8. Leon
8
LEON
A mos Rubio might be a bigger thorn in my side than Mia Natali née Chiavari.
In the three days since I last saw my wife, I’ve been relentlessly throwing myself into my work, eager to distract myself from the festering wound of rejection she left behind.
Only to be pinned down by an altogether different problem.
“He’s moved the shipment again,” Dante reports to me in my office above the casino.
Max doesn’t bother concealing his groan. “Surely, he’s run out of dockyards by now.”
“We’re monitoring everything in Brooklyn.” Dante flops down in the seat next to my second. “Teo’s asking if you can double down here.”
“We spent the last week searching for his new shipment. I don’t have the men to double down again,” I tell him. “How the hell did he find out we were on to him?”
Dante winces in a way that makes me think Teo has been asking the same question. “He’s always been a paranoid bastard.”
“But this quickly?” I press.
He doesn’t rise to the bait. “All we can do is start looking again.”
“If he was importing merchandise into Manhattan, we would have found it by now,” Max answers for us both. “Have you tried New Jersey?”
“The Irish don’t want any part in this.” Dante runs a hand through his dark hair.
“Staten Island?” Max says.
The three of us share a grimace.
With a sigh, I get to my feet. It’s already late, and the lack of sleep I’ve been getting for the last few days is starting to weigh on me.
“Tell Teo I’ll be at the old shipment site tomorrow to see if I can pick up on any clues as to where he might have moved to. But we can’t spare the men to do anything more than keep an eye on our own dockyards.”
“Have you got anyone who can join our search parties?” Dante says a little too carefully. “I think it would help Teo’s gray hairs if we presented a united front.”
I hear exactly what he’s not saying. If there is a leak somewhere, the first place the Guild is going to point is at the Prince’s Hand and, in all honesty, Vitale versa. The alliance might be formally signed, but it’s far too new and fragile to sustain that kind of infighting.
United front it is.
“What about my gray hairs?” I mutter to myself.
Max sighs and stands up. “I can go. But I’m taking Saturday off. I’m fucking exhausted.”
I throw my hands up in the air in comical disbelief. “Since when did you get the idea you could set your own hours?”
“Since I’ve come home every night this week stinking of fish, asshole.”
Dante throws us both an amused look before standing as well. “I’ll get going, too. If there’s an update before tomorrow, I’ll call you, Leon, before you hit the shipment site.”
Exhaustion hits me quite cruelly between the eyes. The last thing I want to do is scramble over to Brooklyn at some ungodly hour tomorrow morning, but I need to be at least seen doing my part by the Guild.
“Thanks.” I get up as well. “Tell Teo to let me know if he has any more ideas about…united efforts.”
Dante thinks about this for a moment. “Matching T-shirts?”
“Couples costumes!” Max clicks his fingers.
Dante smiles at him conspiringly. “Leonardo and Michaelangelo?”
“I was going to say Mario and Luigi. But you’re right. Leon is more of a renaissance guy.”
“I was thinking turtles.”
“All right, get the fuck out of here,” I half-yell at them, and they obediently skitter out of the room.
I’m still shaking my head as I lock up for the night. Simon is at the front desk as I leave. He offers me his usual nod of acknowledgment as I pass. His eyes are ever-assessing. I have no idea what he is thinking most of the time. Somehow, I find that comforting.
I know how I look. I know how much coffee he’s brought me today to compensate for the lack of sleep that’s so clearly etched itself on my face. I blame it on the new house, the new environment. The emptiness of it. The lack of…
The thought of going back suddenly stops seeming so appealing. For a long moment, I debate turning around and spending the rest of my evening lost on the casino floor.
It feels a lot more welcoming than returning to the brownstone alone.
But all this business with Amos Rubio…united efforts… Brooklyn bright and early in the morning, another sleepless night…I may well ruin whatever tentative progress we’ve already made if I can’t even think clearly.
Begrudgingly, I step out into the night and head home.
It’s with an odd sense of deja-vu that I ascend the front steps of the brownstone and walk inside. It’s just another night, another empty house with nothing but Caravaggio for company.
I shouldn’t feel alert. Shouldn’t expect anything out of the ordinary. There’s nothing different per se; it's just a feeling of something .
The house doesn’t feel lonely. It feels like a home.
When I find Mia pacing the lounge, it’s not unexpected.
Her hair is curled up into a bun. A few tendrils have fallen down to frame her face, perfectly out of place. She’s so devastatingly pretty.
She freezes as I lean against the doorframe and cross my arms. I am absolutely not drinking her in like a man parched due to her lack of attention. “I never asked the other day, but how do you keep getting in here?”
This is apparently not what she expected me to say, as her mouth opens in a perfect little “O” shape.
“Would you believe me if I told you I stole the key from under the mat?”
“No, not really.”
She doesn’t elaborate any further. Not that I really expected her to.
“Can I get you a drink? Whiskey?” I ask instead, keeping my tone as neutral as possible.
“No.”
Unyielding, frustrating woman.
With a sigh, I take a step further inside. She takes a measured step back away from me. Deliberate, overly cautious, like she’s learned something from last time.
“This was a mistake,” she says warily. “I should have gone to Teo.”
A pang of unrestrained jealousy hits me out of nowhere, and I try desperately to rein it back in, focusing instead on the woman before me.
Mia looks concerned. Concerned enough to come back here, even after putting very clear boundaries between us last time.
She also looks, quite unfairly, beautiful. There’s something about the night that suits her so perfectly. I think it’s the darkness of her clothes and the way they complement her skin tone. She’s a creature of secrets and shadows, whispers under bed sheets, the knife that you never expect until it’s lodged in your heart.
