3. Under the Skin
three
Under the Skin
Romeo didn’t touch her again. Not that she had really expected him to. If she were honest with herself, somewhere in the back of her mind Grace had hoped he would rebel. That whatever it was that had compelled him to kiss her once was powerful enough to drive him to try again, in some way. She knew it was stupid, even childish. The remnants of a youthful, overly romantic optimism she apparently hadn’t fully stomped out.
Those remnants sure felt stomped out by the time she settled into her seat at the table beside her usual boss, all her supplies in order for the afternoon’s meeting. Lunch was over an hour behind her and still it was as if something were stabbing into her chest with every intake of breath. She was glad not to be running this meeting, but only responsible for quietly taking notes so Dante could focus on commanding the room.
She watched as stoically as she could while the room filled with men in suits. Most of them lean or too pudgy, most of their suits impeccably fitted, all of them less impressive both in stature and in presence than the man hosting the meeting. Equally less impressive than the man who’d kissed her in the back of his chauffeured SUV not two hours earlier.
Get your head straight, girl. This was not the time to be wallowing. She could do that after work, alone in her upscale apartment.
Grace managed to tune in by the time the meeting itself began. Her favorite thing about the meetings her boss personally ran was the comparative lack of fluff. He didn’t allow idle chatter to take over the room for any length of time, instead always making sure the room’s attention was where it most needed to be. This talent of his also made it easy for Grace to keep to her task of observing the others and noting important responses, as well as any new or otherwise significant information. Despite being seated directly at the table, she may as well have been invisible in groups such as these.
The meeting was fully underway when Dante went unexpectedly silent. She lifted her head, pen poised, and turned slowly toward her boss to find him scowling at his phone.
Generally he disapproved of cell phone use in meetings, but he owned multiple independent businesses and had a pregnant wife, so there were plenty of reasons he needed to keep his on. It was still rare for him to interrupt himself long enough to catch attention. Rare, but not altogether unheard of.
“Gentlemen, if you’ll give me just a moment.” He cut his stare to Grace. “Grab your things,” he said, tucking away his phone and starting toward the door.
My … things? Grace refused to look around the table or otherwise acknowledge the flush of embarrassment she could feel burning her cheeks as she hurried to scoop up her materials. She hesitated for a moment, but chose to leave the binder that pertained specifically to the meeting. There was no other place she could have need of it, and if she was about to lose her job, she certainly wasn’t taking it home. I’m not about to lose my job. Unless somehow Dante had heard about the kiss, then she supposed it wouldn’t be out of the question.
She met Dante on the other side of the conference room door, tablet, notepad, phone, and pen set clasped against her chest. “Is something the matter, Mr. De Salvo?”
He slid a brief glare down the hall. “Romeo’s meeting isn’t over yet,” he said. “I need you step in and take over for him. Something’s come up elsewhere I need him to handle for me.”
Grace blinked. She opened her mouth to ask him to repeat himself, but managed to catch the words before they escaped and swallowed them back. It didn’t matter if the request was strange, it still fell within the parameters of her job. She’d heard horror stories of much weirder, more questionable asks than that. “Of course, sir.” She paused for a beat, fingering her notebook. “Should I leave my notes?”
Dante was already reaching for the door. “No.” He slipped inside without another word.
She dragged in a breath, turned, and marched down the hall. At least she had some idea what Romeo’s meeting was about, so while coming in halfway through was unappealing, she was sure she could manage. It was just … going to be awkward. Not unlike their lunch had ended up being.
She had no business feeling rejected when she was the one who’d given voice to the problematic nature of anything happening between them. All he’d really done was agree, and respect her implicit wishes. She needed to do the same, for her own sake.
She still had to take an extra moment to push down her errant emotions before tapping sharply on the door, counting to five, and poking her head inside. Businessmen didn’t like to be interrupted, let alone barged in on.
As she’d expected, a room full of only semi-familiar faces—three of them actually female—swung around to her. Nearly all of them with some degree of visible displeasure. Romeo, standing at the head of the table and therefore across the room, blinked once at her before lifting his hand to the group at large. “Just a second, please,” he said, already striding around to greet her. He lowered his voice as she pushed the door wider. “Grace, is something wrong?”
She waited until the door was closed again, offering them a semblance of privacy. As long as they spoke softly. “Something seems to have come up, and I’m told you’re needed elsewhere. He didn’t give me specifics, but it seemed urgent.”
Romeo scowled. “I’ve got at least another twenty minutes here.” He was already dipping his hand into his coat, where he probably had his phone.
“I’m to take over,” she said as matter-of-factly as she could. “I saw the notes this morning. I’m sure I can handle this for you.”
