Kyle, find out for herself that he’s one of life’s nice guys without any external influence before trying to convince her that he’s not the asshole she thinks he is.

Besides, this is only temporary. We pretend to be in love until we get Don Dragonetti and his psycho daughter off our backs, and then life goes back to normal. With or without Sandy.

So why can I still feel Victoria’s body pressed up against mine? The swell of her breasts squashed up against my chest. Her hair in my fist. Her breath on my cheek.

I go to my desk and buzz through to Lauren. “Any update on Mason Callahan?”

Pause. I can almost hear her counting to three rapidly in her head and pasting a small smile onto her face before she responds. “Nothing yet.”

“Double the resources. Triple them if you have to. I want him found.”

Cash, Bash—short for Bastien—and Terry join me and Kyle in my brother’s boardroom on the floor below my office in the Wraith.

Cash and Bash are identical twins—they have the same sandy hair, same gray-blue eyes, same features, but stand them next to one another in identical black suits, and the differences are immediately obvious. Cash’s aura is dark where Bash’s is light. Cash is the kind of guy you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley in the Bronx at night. His eyes are constantly seeking danger, a creature of the night, a feral animal on the prowl. While Bash’s eyes are bright and honest, his smile is just casually there for everyone he meets.

Demon and angel.

Two halves of one whole.

Many people have made the mistake of underestimating Bash’s ruthlessness when it comes to business, while others have steered clear of Cash, assuming incorrectly, that he’s the last person they should get involved with.

“This contract needs to be watertight,” Kyle says. “If the don gets a hint of this being anything less than all-singing, all-dancing, prince charming and fucking Cinderella happy-ever-after, you know what will happen.”

“Why don’t we just set Olivia up with someone who’ll keep her in her place?” Cash downs a shot of whisky and refills his glass. My brother has liquor in his veins instead of blood.

“Got any suggestions?” Kyle sips his own iced water.

“Sure.” Cash shrugs. “Ivan Petrov. He was dating the model whose ex tried to set fire to her. He’s been lying low since he obliterated the slimeball ex from the face of the earth. There were tenuous links to the fucking president, and the family turned him into a shadow to prevent world war fucking three, but he’s back now. No way Olivia Dragonetti would mess with him.”

“I can arrange an introduction,” Bash offers.

“Sounds good to me.” Cash downs a second drink and goes to stand up.

“Okay, boys.” Terry waves a hand in a downward motion to settle them down. “You’ve had your fun. Don Dragonetti links this back to us when it all goes horribly wrong and we might as well pack up now, last one to leave the building, switch off the lights.”

I smile. Terry might not be as hands-on as he used to be, but he has his finger on the pulse of every mafia movement of every family in the city.

Cash shrugs and pours himself another drink. Kyle eyes him up, no doubt wondering how much booze it would take to floor his little brother. I could save him the bother and tell him that I’ve never seen it happen yet.

“So, you’re down with the whole fake-marriage scheme?” Cash asks Terry.

“It wouldn’t have been my game plan, which makes it as good as anything I’d have come up with.” Terry winks at me. “If we can pull it off.”

Not pulling it off isn’t an option. He knows this. We all do.

“Which brings me back to making sure this is authentic.” Kyle straightens an already immaculate folder on the polished table in front of him. “I’ve drawn up a marriage contract and prenup. We don’t want Victoria taking the Murrays to the cleaners when her best friend suggests she can make a few extra bucks out of us.”

“Fuck, Caleb,” Bash says, wincing dramatically. “Victoria who? I mean, how well do you know this gal? Is she out there now flexing her talons and chatting to the press? Or?—”

“Or is she locked up in your office, cuffed and gagged, with Ingram on guard duty?” Cash butts in.

An infectious chuckle passes between the twins. At least they have the same sense of humor.

“She won’t talk.” I sip my brandy.

The marriage isn’t up for debate—they knew this before they were called in for the meeting—but I value their opinions. Every single one of them. It’s why we’ve almost cleared up on the New York City casino scene—we each play to our relevant strengths, and as a team, we’re pretty fucking formidable.

With Don Dragonetti on our side, no one would touch us. Without him… Cash will be indicted for a list of organized crimes as long as my arm, and it’ll take some major palm-crossing to keep him out of jail.

“How can you be so sure?” Bash asks. “How long have you known her?”

“Twenty-four hours give or take.”

