Chapter 6
Lula
Three months later…
As far assafe houses go, a three-story house on the river isn’t bad. Here, I do my work on a secure server, mostly contracts for businesses or land deals that Royal makes with one of the other families that rule Metropolis. Rebuilding what our idiot fathers gambled away.
An hour after my shootout with Bruno, Royal picked me up and brought me to his home. He sent men to the restaurant, but the place was cleared out, with only a few bodies left on the floor. We had a shouting fight that he won, and then he brought me straight here under the cover of night.
Rumor on the street is that Stephanos is still alive, suffering minor injuries from a bullet to the shoulder. He’s convalescing the same way he’s survived the past few decades, by burrowing deep into Metropolis’ underworld like a rat. He’s spent a lifetime avoiding the four main crime Families, carving out a living on the edges of our territory, scavenging for scraps, and he’s good at it.
My mother’s death is still unavenged. But I’m alive and hidden from retaliation in a safe house Royal insisted on. I have a desk and a row machine on the deck facing the water. It’s boring in a Zen way.
Today, the heat is a heavy blanket in the air, making the afternoon hours stretch long and lazy. It’s perfect for naps but less perfect for trying to focus on contract law. Alas, contract law is what pays the bills.
My phone rings, and I reach for it, only to realize it’s not my cell. It’s another phone I keep tucked away like a dirty secret—the burner I took from Victor after our night together. I don’t know why I held on to it, much less kept it charged and close by. It sits in its own bottom drawer, and now it’s buzzing angrily, waiting for me to make a decision. I snatch it up and answer it, but keep quiet as I hold it to my ear.
The moment is charged with electricity. There’s a twinge in my thigh right where I was wounded in the shootout.
There’s silence on the other end of the line. I bite my lip to keep from shrieking. Who is this? Who called me? As far as I know, only Victor used this phone and only to contact Stephanos. It’s standard protocol for a professional hitman—buy a burner phone, use it for a single job, then toss it. I never tried using the phone to lock onto Stephanos. I didn’t think it would work. Could he be calling now?
I’m about to say something when I hear a slight sound. A sigh, a heavy gust of labored breathing, and then one word.
“Vera.”
I hang up and let the burner phone fall into its drawer with a clatter. Adrenaline blasts up my arms, screaming at me to run, run, run!
I know who called me. That rasping voice filled with the threat of revenge could only be Victor.
My small Sig Sauer lives in another drawer, always loaded. The cool weight settles into my palm. I switch off the safety and set off on a jerky walk around the house, checking locks, closing the sliding door that leads to the deck, and arming the security system. I search each room, gun first, and deconstruct every shadow.
I end up in the kitchen. I keep my gun close, safety still off. The trees between me and the river sway, sending shadows flickering across the glass panes of the French doors. Any moment, I expect the dark shapes to morph into a six-foot-something hitman with a cruel smile. But they never do.
He’s not here. Of course, he isn’t. He’s not a bogeyman haunting me.
He’s not dead, either, apparently. A part of me hoped he wasn’t. Another shameful part conjures him up regularly as a nighttime companion. In the hours between sleeping and waking, my subconscious recalls the orgasms he gave me and makes new fantasies. I wake throbbing with arousal and stroke myself to completion, always with Victor’s name on my tongue when I come.
Try as I might, I haven’t been able to exorcize him completely. And now he’s called me.
I’m safe here. Royal equipped this place with the best of the best. He posted a guard for a while before I argued that two dark-haired men lurking in the driveway would draw more attention from the wealthy neighbors than a standoffish single woman living alone. I promised to be careful. Then I took him to the range and showed him my shooting scores, and he finally backed off.
Dusk falls. I eat my dinner of yogurt and a handful of walnuts at the kitchen counter, watching the sun’s golden fingers stretch across the water, slowly losing its battle with the oncoming night.
I realize I’m rubbing my chest and drop my hand. I miss my sword necklace. I could replace it, but I want my old one back.
I drink a glass of water, then give in to my cravings and open a bottle of wine. A brassy merlot, bold enough to wash the rest of my jitters away.
My phone rings again. I jump ten feet into the air before I realize it’s my real one.
“Royal,” I answer. “Checking in so soon?” We had a phone meeting only this morning.
“I can’t check in on my favorite cousin?” His voice is warm. He’s always happier at night after he’s been home for a few hours with his wife.
“Oh, so now I’m your favorite? You only say that because I negotiated that deal right from under the Vesuvi’s nose.”
“I poured some prosecco to celebrate.”
“I’ve got my red wine.” I hold up my glass in an unseen toast. “But don’t expect the deal to hold them.”
“I do not. The best way to deal with the Vesuvi is blunt force. But you have a knack for legal warfare.” There’s a long pause, and I know the subject he’s going to broach next. “Lula, we’ve spoken of this before?—”
Here it comes. I take a big swallow of merlot.
“But it’s been long enough. It’s time for you to accept your rightful place.”
“A woman can’t be consigliere. The men won’t have it.” If my father was alive, he’d be turning purple at the mere thought of all the work I do for La Famiglia.
“It’s a new day. Our fathers are gone.” Mine is dead, and Royal’s is as good as dead, stuck in prison.
“There’ll still be pushback.”
“Who’s afraid of pushback? You?”