He lowered his phone to his side without looking at it, studying her instead. A shadow of a smile softened his expression after a beat and he said, “I’ll trust it to you, then.” He took a half-step forward, at an angle to walk past her, but instead leaned closer and dropped his voice to a murmur. “Call me if you have trouble.”
Something about the tone of his voice, or the way his words whispered against the shell of her ear, sent a delicious shiver rolling down her spine. The breath caught in her chest and all she could do was watch as he strode away without even a backward glance.
Grace gave herself a shake, shifted her armload to the crook of her elbow, and stepped into the conference room. She pretended not to be mildly offended at the looks of irritation and building outrage on the other professionals’ faces as she quietly walked around to the position Romeo had abandoned. His notes weren’t even open, and she found that endearing somehow. She liked a confident man.
She set her things down beside his and smiled at the frowns still aimed her way. “My apologies for the interruption,” she said in her most placating tone. “Mr. De Salvo’s had to step away, so I’ll be taking over the rest of the meeting on his behalf.”
The late-forties businesswoman with the silver-dyed hair who was seated three seats in on the right lifted her pointed chin, eyes narrowed. “And who are you that we should tolerate that? This is unprofessional. I have half a mind to march right down to Dante’s office this very second.”
The man on her immediate right nodded like a bobblehead, loudly humming agreement.
Grace’s smile didn’t falter. “My name is Grace Mariner, and I assure you I have Dante De Salvo’s authority today. But I’ll be happy to file any and all complaints at the conclusion of this meeting.” She hadn’t personally met any of the individuals in the room before, but she wasn’t surprised by the dawning recognition that settled on most of their faces. DS Industries wasn’t her company, but Grace did a damn lot of the work keeping it running. Including making and maintaining connections.
Mrs. Edwards averted her gaze. “Well, I suppose we can hear what you have to say.”
The portly man at the opposite end of the table offered a smile that felt genuine. “I believe Romeo was just about to crunch the numbers for us, if you’d be so kind, Ms. Mariner.”
He should have fucking known the Ink Blots would resurface during the worst month of the year. The upstart gang that had first picked a fight with their family back in August of the previous year had gone eerily silent in the wake of Cristiano’s killing of one of their more prominent members. The big names they’d managed to learn—Cezar Barros, Gustavo Ramires, and financial backer Brendan motherfucking Coughlan—had all vanished in the night.
Romeo knew he wasn’t the only one who’d figured they were regrouping, probably trying to think up a smarter strategy. He also knew they’d all waded through the holiday season like they were walking through a fucking minefield, constantly waiting for the crap to start up again.
Apparently, it was time, or some low-ranking Ink Blot had just gotten bored of sitting on his hands. Either way, the family hadn’t forgotten. So when word hit that one of their properties was being tagged, they took it seriously. Especially since the moron doing the tagging wasn’t even being subtle about it.
Romeo cursed at the image on his screen as Mo drove him to the necessary location. All their properties were outfitted with top-of-the-line CCTV, which Mikey and his specially chosen team of tech nerds kept running at optimum capacity. It didn’t seem like the gangster had even looked for cameras—not that theirs were easy to spot—before he’d started spraying. Black spray paint dotted the long wall, each time in more or less the same shape.
A goddamn, motherfucking four-leaf clover.
No way in hell this wasn’t a message from Coughlan himself. The arrogant bastard.
Romeo thumbed open his contacts and dialed his younger brother. As soon as the line connected, he asked, “Has Cris seen this yet?”
“I didn’t see the point in pissing him off, since he’s out of town,” Mikey said.
Romeo let his head drop against the headrest. “When’s he due in?”
“Depends on the weather. Could be tonight.”
“Then I better get whatever answers I can on my first crack.” The whole family had something akin to trigger-rage when it came to the name Coughlan, but none of them worse or with more justification than Cristiano. They’d all lost to the Coughlan Mob, in some capacity, decades before. Not one of them had lost more than Cris, whose parents had been brutally slain while he was just a boy. Romeo remembered his cousin—more like a brother to him—just sitting in deathly silence for days, and being told not to pester him. He remembered his own father crying, and not understanding why or even how such a strong man could be made to cry.
He also remembered the shock and fury they had all felt to learn that the sole surviving Coughlan was the power behind their new, endless pest problem.
“Ryōma’s holding the scene for you,” Mikey said, drawing Romeo’s focus. “I think he’s been a little bored lately.”
Romeo snorted and straightened. “He should’ve gone with his buddy, then. He does usually.”
