Chapter 9 Giovanni
GIOVANNI
Tommy Romano is bound to a chair in the middle of the living room that has been cleared of all other furniture, the room that we’ve been using to strategize our plans for war against Mario D’Angelo and the new bratva mob.
With the blindfold removed, his eyes blaze, his body bucking and jerking helplessly as the men who brought him here from LA secure the bindings around the chair and step back. He scans the room and spots me, recognition sparking behind his eyes.
Muffled groans fill the room as he tries to wrench his arms and legs free, the chair wobbling with his efforts and spilling him face-forward, his jaw cracking against the floor as he lands.
The two men step forward in unison and right the chair while Tommy continues to hurl unrecognizable threats at everyone in the room.
He’s here because until we find whoever issued The Fish’s orders to capture his daughter, he is the only person we know who has been in direct contact with him.
And things have changed since our last meeting.
He sealed not only Nikki’s fate when he enlisted her help to break into Meggie’s motel room, but Meggie and Amber’s fate too, and I can’t let him get away with it.
I nod at one of the guards standing behind the actor to release the gag. The other bindings will remain. For now.
“You fucking whore-screwing asshole!” Tommy Romano produces a glob of spit and directs it towards my shoes. It falls short by a couple of feet, but he is undeterred. “Let me the fuck out of here before I—”
Another nod, and the gag is replaced.
Tommy makes the chair bounce off the floorboards with his raging fury and futile attempts to free himself. His face is turning puce, his thick black hair sticking to his sweaty forehead.
I smile and gesture to everyone in the room to leave.
They file towards the door without a glance in the captive’s direction, but his eyes follow them, the anger abating a little when he realizes that if we all abandon him, he’ll have no chance of being set free.
He has already been drugged and moved across the country against his will.
He has no idea where he is. He needs me on his side if he’s going to escape this situation in one piece.
He stops writhing, his body sagging heavily in the seat, and hangs his head.
I call the men back.
Tommy hasn’t noticed Bruno yet. If this goes well, I shouldn’t need to call upon my friend to step in. If not… This will be a test of Tommy Romano’s courage and integrity.
The men resume their positions and unfasten the gag a second time.
There is pure venom in his eyes when Tommy looks at me again. His lips move, but he keeps his curses to himself. For now.
One of Bruno’s men brings another seat out from the kitchen and places it in front of me. I sit down. Face to face.
“Where is The Fish?”
His eyes roll back in his head momentarily, revealing the whites.
“I fucking told you before. I don’t know where he is.
I don’t know how to find him. I don’t even know what he fucking looks like.
So, if we’re done here, you can get these fucking morons to take me back to LA, and I’ll forget this ever happened. ”
I smile. Tommy Romano is so accustomed to calling the shots that he still thinks he is offering me a lifeline, even when he is the one bound to a chair in a remote mountain cabin, surrounded by members of several Sicilian mafia mobs.
There is enough power in this room to end his career in the blink of an eye, and these men don’t take kindly to being called fucking morons.
I stand. “How much time will you need to find him?”
His face scrunches up in confusion as he peers up at me. “What the fuck, man? Did you not hear what I just said?”
“I heard.” I incline my head. “But I don’t believe you.”
His top lip curls back into a snarl. “This is fucking bullshit. The Fish finds you when the time is right. End of.”
“If that’s the case, you’d best start hoping that the time is right then, Tommy. Because he has something that belongs to me. Something very precious. And I’m running out of patience.”
“Look, man, this has fuck all to do with me. Let me go, and I’ll see what I can find out.”
I close the distance between us before he even registers my reaction, my hand closing around his throat. His eyes bulge. His face turns an even darker shade of raw pink as I push him backwards, the chair balancing on the two back legs.
“You will see what you can find out now.”
“Or … fucking … what?” he grunts, his throat constricting beneath my fist.
“Or you can kiss goodbye to your Hollywood career.”
He tries to shake his head, wrench his neck free of my grip, and wriggle out of the restraints binding him to the chair, but his lungs are desperate for more oxygen, and his brain can’t process why nothing is working.
I release him and set the chair back down on all four legs.
Tommy gasps air, drool collecting in the corners of his mouth. Not his finest look.
“So,” I press on once he has filled his lungs. “Let’s try again. Where is The Fish?”
“Fuck you.” He doesn’t look up.
