16. Stephanie Hollis
SIXTEEN
STEPHANIE HOLLIS
The knock at the door had me glancing up from where I’d been sitting on the coach reading.
Miceli had given Kyle and me another day to rest and recuperate before I went back to work.
Kyle spent more time in the gym with Benny and the guys, learning new techniques, in case he had to protect us again.
I hated this. Hated all the fear. The worry.
Hated knowing that at the very moment I sat there, on a coach, doing nothing, someone was inside Miceli’s home and we could all pay the price.
The second knock jolted me out of my stupor.
I’d been so caught up in myself, I’d probably stared at the same section of words for the last hour.
The book was good too. Putting the reader down, I went to the door.
Robbie was there, his expression grim. His features tight.
I couldn’t say for sure why his presence panicked me, but I dreaded opening the door the second he knocked again.
“Hey, Princess,” he murmured, as though knowing I wasn’t in any shape to hear what he had to say to me. “I know this is shit timing, but Miceli needs you and Kyle.” He gave me a small reassuring smile. “It’s pretty important.”
“O-Okay,” I muttered. “Did he say what’s happened?” My palms were sweaty. Dread poured through my veins. “Kyle’s with Antonio and Benny.”
“I think if everything works out, you’re going to like who’s here.” The way he said it had me holding my breath. I wanted to be optimistic, but too many times, any promising things Kyle and I might have found turned to ash.
“I don’t want to be given hope,” I said, slipping my sandals on. “Not right now. Not after everything.”
“I know.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulder as we started for the main house. “You could always run away with me.” He gave me a cheesy grin, which made me laugh. “We’d have fun together.”
“I’d love that.”
“But?” He cocked a brow.
“But,” I said, exhaling, “I think I’m in love with Miceli.”
“Kind of figured as much,” Robbie said, stopping to open the door. “It was worth a shot.”
I went to the door to the office while Robbie went to the basement to retrieve Kyle.
I knocked first, then opened the door, taken aback by how many people were already inside.
The man I knew as Ellory was the PI. The second man, he was like a distant memory.
Younger, maybe? I couldn’t place him even if my mind said I should know him.
Did he work for Miceli? Another one of his bodyguards? “Miceli?”
“Stephanie,” he whispered, crossing to join me. “Where’s Kyle?” He guided me over to the desk where the other two men sat.
“He’s with Benny and Antonio,” I replied.
Miceli frowned. “He should be resting.”
I snorted. “You try telling him that. He’s a pain in my ass.”
Both men, who sat opposite of us, chuckled before Miceli cleared his throat. “You know Ellory, but this is FBI Agent Di Angelo.”
Of everything he could have said about the other man, covered in tattoos with brilliant topaz eyes and a dimple in his right cheek, FBI wasn’t one of them.
I saw the tattoo on the back of his hand.
“Bullshit. You’re not FBI. I know you. I can’t place you because I can’t remember how I know you, but I do. He’s lying, Miceli.”
The man bowed his head. “She is perceptive.” My heart pounded. Miceli promised he wouldn’t harm me but being in the room with two assassins, I was going to die. I already knew it. I’d ran out of usefulness.
“I’m here,” Kyle said, stepping into the office. “What the fuck is this?” He stormed to my side, blocking out Ellory’s and Agent Di Angelo’s gazes. “What have you done, Miceli?”
“Well, they’re both fucking smarter than I’d given them credit for,” Agent Di Angelo said. “Shit.”
“We should start from the?—”
“No.” I shook my head. “No. You promised, Miceli. You said I was safe here. He’s not safe at all.” The agent looked at me. “I know him. I know what he is. I know what you do. Why? Why did you do this to me? Is what we shared a joke to you? Did you really even care to begin with?”
Miceli grabbed my upper arms and gave me a good shake, throwing me out of the panic state I’d been in. “Settle. Let me get a word in edge wise.”
I didn’t want to. I needed to run, and I should have done it the day of the attempted kidnapping, but I allowed him to use pretty words and my vulnerability against me.
Miceli didn’t care about me. I was a means to an end for him.
He was probably going to sacrifice me to save his daughter.
Hell, if I was in his position, I’d do the same to save my brother.
“I’m not the bad guy, Ms. Hollis,” Agent Di Angelo said. “I promise. I am not here on family business.”
“Sure, you’re not,” I snapped. “You’d say that even if you were.” Everything was spiraling out of control. My life was forfeited now. I was going to die.
“At least she knows not to trust you,” Miceli muttered, then looked at me. “He’s here because of your father.”
