5. Franco
5
FRANCO
I can’t believe it.
Of all the people who could’ve been the only surviving employee from the A&J Deli, it had to be her. Of all the people in the world. Of all the people in New York City, which sometimes seemed to be a world of its own.
It had to be her, the woman who got away from me.
Nothing could’ve prepared me for actually seeing her again. I spent the last ten years of my life wondering about her. She was always on my mind, whether I wanted her there or not. Thinking about Chloe had me running through a gamut of emotions—pain, anger, disdain, and loneliness. They hadn’t readied me for ever seeing her again, but now that I had in one of the unlikeliest situations ever, I could reconcile my dreams of running into her with the reality facing me now.
Chloe Dawson was the employee who ran from the deli. And she would need to be questioned about her involvement there, or what she saw.
I wasn’t ready to question her. First, I had to get over this shock of seeing her. Likewise, I couldn’t touch her and physically keep her under my grip. If I could lay hands on her… I wasn’t sure how I’d react. If I’d want to strangle her for leaving me so cruelly, if I’d want to hold her and comfort her for what happened at the shooting, or if I’d want to hug her tight and beg her to never leave me again. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to ever let her go again, because despite the despair she’d caused me, my heart had never moved on. I wasn’t sure it could. My heart belonged to her, whether I wanted it to or not.
Fortunately, Liam understood that. He seemed to realize quite quickly that I knew this woman and that she was personally aware of who I was. Without my needing to explain a thing, he intuited that he had to take charge for me here. While he handled her, I took the time to try to adjust and get over the shock. It crippled me, and I needed more time to feel like I could handle this how I was expected to as the highest-ranking capo of the Constella Family.
“Franco,” Andy, one of our loyal soldiers, said as he approached.
Liam guided Chloe out the room, and I trailed behind him, taking the chance to really rake my gaze over her to better know that she was here, in my life, not a dream or memory. Her golden locks fell over her shoulders, and those gray-blue eyes were the same captivating orbs that sucked me in as they had before. She was always tall and athletic, very slender and trim, but she had aged into more of a womanly figure over the years with curves to make her all the more enticing.
I nodded at Andy, tearing my gaze from Chloe. I’d asked a crew to follow Liam and me out here, but they’d taken a little longer to arrive.
Thank fuck you’re here now.
“Take…” I sighed, catching myself from uttering her name.
“Take the witness,” Liam instructed as he handed her over to Andy and the other Constella soldier who’d arrived with him.
“Yes, sir,” Andy said, showing no issue with deferring to Liam regardless of how long he’d been working for us. All of them understood that I’d delegated Liam to a higher status from the beginning.
As Andy maneuvered Chloe toward the SUV he’d come in, I tore my stare from her and focused on getting back into my car to resist the temptation of looking at her. She wasn’t going anywhere. She was in our custody, and while Andy drove her back to the Constella properties in the city, Liam and I would follow behind them.
Once we were in the car, I exhaled the full breath that I’d been holding in. Now that I was out of her presence, I could try to steady myself—and prepare to face her again. Seeing her was such a physical hit that I had to work through the stress of such a surprise.
There weren’t many things that could render me feeling like a rug had been swept out from beneath my feet, but encountering Chloe did.
Liam cleared his throat as he started the car and pulled up to tail the other SUV Chloe rode in. “The man I killed in there didn’t say a word.”
Thank you. I appreciated his changing the subject and not bombarding me with questions about how I reacted to seeing Chloe. He was curious. He had to be, but he wasn’t pushing.
“Neither did the man I chased down. He wanted to take his intel to the grave.”
Liam nodded. “I don’t have much experience to make this call, but they didn’t seem like Giovanni soldiers.”
“No, I don’t think they’re Stefan’s soldiers.” I frowned, staring at the SUV in front of us, knowing it wasn’t just any ordinary car but one that held the woman I once loved. “Nor do I think they were bikers from the Devil’s Brothers MC.”
“Agreed. They could be independent contractors, too.”
I nodded. “Let’s say they were. Who hired them to hit us?”
Liam shrugged. “I’m not sure. I haven’t been here long enough to know.”
He had a good point. “And it didn’t look like anyone from the Domino Family, either.”
“Which means it’ll be interesting to hear what this eyewitness can tell us, that new employee who escaped.” He glanced at me. “Will you be able to question her?”
I rubbed my forehead, feeling the start of a tension headache creeping in. “I will.” A bitter grunt escaped me. “When it comes to Chloe, it seems that she will be a living reminder of how I’ll always do my duty above all else.”
“What does that mean?”
It means I was torn from her because of my job once. And I bet it will forever stand between us.
“Who is she? Come on, man. Talk to me. I’ll try to help. If you can’t handle being near her, then I’ll step up where I can. But don’t keep me in the dark.”
Eva and Romeo were aware of how she broke my heart. Dante wasn’t ignorant either, but when it happened, he’d been too busy to get too involved with checking on me.
“That woman was the sweet girl I fell in love with when we were teenagers. We both grew up in Beckson, and we were together in high school.” Junior high, too. “She was my life, but as I got older, I knew that I would be expected to move to the city and work for Dante. I knew that I was expected to get busier with more official roles for Dante in the heart of the organization, just like Romeo was.”
