Out of Time (Fall of the Morelli Crime Family #3)

6. Chapter 6

six

Bianca

I was an idiot. A stupid, crying idiot.

I was only a couple of steps away from his apartment door when the tears began to fall silently down my cheeks. I was already regretting my decision to leave without one last kiss, but I knew it was pointless.

I’d always want more from Mark, but I wasn’t stupid enough to think I could have it. I stumbled to the elevator, all my energy put into keeping silent until the doors closed behind me. When I was safely enclosed and descending to the ground floor, I let out a long, shuddering breath. My hands were shaking, fingers trembling.

It’s just low blood sugar, I told myself. I expected to have breakfast with Mark, after all.

I wiped the evidence of my grief off my face, then trudged across the street to the cafe. This was the kind of heartbreak only a pain au chocolat could stave off.

I ordered an uber to take me home while I stood in line. I’d been too nervous to drive this morning, but a buttery, chocolatey pastry was just what I needed to occupy my mind while I waited for the car.

But Mark entered the cafe as I was leaving. He looked like he’d aged five years in the last five minutes and it was all my fault.

The urge to pull him into a hug and hold tight was strong, but that wouldn’t solve our problems, so I stood to the side and waited to see if he’d notice me. I didn’t assume it would work, so I kept my cool when he met my gaze dead on. The hurt in his eyes shredded my insides nonetheless.

“Right,” he said, running his fingers through that gorgeous wavy hair. “Breakfast time. I should have expected you to be here. Sorry.”

He didn’t need to be sorry. I was the one who was intruding in his neighborhood.

“It’s fine,” I said instead of apologizing. “I was just leaving. My uber should be here any second.”

“An uber?” He frowned. “Do you want me to drop you off instead?”

I should’ve immediately said no, but I hesitated. He couldn’t possibly drop me off at home where my father would meet me in an hour. It was too risky.

“There’s a parking garage a block from my place. It’s big enough that we shouldn’t draw too much attention if you dropped me there.”

He nodded, leading me to his car, parked a storefront down from the entrance to his building. His hand rested along my lower back and I wished I wasn’t wearing my stupid coat so I could feel the warmth of his touch, the tenderness in his fingertips. But then the hand suddenly dropped.

“Shit,” he said, seeing the car. Someone broke in the driver’s side window and slashed the tires on that side of the vehicle. Glancing up and down the street, I saw several other cars vandalized as well. Moron kids, probably, trying to cause trouble.

“It’s fine,” I said again. Apparently that’s what I said when I wasn’t fine. “It’s probably better that we say goodbye here.”

Mark turned back to me, and he couldn’t look more dejected even if I’d kicked his puppy. He was only five or so inches taller, but up close he towered over me in a way that made my insides squirm for a whole other reason. I held my breath as he looked down at me, his dark brown eyes a shade brighter in the sunlight.

God, he was handsome.

“Come up while you wait for your ride? I don’t want you waiting by yourself out here.”

I knew what would happen if I went upstairs with him. I would forget my responsibilities, my commitments, and everything that was important in my life. I couldn’t do that, but his presence and care helped bring a little more “Bee” back into me.

I felt more like myself, or at least the brave, confident version of myself I aspired to be. I could be clever, funny, maybe even a little sexy in front of him. That was part of the initial draw he held for me: a complete openness that I wanted to match.

So I raised a saucy eyebrow at him. “You keep inviting me up to your apartment. I thought we already covered that: not gonna happen again, buddy,” I emphasized, poking him in the chest.

His worried look broke into a grin as he grabbed my hand in his. “Even if I promise to behave? I don’t think I even have a condom anywhere on the premises.”

My eyebrow lifted higher. We didn’t use a condom before, but who needed one when you wanted babies? It wasn’t a conscious choice, but we were caught up in the moment—still a poor decision, but our goals aligned, if only for that night. Then the sun rose and reality crashed in on us.

