Heist of the Heart (Morelli Family)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER

ONE

Never in his wildest dreams would the younger Hudson Taylor have pictured himself counting down to midnight on New Year’s Eve at Manhattan's hottest gay nightclub.

Hudson had been kind of a geek as a kid, right into his late teens.

More into Dungeons & Dragons than drugs and dancing.

His older twin sister, Connie, had been the social butterfly of the two of them.

If she could see him now, she'd laugh at him, ask him if he was sure he didn't need a different job than working at Kismet Nightclub.

Hudson, who was currently standing outside the break room waiting for the night’s takings to be counted, smiled as he thought of his sister.

Her memory was still bittersweet, but he liked to think that she would have been happy with his choice of employer, given her own love for the Morelli Family.

Nights like this, another milestone without Connie, made her feel further away and closer at the same time.

On the whole, working for the Mob was not quite as bloody as Hudson had expected. But then, he wasn't technically working for the Morelli Family, but for the Don’s husband: Finch D'Amato, the nightclub owner.

Privately, Hudson found Finch more terrifying than Luca D'Amato. Luca was a stone-cold killer, but Finch’s changeable nature and tendency towards sudden, life-changing decisions made him scarier than the Boss as far as Hudson was concerned.

Speak of the Devil. Finch D'Amato himself walked by, nodding at Hudson.

The last patrons had finally been kicked out, and most of the staff had gone home, but Finch was still there.

Once the guys had finished the accounting in the break room, Finch would accept the takings for the night in his office upstairs and pay out wages to the last few staff members.

He was trailed by his bodyguard for the night, Gio Carlucci.

Gio's eyes slid towards Hudson as they passed, and Hudson quickly looked straight ahead. Gio hadn’t even been rostered on as Finch’s bodyguard that night, so Hudson wasn’t sure why he was here instead of Teo Vitali, the guy Hudson had been expecting.

Gio was a relatively new addition to the rotation of Finch’s regular bodyguards, so maybe Teo had pulled rank and insisted on having New Year’s Eve off.

Finch and Gio were heading across the empty dance floor to the Staff Only door on the other side from Hudson. From there they would go up a flight of stairs and into Finch’s office, where Gio would stand like an unobtrusive statue behind and to the right of Finch, like he usually did.

Hudson didn't like Gio.

He didn't really know Gio, but the guy reminded him of several boys from his youth. The kind of guy who was really into Connie, and saw Hudson hanging around as a necessary sacrifice they had to make to keep the interest of his sister.

Connie had always loved those dark-eyed Italian types, and the truth was, Hudson had found himself painfully sexually attracted to many of Connie's early conquests.

So any man who reminded him of them tended to take him back to that awkward time when he was still uncertain of his own sexuality—and still ashamed.

Connie had been the one to help him get over that, like she’d been there for so many other things in his life.

But now she was gone.

Gio Carlucci was six-months-made with the Morellis, despite having relatives in more than one rival Family.

There had been a lot of discussion over whether to take him into the Morelli fold or not, but Gio had passed whatever tests the Boss had come up with, passed the background checks, and the clincher? He was gay.

So he’d been okayed.

But the way Gio always side-eyed Hudson when they passed in Kismet Nightclub made him nervous. He wasn’t sure what to make of the way Gio looked at him sometimes.

Behind him, Hudson heard an argument start up in the break room again.

He wasn't supposed to go in there while they were counting the money, because the fewer people in there, the fewer people would be to blame if the takings ever went missing, God forbid. But there always had to be two of them counting, to watch each other. It had been a huge night, as they’d expected for New Year’s Eve, despite the shitty DJ who was in there counting out the takings with Ziggy, another staff member.

Now it was well past 4 a.m. and Hudson was ready to go home.

When empty, Kismet always felt melancholy to Hudson, as though it only came alive when filled with dancing bodies. Now it was silent and dim, a deserted temple.

The voices in the break room behind him surged again. There was definitely an argument going on.

Uncertain, Hudson knocked timidly on the door. “Everything okay?” The voices stopped, mid-shout.

“We're fine,” called back Ziggy. Hudson relaxed. Ziggy was solid, a longtime associate of the Morellis. Hudson liked him, though he’d mistaken Ziggy more than once for Gio.

They didn’t really look the same, apart from having dark hair and eyes.

They were even different heights, plus Ziggy was in his forties.

Maybe it was the way they walked, Hudson had decided—confident.

Swaggering, even. So sometimes Hudson got a little jumpy when Ziggy first walked into the club each night, but he was trying to cut that out.

Anyway, the problem wasn't Ziggy. The problem was the idiot in there with him, their current house DJ Bradylixer, which Hudson thought was the stupidest name he’d ever heard for a DJ.

Even now, as Hudson scuffed his shoe against the floor, just for something to do while he waited, he rolled his eyes about that stupid name.

Brady had joined Kismet a few months back on recommendation from another club downtown, when the previous Kismet house DJ moved out of state.

But tonight was Brady's last at Kismet. Finch planned to let him go.

The club would be closed for a week anyway, since Eddie, the manager, was visiting family in Miami, and Finch was planning a trip away with Luca.