I bite back my automatic response. Royal knows how to push my buttons. I’m already doing the work of a consigliere without the official recognition and a seat at the table. But something holds me back.
“We are not our fathers,” Royal continues. “We must forge ahead.”
He’s right. I can’t give him a logical reason for my refusal. How can I explain that I’m still bound to and eaten alive by the past? I can’t lie to him, but I can’t tell him the truth.
I’m saved by an unusual sound, one that sends alarm prickling up my spine. The whisper of gravel crunching in the driveway outside.
I set down my wine and grab my gun in the same second, my body tense and focused. “Hang on, someone’s coming.”
“Stay on the line,” Royal orders.
“Will do.” I didn’t get a chance to tell him about the call from Victor. Royal doesn’t even know about the burner phone. An oversight? Or some stupid desire to try to keep a piece of Victor to myself?
A thick line of trees surrounds the house, screening me from my neighbors on either side. The yard is full of delicate Japanese maples, and there’s a flash of bright orange between the leaves. “Never mind. It’s only Gino.” My younger brother.
Royal curses in Italian.
“Yeah. I’ll tell him.”
“Call me after.” He hangs up, and I put the safety on my gun before disarming the security system and unlocking the door.
“I almost shot you,” I call to Gino. He’s parked his car—a Halloween-orange Corvette, not conspicuous at all—at an angle in the driveway, taking up two whole car spaces and blocking the nondescript gray sedan Royal lent me with the house. Not that I need to drive anywhere. Once a week, I give my grocery list to Enzo, Royal’s right-hand man, and he sends an underling to bring me whatever I need to survive another week.
He stomps up the stairs, his hands empty. Of course, they are. He never brings me anything. Whenever Royal comes, he brings baskets full of baked goods—raspberry scones, chocolate cupcakes, even tricolored Neopolitan rainbow cookies, when his wife is feeling fancy.
Gino wasn’t raised to give. He only takes.
I turn and walk further into the house without greeting him. He finds me in the kitchen, pouring myself more wine. To speak to Gino, I’ll need it.
“You shouldn’t have come,” I say without looking up. “My answer’s still no.”
“Lula.” A grown man’s voice shouldn’t have such a needling edge or childish whine. “I need it.”
“That trust isn’t yours. Papa set it aside to care for the house.” Probably for this exact reason. “You got the lion’s share of the inheritance. Have you spent it already?”
He scowls, and I know the answer. With dark hair and dark eyes, his features are graceful while still being masculine. He’s too handsome for his own good. It’s gotten him further in life than it should. Being a man in a man’s world gets him the rest of the way, but leave it to Gino to want more.
“Call Royal.” I feel mildly bad about making my younger brother Royal’s problem, but Gino will actually listen to the head of the family. “Ask him for a job.”
Gino checks my fridge like he’s a teenager in his parents’ home. He plucks out a yogurt and stares at it like it’s poison before putting it back. He slouches around, poking in empty breadbaskets, but I keep the kitchen empty of temptation. I have a hidden chocolate stash, of course, but anything Royal brings me gets eaten right away.
“Can we order a pizza?”
“Giovanni. No. This is a safe house.” I wave my arms. Most of the time, I eschew the whole Italian “talk with my hands” cliche, but Gino brings out the worst in me. “The whole point of this place is to hide. Which is why you can’t just show up here whenever you want.”
“Can you talk to Royal for me?”
“You’re a grown man.”
“He gives me grunt work. He doesn’t respect me.”
“Getting your big sis to speak for you is a sure way to earn it.” My voice is as dry as my merlot. “Look, Gino, being family only gets you so far. You have to start from the bottom and work your way up.”
“You didn’t.”
“I went to law school.” Again, with the hand waving. Anything to drive my point into my brother’s stupid, beautiful head. “And even then, I had to work my way up.” How many hours did I spend doing grunt work for the senior partners? I can’t explain one hundred-hour work weeks to Gino. He couldn’t compute.
I’m rubbing the bare spot above my breasts again.
Gino pouts. It was cute when he was younger, but a man of his age shouldn’t do it. “But you–”
A slight breeze has me throwing up a hand to interrupt Gino and turning to spot the source of fresh air. I shut and locked every door earlier. “What’s that?”
I head to the front hall and curse. The front door is wide open. “Gino, what part of ‘safe house’ do you not understand?” I slam the door and lock it. I hover my finger over the screen pad of the highly sensitive alarm system but don’t set it. Knowing Gino, he’ll decide to walk onto the deck and set it off accidentally. I’ll wait to arm it until after he’s gone.
“Of all the stupid, idiotic—yes, I know those are synonyms—things to do, you—” I return to the kitchen, but Gino is gone.
“Gino?”
No answer. It’s like he disappeared. Probably poking around, looking for the hard liquor. He’s good at finding what he wants when he puts his mind to it.
I grab my glass and swig some wine. Night has fallen, and the house is full of darkness. I usually keep most of the lights off, and I’ve never felt like the inky corners were hiding anything sinister.
Tonight is different. I’m still on high alert from the phone call and Gino’s surprise visit. I flip on the overhead, brighter kitchen lights. That’s when I notice the counter is empty. My Sig Sauer is gone.
He’s here.
Victor has come for me.