“You promised to behave like a gentleman last time, sir, and look where that landed us.”

“Excuse me, ma’am, but I don’t recall you complaining. In fact, I recall how entirely gentlemanly I was when I made sure you came first before I ever put my cock inside you.”

Oh lord. I shouldn’t have started this conversation, because now I was reliving how good it all was. I met his eyes, knowing the fire that blazed in my own, and I felt the fingers wrapped around my hand twitch, like he wanted to shift them down to somewhere much less gentlemanly. If only.

“A gentleman should keep conversations about his cock to himself in public.”

“A lady shouldn’t talk about a man’s cock at all if she doesn’t want it.”

“I never said I was a lady.” And I never said I didn’t want it.

“Bee. Cut me some slack, here. I’m being the biggest gentleman in the universe by not hauling you back upstairs after all this dirty talk to put your money where your mouth is.”

“And where exactly would my mouth be?”

He groaned, his head falling back as he broke eye contact with me. “Yup. This was definitely the stupidest idea I’ve ever had. I can’t be your friend, either. Friends shouldn’t want to put their cock in their friend’s mouth.”

“Only if they’re really good friends.”

He barked out a laugh before I sobered us both up.

“I can’t be your really good friend, Mark. Bottom line.”

“I know.” He paused and looked my face over, like he was trying to memorize me. “Remember, Bee. Call me if you ever need me.”

Speaking of…

“How did you get my phone number anyway?” I was too shocked to question it last night, but I never gave him my phone number.

“I have my sources.” His eyes brightened with mischief even as he effected a pompous voice, twirling an imaginary handlebar mustache. Then he nodded behind me. “I think that’s your car.”

I turned around just as my phone dinged with a notification. I held a hand up to the driver idling at the curb, then threw myself against Mark’s chest. Hugs were okay, right? People hugged people they weren’t pining over all the time.

“I’ll never forget you,” I said, my voice muffled against his chest.

“I’ll never forget any of it,” he leaned down to whisper back. “It was a dream come true, if only for one night.” His big, burly arms wrapped around my back, making me feel tiny and adored. He pulled back, looking me in the eye again. “About that night. I mean, we didn’t…” His hands moved from my hips to my stomach. “I didn’t even think, but since we didn’t use anything, is there a chance—”

The uber driver, patient woman that she was, honked her horn. I needed to get going, but I had to answer Mark first.

“No,” I said. I already took a test a week ago, and my period even showed up about an hour after the test. “None at all.”

Now he looked like I kicked his whole litter of puppies. Like he would never recover from the pain.

And I just walked away and climbed in my uber.

I checked my reflection in my bathroom mirror one more time before walking back down to the shop to unlock the street door. My father, always punctual, was four feet from the door as I flipped the deadbolt, so I held the door open for him.

“Good morning, Bianca Rose!”

“Morning, Daddy,” I said, accepting his kiss on the cheek. “Come on in.”

“Thank you, cara mia.”

He held an arm around my shoulders, guiding me back inside the shop with him.

“Did you need anything from me today? Why the visit?”

“What, I can’t come see my daughter? I wanted to look at how beautiful you are with your watch.”

I held my arm up for him to see. “It’s absolutely gorgeous, Daddy. Thank you.”

“I’m glad, cara mia. I’m glad. You should never take it off! A beautiful girl deserves to wear beautiful jewelry.”

“Well, I’m not a little girl anymore.”

“This is true. You are a beautiful woman!” I blushed. I had no say over my appearance, but it was still nice to have his approval. “That is part of why I’m here, cara mia. You’re a grown woman now, and I know how much you sacrifice for family.”

He couldn’t possibly know what I sacrificed.

“You put your blood first, as I’ve taught you, and you always drop everything to attend to me when I ask you to. I want to reward you for that.”

“I appreciate it, Daddy. I’ve never seen a more beautiful watch. It’ll practically market the business for me.”