Eddie had advised closing for a week once New Year's Eve was done, since in his experience the crowds who came out in the week after that were inevitably more trouble than they were worth.

And if there was one thing Finch didn't want, it was trouble.

Kismet was supposed to be a clean arm of the Morelli operation on orders from the Boss himself.

That meant no drugs, no weapons, and no troublemakers.

Everyone had to check their coats, and a metal detector was installed for patrons to pass through before entering the club itself.

Kismet also had a policy—enforced by security—of no cameras, no cell phone photos, no recordings of any kind.

So far, things had been sweet. And for Hudson the job was fun, the money was great, and the company was usually friendly. Even waiting around as he was then for the takings each night, though boring, was easy enough.

For all of that, he could put up with Gio Carlucci giving him strange looks from time to time.

The voices raised again in the break room behind him. They seemed to be having the same argument they’d had before, beat for beat. Hudson felt a momentary sympathy for Ziggy. They’d all be happy when Brady was gone.

A distant banging distracted Hudson for a moment. It sounded like it was coming from the entrance area, near the cloakroom. He took a few steps across the dance floor. He couldn’t see the doors or Dino, the bouncer, from this angle, but then the banging came again.

“What’s that?” Hudson called.

“Some crazy asshole,” Dino’s voice called back. “Keeps screaming about a coat. Says he left it.”

The doors to the street had been locked, but the metal gate hadn’t been pulled down. The guy outside didn’t seem to be going away. Dino came closer to the dance floor entrance and called, “Whaddya think? Should I let him in?”

Hudson wasn’t sure why he was asking for his opinion. “I guess so, but keep an eye on him,” he said. They’d only just shut for the night and it wasn’t uncommon for someone to come running back, banging to be let in to retrieve a forgotten coat or bag.

Dino nodded as though Hudson had given him permission.

Hudson wandered the few feet back to the break room door, where the argument between Ziggy and Brady was still going on.

In the distance, he could hear some frantic guy yelling about his coat, but inside the club now, and Dino’s deep, firm voice telling him to calm the fuck down.

Hudson started as Art, the cleaner, came out from behind the bar across the large room, the sudden movement surprising him. “Shit,” he muttered under his breath.

Art waved, pulling his cleaning cart across the dance floor. “They out of the break room yet?” he asked. “I wanna get done and get home.”

The door behind Hudson flung open.

“Let's go,” Ziggy growled, shoving the locked cashbox and key into Hudson’s middle, so he had to grab it.

Behind him, Brady was glowering as well.

“All set?” Hudson asked.

“I just fucking said so, didn't I?” Ziggy said.

Hudson winced. Ziggy was usually much more cheerful. But then, if Hudson had just had to spend thirty minutes in a small room with Brady, he’d probably be pretty pissed at the world himself.

“Dino’s not ready,” he began, but Dino appeared at the dance floor entrance. “That guy got his coat?” Hudson called. “Takings are ready.” He held up the box to show Dino.

“He, uh, he disappeared.”

Hudson stared at him. “What do you mean, he disappeared?”

“I turned around to look through the coats and when I turned back, he was gone. Just now, I mean. Did he come through here?”

“No, I’ve been standing right here.” From the entrance area and coat check there was only one way to come—through to the dance floor.

There was a connecting door and passageway from the cloakroom behind the checking counter, which led through into the break room, but with Dino in the cloakroom looking for his coat, the guy couldn’t have gone through there.

“He must have left, or maybe he’s in the bathroom,” Hudson suggested.

There was a bathroom at the entrance of the club opposite the cloakroom. It was supposed to be staff-only, but in practice tended to be used by anyone who knew it was there.

“We need to get moving,” Ziggy said abruptly. “Go throw him out.”

“Let the man take his dump in peace,” Brady protested.

“Ah, you guys, no need to argue. I’ll see him out,” Art said. “The sooner Mr. D’Amato has the money, the sooner we all get paid, the sooner we can go home.”

Dino had walked further into the dance area now to hear better.

“No,” Hudson said firmly. “God only knows who he is.” There had been so much trouble for the Morellis that Hudson wasn’t prepared to chance anything.

Still, Finch D’Amato had been telling him lately to start making decisions on his own.

Trust his own judgment more. So Hudson hesitated to go and interrupt him for advice, especially when Gio Carlucci would be up there in the office, too, staring at Hudson while Finch got irritated with him.

He came to a decision. “Dino, Ziggy, you guys go together and see—”

Brady started cackling. “If Dino can’t take care of one asshole on his own, what you paying him for?”

He had a point. Hudson looked across at Dino, who took up almost the entire width of the internal double doors. Dino was glaring at Brady. “I can take care of it,” he growled, before Hudson even asked.

“Okay,” Hudson said. “But take your gun.” Dino looked surprised, but nodded. “And lock the front door again, as well as those doors through to the main club. I don’t want him slipping by.”

“Sure thing,” Dino said, and lumbered off.

Hudson locked the break room door too, just in case the guy started wandering and found his way through the back rooms. At least that way he’d be confined to the entrance, cloakroom, and break room.

It would probably all be fine, Hudson told himself.