“How long before the studio starts thinking that perhaps this little spell in rehab that you’re currently taking isn’t working. Three days? A week? Are you so crucial to the movie that they won’t find a replacement when it starts to cost them money?”
“I’m the fucking lead!” he spits. “They’ll come looking for me. You won’t get away with this.”
“Oh, but I already have, Tommy. The news of your shock death is waiting to go to print. So, unless you give me what I want, there will be no movie for you to go back to because, as they say in Hollywood, the show must go on.”
“Agh!” a low animalistic growl erupts from somewhere deep inside him. “I’ll fucking end you. Every single motherfucking one of you!” His gaze skims the room, but he’s too far gone to make out individual faces. “You have no idea what you’re messing with here.”
They’re idle threats. Tommy Romano might have the backing that has gotten him into Hollywood, but he carries no clout amongst the big boys. The Fish used him. The Fish will get rid of him once he has outlived his usefulness.
“I’m done here.”
My chair gets whipped away and replaced in the kitchen. The men understand how it works. We give him time to cool down. Time to process what I want and how we can best help each other.
I go back to the cabin I’m sharing with Meggie and find Demi in the kitchen. Alone.
“What’s going on?” she whispers when I close the door behind me and join her. “You could’ve warned me. I had to make up some bullshit excuse to calm Meggie down.”
“Is she alright? Where is she?”
Interrogating Tommy, I can convince myself that this is our way.
It’s the only way to get a lead on Amber’s whereabouts.
But Meggie isn’t from this world. She deals in kindness not killing.
Compassion not cruelty. The real reason I didn’t warn Demi is because I’m trying to keep Meggie separate from this way of life.
But she is already involved. My intentions for keeping her out of the loop might be good, but she has a right to know what’s going on when it concerns her sister.
“She’s in the bedroom.”
Panic flares inside my head. She has already escaped through the window once; what’s to stop her doing it a second time?
I head straight for the bedroom, Demi’s voice chasing my shadow. “Gio? Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“Later,” I toss over my shoulder.
Meggie is still there. The shape of her body underneath the comforter almost drags me to my knees.
I enter and close the door behind me with a gentle click.
“Gio?” Meggie sits up in bed, her hair mussed up around her perfect face. “You’re back.”
I cross the room and sit on the edge of the bed. “I’m not going anywhere, fiore. I thought I made that clear last night.”
I lean forward to kiss her lips. She doesn’t flinch or pull away, but she doesn’t kiss me back, and this feels like a blow directly to my gut.
“What’s wrong?” I wind my hand through the curls tumbling over her shoulders. “Are you sick?”
“No. Yes.” She shakes her head. “I was sick this morning, but it isn’t that.”
“Do you need to see a doctor?”
“No, Gio.” She rests her head against my hand, and the gesture is so natural, so intimate, that I know no one has ever loved me the way Meggie loves me. “It’s nothing.”
“It is definitely something.” I tilt her chin towards me and peer into her beautiful eyes.
“Who was that man?”
I should’ve warned her. There is hurt in her eyes as well as suspicion.
And something else that creates a nugget of dread in the pit of my stomach.
Shielding her from that side of me means that she fell in love with the part of me that was on show, and now …
now she must come to terms with the fact that there are two sides to every story.
Light and dark.
Sweet and sour.
Day and night.
No more secrets though; I made that vow, and I’m sticking to it. Come what may. I have to trust that love conquers all, as the proverb goes.
“His name is Tommy Romano,” I begin. Her expression remains neutral—she doesn’t know the name. “He’s the actor that Nikki was seeing in LA.”
Her eyes widen and one hand flies to her throat. “Tommy.” Her voice is barely audible. “He’s the one who…”
I nod. “He used Nikki to get to you and Amber.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“He knows Amber’s father.” I hesitate, unsure how far to go, but there’s no point holding back now. “He has been in direct contact with him. I will climb over everyone I know to find him and get Amber back, Meggie. Whatever it takes. I have no qualms about using scum like Tommy Romano.”
I recall him sitting in the back of my car in LA, saying that he didn’t even like Nikki, and my hands ball into tight fists.
Meggie squeezes her eyes shut, her lips almost disappearing as she tries to contain her anger. “He used her, Gio. He hurt her and disguised it as something else by promising to help her career.”
I pull her into my arms and stroke her hair, letting her cry.