“But you didn’t grow up near Dante and the others?”
I shook my head. “My mother wanted to be closer to her sister-in-law, my aunt, who was in long-term care here. I lived with her since my father died, but it was understood that I was always a part of the Constella organization.”
“Okay. Then what happened?”
She ran.
I zoned out for a second, watching the SUV ahead of us, knowing her days of running were over for now. We wouldn’t let her go until we were finished with her.
“I wanted her to come with me to the city, but her parents were against it.”
Liam huffed. “What, they didn’t approve?”
“No. Not at all. Judge and Mrs. Dawson were self-righteous pricks who did not ever approve of their only daughter dating someone like me, affiliated with the Mafia. She was always arguing with them, insisting that we loved each other and that we should have the chance to be together after she graduated high school. I was done already, just waiting for her to come with me to the city. I came back every weekend to be with her when I was training with Dante and the soldiers in the city. I promised to bring her with me, away from her parents, but she was too scared of their control and displeasing them.
“Instead, she ran. She took off and I never heard from her again. She had a few scholarships to consider, but I don’t know where she went. The day I begged her to consider coming to the city with me, she told me she couldn’t do it. Then she was gone. She didn’t choose me.”
Afterward, I reacted poorly. I immediately shifted to a life of sleeping around and being the ultimate playboy. Flings and one-night stands were supposed to erase the grip she had on me, but it never made a difference. I belonged to her, even though she discarded me and the love we shared. No woman ever compared to her, and she was the measuring stick I held everyone else to. A lifetime of sleeping around couldn’t remove her from my mind. The memories of her lingered until this day.
“Damn.”
I grunted a wry laugh. “Yeah. That sums it up.”
“Then how—or why—did she end up working for a Constella business?”
“I doubt she planned it like this. My guess is that she didn’t know A&J Deli was a Constella front business. If she did, she’d keep a wide berth. Her parents poisoned her to think all of us in the Constella Family are nothing but evil.”
“Well, she was clearly there when the shooting happened. And she might have answers.”
“About her job there,” I said. But not about why she left me. Why she stomped on my heart and rejected the connection we had.
“I can question her,” he offered. “If it’s too much to face her again.”
“No.” I shook my head as the SUV she rode in pulled into the driveway. We’d brought her to the empty house next to the mansion where Dante lived with Nina. The adjacent building wasn’t vacant, but no one currently lived there, which made it an ideal middle ground for anything we might not want to bring to Dante’s home.
“You sure?” Liam asked.
I nodded. I wasn’t sure. I was far from ready to speak with Chloe. I was eager to get answers, to do my job and follow up with the one witness to the shooting. I had to do my job and see to my duty. At the same time, I was burning with curiosity and the urge to demand an answer for how she’d treated me in the past. An explanation for how she could tell me that she’d love me forever, but in the next moment, turn around and tell me that she couldn’t do this with me anymore.
“Yes. I’ll handle it.” I had to. Facing my ex who still held my heart wouldn’t undermine my commitment to my job.
We exited the cars, and with Liam, I stood at the back door to where Chloe would step out. When she did, she faltered in her step.
“Are you all right?” I caught myself from reaching out to steady her. Liam glanced at me as he held her by the elbow.
Dammit. I could not let her see how she still got to me. I couldn’t let her see how much this had thrown me.
“Are you injured?” I asked instead, leaning on the clinical, factual manner of that question.
“No. Just from knocking my head,” she mumbled as she rubbed the spot.
“Get her food and water,” I instructed a guard at the house, no longer able to look at her. It was too hard. I warred with the battle of wanting to hold her and scold her. She had me twisted up, and seeing her so vulnerable and intimidated…
“What about Danicia?” Liam asked, referencing the former ER doctor who worked for the family.
I nodded. “Yes, just to make sure her head wound won’t be an issue.”
“Don’t talk about me as if I’m not here,” she snapped.
I faced her, hardening myself from caring. From worrying. I didn’t last long. I couldn’t look at her and forget about all the pain she’d caused me. She’d wounded me. She broke my heart, and I wasn’t sure I could turn the other cheek and handle facing her, no matter how long ago it was that she’d rejected our love.
“What’s this?” Romeo asked as he walked out of the house, barely having a chance to look at Chloe as the guards took her inside. She hung her head, not brave enough to lift her face.
“The eyewitness from the deli,” Liam answered as I fell under the spell of wanting to go after her. I couldn’t look away, stuck with the loss of her walking further from me. I was damned to look at her and damned if I didn’t.
“Oh?” Romeo glanced at her and then me, furrowing his brow. “What’s wrong?”
I huffed. So much that I can’t begin to cope. “It’s Chloe Dawson.”
He looked back toward her, then did a double-take. “Isn’t that the name of the girl who?—”
“Yeah.” I shook my head and turned. “You can question her. I need a moment to process this.”
A minute wouldn’t be enough to process the whirlwind of seeing the woman I loved and lost again.
I already spent half of my life missing her. And I wasn’t sure if this reunion could be a blessing of having her close to love again… or damnation that could set me free once, and for all.