“Jeez.” Cash rubs his jaw with the palm of his hand. “What did you do, pull her in off the street?”

“Something like that.” I swallow a mouthful of brandy. It’s hitting the sides now, just like I needed it to because I haven’t dealt them the punchline yet. “She won’t talk because there’s a kid involved.”

“What the fuck?” Cash puffs up his cheeks and releases his breath slowly.

Bash wrinkles his nose.

Kyle is already manipulating the prenup to include a kid who might come back to demand a share of the family fortune in ten years’ time.

“Her kid?” Terry asks.

“Her brother’s kid. But Victoria is basically bringing her up.”

Terry sniffs, his tell when he’s trying to keep three steps ahead of the game. “Father on the scene?”

“AWOL. I’ve tasked Lauren with finding him.”

“You worried he might blow things up?” Terry asks.

“He’s a low-life loser so I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“Leave it with me.” Terry nods at Kyle whose fingers are flying across his laptop keyboard. “I’ll make sure he keeps schtum.” He unlocks his phone, locates the number he’s looking for, and fires out a message.

“And if he doesn’t, he’ll soon wish he had.” Cash laughs.

“Okay, we need a fallback plan.” Kyle peers at each of us in turn.

“I still vote Ivan Petrov,” Cash says.

“Meanwhile, we need to keep Victoria and the child safe.” I’m trying to keep the meeting on track.

Protecting Victoria and Abigail must be our priority because Olivia Dragonetti is used to getting what she wants, and she wants to marry me. Not for love or an alliance between families that would be beneficial for all, but for no other reason than no one walks away from her and lives to tell the tale.

They all watch me closely, eyes narrowed like I just bit the head off a bat, Ozzy Osbourne style.

“Okay,” Cash says, “I hate to point out the obvious, but you live in a fucking penthouse apartment that hasn’t seen a fingerprint since the day you moved in. Where are you planning on hiding this kid? Assuming that keeping it authentic means you’ll be fucking her auntie’s brains out every night.”

I don’t like Cash’s tone. I know I came close to fucking Victoria’s brains out in front of Abigail earlier, but the way he says it lowers it to screwing-an-escort-in-an-elevator level. And Victoria isn’t that kind of woman. That isn’t what this is.

I mean, I don’t know how I know this, but my cock is telling me that screwing her from behind while she is bent over my desk isn’t going to be a one-off. If she tastes the way I think she will, I’m going to want to fuck her on every available surface in every available room inside the Wraith, and then some. Because without me even realizing, Victoria is sneaking under my skin the way Sandy did five years ago.

“It’s the least I can do for her,” I say. Focus, Caleb . “Getting tossed into the ocean in a pair of cement boots isn’t part of the deal. She’s got a kid to think about. And Abigail is special.”

Cash is still being vocal. “Okay, so who are you, and what have you done with my brother Caleb?”

“Define special,” Bash joins in like they’re some kind of comedy act. Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye, anyone? Any moment now, they’ll get up and perform a tap dance across the table.

“She’s gifted. Abigail hacked into my tablet and sat there playing Solitaire. She’s been kicked out of kindergarten for dismantling a fucking projector. The kid is five years old.”

For once my twin brothers are silent.

“Solitaire?” Kyle arches an eyebrow.

“She knew how to clean up the game in one move.”

Okay, so maybe it’s an exaggeration, but it’s how I recall the conversation going. I don’t know much about kids. Scratch that —I know zero about kids—so maybe all five-year-olds can play Solitaire. But I don’t believe that’s the case.

Going by the smirks on the twins’ faces, I’m starting to think that maybe I was wrong, and Abigail isn’t a genius.

Kyle’s tone is serious. “You mustn’t lose sight of the fact that this is a temporary situation, Caleb. We get the Dragonettis off our back, form an alliance, and Victoria and Abigail both walk off into the sunset.”

“I know.” I drain the liquid in my glass. I can’t think about that right now.

“Her future isn’t with the Murray family,” Kyle reiterates like he isn’t sure that I heard him the first time around.

Before I can think up a suitable response to prove that I understand the situation, Terry puts his phone down on the table quietly, and says, “No sign of Callahan. Not even a lingering whiff of his cheap aftershave, which could be a problem for us.”

If Terry thinks this is a problem, it is a problem.

“You want my advice,” he continues, knowing that his advice is our bible, “Victoria and Abigail should stay with you.” He pauses. “And I’m not going to be the one who breaks it to your mom.”