I mentally chastise myself for getting so distracted. “Why would you go to Teo?”
“You going to pull the ‘you don’t belong to the Guild anymore’ card on me?” she retorts.
“Do I have to?”
She considers me for a moment before dropping down on the couch. “I have a lead on Amos Rubio.”
The silence that stretches between us constricts my breathing. It’s unseemly how quickly that name sets off all my internal alarms. For it to come out of Mia’s mouth…
“How do you have a lead on Amos Rubio?” I say as evenly as I can.
Regardless of my effort for control, Mia clearly picks up on my anger. Her expression becomes more guarded and far more cold than before. “I met with a new client yesterday.”
I close my eyes and breathe in and out twice.
“A new client.”
“Yes.”
“Someone who wanted to hire you as a mercenary,” I clarify.
“Yes.”
I’m suddenly very grateful she declined the drink. This is not the time to have a glass in my hand. “You weren’t supposed to take on any work like that without consulting me.”
“I can’t remember that being a part of our marriage vows.”
“You’re being contrary on purpose.”
She matches my tone entirely. A challenge. I usually love a challenge. “I’ve done everything else you wanted. You don’t control me.”
“You are purposefully putting yourself in danger in spite of my direct instructions. You were supposed to tell me.”
“I’m telling you now.”
“Jesus Christ!” I yell a little louder than necessary.
It makes her flinch. It’s horrific to see. I want to snatch the words back from where they linger in the air between us.
I slowly, carefully take a seat as far from her as possible. “I’m sorry,” I say instead.
She swallows hard. “I’m capable of making my own decisions. I know how to keep myself safe.”
I bite my tongue to stop the protests that bubble up.
Logically, I know she can look after herself. I’ve seen her client list, read through her accomplishments. On paper, Mia is more than capable; she’s effective…ruthless even.
It’s just very different now that I know her, know all the places where she’s soft and warm and wanting. The instinct to protect overwhelms every other rational thought.
“The only reason I’m telling you is because it’s an opportunity the mafioso would kill for,” she looks away. “That, and I need some help.”
The admission takes me by surprise. “Okay. Let’s hear it.”
“Did you know that Amos Rubio has a daughter?” she says slowly. “Her name is Carmen. She just graduated from Princeton.”
I stare at her for a long time. Amos’ private life was one that neither the Guild nor the Prince’s Hand had been able to gather any kind of information on. He was presumed to be widowed, but any reference to a child or children simply did not exist.
Both Isabella and Teo had tried to find information in the depths of the Cartel’s encrypted files but became frustrated when they found that the kingpin was too old school for an electronic trail.
To prove her point, Mia indicates the sheets of paper in the middle of the coffee table. “I double-checked with the admissions office today. Amos Rubio paid her tuition in full.”
I don’t want to know how she managed to extract that presumably extremely confidential information from the Princeton admissions office.
“How did your client know about this?” I ask, glancing warily at the evidence before me.
“My client is Carmen Rubio.”
We stare at each other for what feels like an age.
Anyone else. Anyone else.
If Max had come to me with this, if Dante had. Hell, if that “retired” bastard Rocco Moretti had deigned to visit with this news, I would have cracked open the fucking champagne.
Why did it have to be Mia?
“You just happen to get contract work with the Cartel kingpin’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
“It’s obviously a trap,” I say, even though it doesn’t quite make sense. Because nobody knows that Mia is my wife. Mia isn’t known to be affiliated with anyone.
Mia seems prepared for this line of questioning, though. “That’s what I thought, but this girl…Leon, she’s so green. She barely has any idea what she’s doing aside from the fact she needs help. Amos doesn’t know that she’s hiring me.”
I ignore the way my name on her lips makes my heart clench. “Okay, so we let her hire someone else. You send your apologies and your recommendation. My second is new enough to New York. They won’t look twice at him.”
“That won’t work,” she protests. “She needs a woman, specifically. Someone who won’t stand out at her side during a party. Besides, I’ve already made contact and connection. She trusts me.”
“Then we get another woman to do it,” I counter.
This makes Mia laugh sharply. “Who? Isabella? The Cartel has a target on her back almost as big as yours! There isn’t anyone else, not on this short notice.”
I wish she wasn’t right. God. I wish there was someone else.
“I’m not asking for your permission,” she continues. “The party is on Saturday. I’m going to go. If you want to use this opportunity to your advantage, now is your chance to brief me on what you need.”
Positive IDs on Amos’ inner circle. Car registration numbers. Politicians and high society members with personal invitations. Hell, even a look into the man’s office would at least confirm our theory that the man operates offline.
As a don, there’s no way I can miss out on this. As a husband…
“You said you needed help?” I say, a safer topic.
This, inexplicably, makes her look away. There’s a pretty little flush on her cheeks. “My…er…equipment is a little dated. I need to upgrade a few things, but I’m sort of out of work at the moment.”
I blink at her, suddenly feeling quite blindsided. She’s asking for money. My wife is worried about her finances. I would laugh if the whole thing wasn’t entirely ridiculous.
My wallet is out a second later, and I hand her my black card without hesitation. “I should have given you one sooner.”
“I don’t need your charity.” She stares at the card as if it somehow offends her. “I thought you might give me a forward for the information I manage to acquire at the party.”
I reach for her hand and place the card in her palm, ignoring the way something in my soul sings at the physical contact. “I’m not paying my wife a ‘forward’. This is your money now.”
Very hesitantly, Mia curls her fingers around the card, barely brushing my hand as she does so. Her throat bobs as she swallows hard.
“Okay. What do you need?”