“Right. Would you be playing third-wheel with either of the newlyweds in our family?” Mikey didn’t pause long enough for a response. “Just let me know what you need from me. I’ve got a crew on standby.”
Romeo lowered his phone to his lap again, the call already disconnected. His brother was right, of course. It was kind of nauseating being in a room with Dante and Iris or Cris and Felicity, let alone both couples, for too long. He was happy for them, genuinely, but actually witnessing that?
His eyes betrayed him, gaze sliding to the empty seat at his side. He’d known taking her to lunch was a risk, but he’d thought he could handle it. It wasn’t something they’d never done before. Until she’d said that outrageous thing about being replaceable .
It still pissed him off.
Almost as much as the tears he’d seen in her eyes after he kissed her. After her quiet reminder, practically a question, of how recklessly irresponsible it was for him to have touched her at all.
He knew she’d responded. He’d felt it. No matter how brief or soft the movement had been, he couldn’t have missed it. Between that and the tone in her voice when she’d finally spoken, he was sure he wasn’t the only one who felt something. The difference was that Grace was a good girl. She probably kind of needed her job, or at least the possibility of a good reference from it, and he would be the world’s biggest fucking asshole to pressure her once he understood all that. No matter how badly he wanted her. No matter how strongly he wanted to brush away her tears.
It had been a long time since Romeo acknowledged regret, but he’d messed up that afternoon, and he hadn’t yet figured out how to fix it.
“We’re here, Rome,” Mo said as the SUV came to a stop. “Need me to come inside this time?”
Romeo blew out a breath, unbuckled, and belatedly remembered to turn off his phone. He’d have Mikey clean that up later. “Let’s see what the scene’s like. I’ll probably have you holding down the house.”
“Got it.”
They stepped from the vehicle and Romeo led the way up to the seemingly unguarded door. He dropped his fist once against the surface and waited impatiently while the men inside responded. The door was pulled open promptly.
“Afternoon, sir,” the guard at the door said with a nod.
Romeo nodded back. “Where’s the dirtbag?”
“Collecting dust in the basement, of course,” Ryōma said as he emerged from main hall. The Japanese man grinned and offered a partial wave in a greeting entirely uncustomary to the culture he had actually been born in. But then, as far as Romeo knew, every single thing about the man was atypical. For one thing, it wasn’t every day an Italian mafia family took in a guy who’d once been yakuza.
Romeo waited until the door was shut behind him again, Mo’s presence familiar and reassuring at his back. “Mikey says you’re the one who brought him in.”
“Caught him in the act,” Ryōma confirmed. He made a tsking sound. “Don’t know what there is to get out of the guy, but I left him for you.”
Romeo rolled that over for a second. Normally Ryōma was Cristiano’s veritable partner-in-crime, and Cris was the family’s go-to enforcer. Romeo certainly wasn’t incapable, but he knew when someone else was better than him at something. He met Ryōma’s stare again. “You’re with me.” He made a single flick of a motion with his hand. “Mo’s in charge up here ‘til I’m done.”
“Yes, sir,” the men in the room responded.
Romeo continued forward, angling past Ryōma to take the lead again. They moved down the hall and down the steps that descended into the basement, where he found exactly what he expected. Two more guards, stoically keeping watch over the punk who’d been caught tagging Dante’s warehouse. The punk himself was sitting on the floor, wrapped in chains around the torso with his ankles zip-tied and a gag over his mouth.
The punk gangster lifted a glare to him as Romeo stepped into his line of sight. He attempted to say something, the glare insinuating it was some kind of curse, but the gag muffled every syllable.
Romeo rolled his eyes. “Get the gag off. Obviously, our friend here can’t talk with his mouth covered.”
Ryōma obligingly stepped forward and tugged the bunched fabric free, letting it fall to the gangster’s lap.
“Fuck you,” the guy said to Ryōma. He returned his glare to Romeo. “Fuck you, too, De Salvo.”
Romeo let a slow smirk lift his lips. “Oh, so you know who I am?” He tugged up his pants and dropped into a crouch, lowering himself to eye-level. “That should make this easier, then.” He held out one hand, palm up, never breaking eye-contact. “Get me something solid.”
The gangster’s eyes widened as he watched movement beyond Romeo’s peripheral vision, seconds before something heavy was set in Romeo’s palm.
Romeo pulled it forward so they could both see it. “Ball-peen, nice.” He rolled the hammer around until he found the right grip and waved the heavy-duty top end in front of the nameless gangster’s face. “So, let’s start with something easy. What do I call you?”
The gangster swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple seeming to drag the length of his throat. “I’m an Ink Blot.”