Gut punched. I stared at Miceli. The whirl in my mind of how to get out of there and where to go so I could hide came to an abrupt stop. Confusion clouded my ability to plan my escape. He’d done this on purpose to stall me, right? “What?”
“I am here to help solve who killed your parents,” Agent Di Angelo repeated. “I am also here to finally close Rosalina Daidone’s unsolved murder case.”
The starch bled from my body, and I sagged into Miceli’s embrace. “You’re not going to kill Kyle or me?”
He shook his head. “No, I’m here to hopefully help you come out of hiding.”
“We can’t,” Kyle said. “You don’t know how close we’ve come to dying over the last year.”
“You can with us,” Agent Di Angelo said. “I will help you, but I need you to trust all of us.” He cut his gaze to Miceli before proceeding. “We’re going to lay a trap.”
“I told you!” Kyle barked. “It’s a fucking lie.
They used you, Miceli. I said, the shit about my father isn’t the truth.
They are exploiting your guilt to finish the job of eliminating us!
” Kyle ran his fingers through his hair and tugged.
“Fucking spooks. Fucking Anarchists. Fucking Table. I’ll never go back to being on the run.
I’d rather kill all of you before dying. ”
I believed my brother. He’d die trying to save us. Of that, I had no doubts. “Kyle, we should hear them out.”
“No. I told you. They’d used our parent’s death as a pretense for killing us. Didn’t I?” I didn’t disagree with him, but... “See, this is to make sure the last remaining family members are fully off the playing field. They knew we weren’t dead, Stephanie. Now, they can finish the job.”
“Hold on there, kid,” Agent Di Angelo said. “I’m not here to kill you or put you back in the spotlight. We just wanted to tell them you’re alive so we can get access to your house. You’re going to stay right here with Miceli and his men.”
Kyle sat down heavy on the corner of Miceli’s desk, knocking over little trinkets and a picture frame as he did. “What?”
“Their instincts are good,” Agent Di Angelo said. “Please call me Rocco. All my friends do, anyway.” He gave a small, affable smile as he straightened in the chair.
“What the fuck is going on here?” My brother sounded like a frightened child, not the man he was becoming. I hated his small voice. The scared version of him. The same way he sounded when he woke up following his surgery, after the shitty repair to his shoulder.
“Shall we start from the beginning?” Miceli said, guiding me to his chair so I could sit curled in his lap.
“First, I’d never put either of you in harm’s way.
” The way his voice vibrated through me pushed away the chilled shell surrounding me.
“Second, Ellory wouldn’t have brought Rocco to my house if he thought Rocco was a danger to any of us. ”
I suspected that wasn’t the full truth, but I left my anxiety to simmer while I listened. I had to trust Miceli now more than ever. If Rocco was how I got my life back and Kyle’s, then I’d do whatever was asked. Later, I’d do my own investigation into Agent Di Angelo. “Okay.”
“Stephanie,” Rocco began. “I didn’t think you’d remember me to start with.
You were a little girl, a baby. First, I need to tell you, your father has been with the families for a long time, longer than I have.
Second, you should know, like your father, I too was recruited for the FBI through our involvement in the families. ”
“What?” I sat there dumbfounded by Rocco’s admission. They were part of the Table, together. Well, duh. The tattoo says it all . “I don’t really understand any of this.”
“It’s why we wouldn’t have known,” Kyle murmured. “Because nothing changed.”
“Bingo,” Ellory stated. “Now you’re seeing it. I’m sorry, kid. I wish I was quicker on the uptake. Had I been, we could have saved both of you from getting into trouble again.”
Kyle shook his head. “Nah, we knew better, too. We got antsy.”
“Kyle and I had money for the first time in almost a year,” I snorted.
“We... I—I got a little... No, what am I saying? Kyle’s right, we—I got antsy.
This is all my fault.” Nibbling on my bottom lip, I frowned.
We’d been here too long. Things were bound to happen.
Maybe I’d predicted the coming storm with the stuff that happened with Brooke?
So, I wanted to get a head start this time?
“We were going to run. I should’ve always told the truth to Miceli, instead I made our situation worse, manipulated it. ”
I made his life worse.
“Never,” Miceli whispered. “You made mine—mine and Rocca’s life better.” He pressed his lips to my temple, earning a few throat clearings from the others. “Do you want to help the agent with this case?”
My head bobbed in a bashful nod. “Yes. If it means having our lives back. If it means finally putting our parents to rest, then I’ll do it.”