“I love hearing that. But I mean something more substantial. What if you took a more active role in the family business?”

I wasn’t aware I had even a passive role. I didn’t want any role in his family business, but I couldn’t just tell him that.

“I don’t have a background in law,” I laughed, trying to hide my discomfort.

“My darling, you don’t need to play dumb.” I cleared my throat. “I don’t want an answer from you today. It’s an important decision. Think about it. You are an adult, and you’ve proven your loyalty. You could do even more good for the business if you knew you were doing any of it.”

My heart dropped into my stomach. What had I unknowingly done? How did I earn his full trust so suddenly? Why did his words leave me with a prickly feeling on the back of my neck, like he knew more than what he was saying?

Maybe it was time to take the rose-colored glasses off.

“What is it that you do, Daddy? What is the family business?”

“We work hard to make money.” That was a given. “And we don’t give a shit about anyone who stands in our way.”

Your father has done a lot of illegal things, I remembered Mark telling me last night. He's stalked people, had them killed. Engaged in witness tampering, spying on them…

“I’ll think about it,” I told him. I wouldn’t think about accepting his offer, but I’d think hard about what the hell I didn’t know about my own father.

“Good. I believe you could be an asset. I look forward to family dinner with you on Thursday.”

He gave me a final smile, then bowed his head in goodbye and walked out the door. I stood in the window, waiting to give him another smile and wave as he drove past, on his way to his office over in the Financial District.

What the heck was going on? I didn’t understand where this was coming from. I obviously knew that he had illegal stuff going on, but he never actually spoke to me about it. The watch on my wrist felt heavy as an icy dread settled in the pit of my stomach.

I sprinted to the back room for my laptop, opening it in a hurry to pull up my bookkeeping software. I needed to find the paperwork I’d uploaded with the receipt for last month's batch of watches I’d altered for the spyware company. It took forever for the page to load, and even longer to download the PDF to view.

But there it was. That batch had two golden rose watches with a mother-of-pearl face. One contained a GPS chip, the other contained an audio bug, and I’d equipped both watches with a failsafe to alert the voyeur of any tampering.

Conclusion: there was a very good chance the watch on my wrist was bugged.

I might have gained my father’s trust if he overheard me telling Mark no, that family came first, and now he wanted to officially welcome me into the crime family. But I might have lost his trust if he saw me leave my apartment early morning to go to a police officer’s apartment before my shop even opened for the day, and his invite into the business was a test.

It was also possible this was a normal watch, but I couldn’t be sure. If my watch was bugged, my dad would know immediately if I opened it up to analyze the inside. I couldn’t risk checking.

I trusted my father implicitly last night, and it terrified me that I couldn’t say the same was true this morning.

I needed my mom.

I headed behind the large glass island I displayed some bigger pieces in and reached for the radio I kept on the wall shelf. I turned it on and bumped up the volume to hide any noises before I gently took the watch off my wrist and placed it in a drawer behind the display. Then I headed outside to the bookshop next door.

“Busy Bee!” Sam greeted me enthusiastically.

“Hi Sam,” I said with a smile. He and his husband had owned the bookstore longer than I'd been alive; they were staples in the area. “Can you watch the shop for a while? I have to run some errands.”

“Yeah, that’s no problem. Do you want me to head in now, or just keep an eye out for customers?”

“Just keep an eye. I’ll put a sign on the door.” I didn’t want to raise suspicions by having Sam talking in the background, telling customers I wasn’t around if the watch was recording audio.

“Sounds good, Bee. I’ll keep an eye out.”

“Thanks, Sam!” I ran back to my shop, putting a laminated sign on the hook on the door: Be right back, friends. For immediate questions, talk to the bookshop owners next door! with a little arrow pointing to their place.

Sam and Steven might or might not have a matching sign directing their customers to Morelli Timepieces & Vintage they used every so often. We took care of each other.

Then I locked the door and practically sprinted to the parking garage.