Romeo arched a brow and deliberately let the hammer tip toward the gangster’s nearest knee. He wouldn’t actually start with a knee—much too cliché—but the punk didn’t need to know that. “That’s not news.”
“I—” He sucked in a breath as if he were preparing himself, squared his shoulders, and lifted his chin. “I am a goddamn Ink Blot!”
Romeo sighed. This one was going to need a little persuasion, then. He spun the hammer around with a tight twist of his wrist and cracked the rounded end against the inside of the gangster’s opposite ankle. The bone splintered audibly and a half-second later the punk let loose a wrenching shriek from the sudden pain.
The first scream always was the worst.
Romeo counted to ten in his head, letting the pain radiate through the punk’s body and letting the punk sit with it, before carefully tapping the hammer against that same ankle just above where he’d already struck. The screaming stopped immediately. “Now,” he said, “one more time. I don’t even fucking care if it’s the name your momma gave you or some stupid ass street name you got from your buddies a week ago. Let’s be civil about this. What do I call you?”
The gangster panted heavily, shifting in his chains but obviously aware they were anchored to the floor directly behind him. There was nowhere he could even crawl. “M-my blood is ink … and we will blot your name … o-off these streets!”
Romeo stared at him. “Did you guys just hear the same shit I just heard?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Unfortunately.”
Romeo sighed. All four of them had heard it, so he hadn’t suddenly started hallucinating. “I gave you two chances, dumbass,” he said to the gangster. “I don’t believe in three.” He spun the hammer in his palm, mostly because he enjoyed the resurgence of fear in the punk’s eyes. “So, you are now and for the rest of your existence ‘Dumbass.’ But I will ask you one more question.” He pressed the top of the hammer to Dumbass’s abdomen, below the wrap of chains. “Is this little stunt the start of a new round of bloodshed between us?”
Dumbass licked his lips, shifting his weight again. He winced when the movement impacted his shattered ankle and heaved for more breath. “Y-you De Salvos really are … monsters.” He swallowed hard. “You deserve … what you’re gonna get. Fucker.”
“Hm. Nope.” Romeo stood and tossed the hammer to the side. He reached behind him and lifted the handgun he’d grabbed from the SUV on the way over, automatically going through the motions of chambering a round as familiar numbness settled over him. This kind of shit was exactly why Cristiano was better at these sorts of interrogations. He just didn’t have the long-game patience.
Dumbass’s eyes went unnaturally wide. “W-wait, don’t you wanna—”
“Time’s up.” Romeo pulled the trigger exactly once, blowing a hole in the bastard’s head barely an inch above his nose. He reset the safety and tucked the gun away, then turned his back on the corpse at his feet. “Mikey will send a team. Keep the building secure until then, and tell them to save the hammer. I like it.”
Ryōma nodded once. “You got it.”
Romeo strode swiftly up the stairs, his expression undoubtedly saying everything the gunshot hadn’t already told the waiting men.
Mo pulled the door open for him. “Let’s get you home and cleaned up, sir. I’ll get Mikey on the phone for you.”
Romeo didn’t have anything to say, so he allowed his friend and longtime guard to lead the way, to open the SUV door for him, and to put his brother on speaker when they were a handful of miles away. Only then did Romeo inform his sibling that it was time to send in the team. He told Mikey what he’d gleaned, which wasn’t much and felt more frustrating than anything, and when the call was over, they descended into silence.
It wasn’t that he thought he should have found another way. He wasn’t so altruistic. It was that every time he took a man’s life in recent years, he found himself wondering how long before everything fell apart. If he got caught—if they got caught—Lucia would be all alone. Even their mother could be locked up, merely for all she knew and didn’t say. Lucia would be tossed in the system, not even allowed her own inheritance most likely. Or worse … worse, the government would actually find her mother.
Romeo had no fucking clue where Amber was, but the fact that she’d chosen to run away when her daughter had been only three months old was enough for him to be sure she needed to stay there. And if she hadn’t been able to hack it when she’d had a partner to lean on, a goddamn team of willing staff and family to help out, there was no way she’d be suitable to a growing and increasingly spirited child.
He had to do what he had to do to protect his family, his entire family. He knew that. But damn, if they ever fucked up, he had so much to lose.
It almost made him want to get married, just so Lucy could have a legal parent in the event everything else fell to shit. Except he knew himself too well. He could never bring a woman into his life, his home, unless he trusted her—unless she meant something significant to him. She would have to, if he were going to trust her with Lucy. And that woman, well, obviously he’d tell her his truth eventually.
Romeo let out a tired sigh and found himself staring at the empty seat behind Mo again. The one where Grace had sat hours earlier.
She really was too deep under his skin.