Chapter 19 Rem
REM
“You’re taking her out of town?” Johnny stares at me across the desk in my penthouse office. It’s late. Or early, depending on how you look at it. He looks as haggard as I feel, and I’m pissed at him for even being here.
“Yes, I’ve already said that. Now tell me why we can’t have this conversation over the phone so you can be home with your wife?”
“Because, fratello, Bianca told me if I hover over her any more I’m going to be the one who ends up dead.”
“She does have a lot of sharp knives.” I grin when Johnny curses at me, but instantly sober when I ask, “She’s okay? And the baby?”
“Both are doing fine, meno male. The doctor said Bianca just needs some rest and there’s no reason to worry about the baby.”
“Thank God, brother. Thank God.”
Johnny drags a hand down his face and I look away, giving him some privacy to get his emotions in check. When he’s ready he continues, “I also got word from Bruce. He’s learned something from that balaclava-wearing asshole and he’s coming here to report. I want to know what he’s found out.”
“And how many bones he’s broken?”
Johnny gives me a dark grin. “Obviously. When we’re done here, I might go break some myself.”
I’m right there with him. Bruce has been torturing the man who attacked Bianca and Lena all night, extracting as much information from him as possible before we dump his broken body into the river. But knowing Bruce is making him beg for his life isn’t the same thing as doing it ourselves.
Despite Lena’s promise to follow the rules and stay in the apartment (after the fucking trip out of town she negotiated), the vise around my chest hasn’t loosened.
It takes seeing the pained, vicious look on Johnny’s face to realize what I’m feeling.
It’s rage at the person who dared hurt my woman and fear it will happen again.
Beating the shit out of the man locked beneath one of our clubs won’t make the feeling go away, but it’ll sure as hell help. “You should pay that fucker a visit,” I tell my friend. “Inflict some pain for me as well. I won’t have time to make it over before leaving.”
“Yeah, back to that—where the fuck are you two going?”
“Her aunt’s place.”
“The one that burned down?”
“The one that burned down.” I scroll through the police report open on my laptop. I tapped one of my connections on the force to get my hands on it. “The investigation is still in the preliminary stages. Nothing much for the cops to go on other than it looks like a gas leak was to blame.”
“Or made to look that way.”
“Exactly.” I lean back in my chair, meet the level look of my number two. “Lena wants to go out and look for herself.”
“That’s a crazy fucking idea. A horrible one, too.”
“Maybe, but the woman killed, Mable Fisher, she was Lena’s last living family member. I understand her need to go. She won’t be able to rest until she feels like she’s done something to help her aunt. Even if it’s just look around the house and tell the cops if anything’s missing.”
“She thinks it could be a robbery?”
“No,” I say. “Deep down, she knows it’s something more.
But she’s exhausted and stressed and grieving so I’m not going to question what she says and I’m going to take her out there and act as her own personal fucking bodyguard and make sure she gets back here in one piece.
Then lock her in the penthouse until this shit is sorted once and for all. ”
Johnny cocks his head, considering what I’ve said. “That’s uncharacteristically considerate of you, boss.”
“Fuck off. It’s the least I can do for my soon-to-be-wife.”
Johnny sits up straight in his chair. “Wait, I thought the engagement was a farce, a protective tactic. I mean, I know you two are fucking and all—”
“We’re not fucking.” Not yet, anyway. I jab a finger in his direction. “Not that it’s any of your fucking business.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Johnny brushes away my comment.
“Whatever the sex situation, you’re saying you’re going to marry her?
For real? You, second-in-line for the Cerreti crime family, one of the most sought-out matches by power-hungry fathers, from allies and rivals alike.
Fuck, rumor has it that various Cosa Nostra and Camorra bosses have their sights set on you for their daughters.
The most lethal ‘Ndrangheta maestro di giornata in the new world. You’re going to say fuck off to all of them and marry Lena, the one woman who couldn’t be more off-limits if she tried? You’re going to do this for real?”
There are so many reasons I should say no. I shouldn’t want this woman. Shouldn’t love how well she fits against my body or how turned on I get when she’s being defiant. I shouldn’t marvel at her bravery or ache to be the one she runs to first when she needs help.
Marrying Lena will enrage my brother. Will make Aldo homicidal. Neither will trust her. Not now, maybe not ever.
But fuck me, I trust her. Twice now I’ve questioned Lena about her job and her possible ties to the Pagano family and both times her answers have confirmed what I’ve surmised for weeks: she’s not doing any of the things Aldo and Ari suspect her of doing.
Which begs the question of where my capo is getting his evidence. And who is really behind the attacks on Lena and why.
My woman is in a world of danger and I’m the best way I know to keep her safe. No one with even the slightest sense of self-preservation will try to kill my wife; the vengeance they know I’d visit on them would be too violent, too bloody for even the most insane man to contemplate.
That’s reason number one to marry her.
Number two: Lena is mine. My woman, my weakness, my addiction.
I didn’t think it was possible to fall under someone’s spell so completely, so fast. Fuck, I didn’t think it was possible to be spellbound at all.
But, after the life I’ve lived, I should know better than to be surprised any more.
People crash into your world without warning and are torn from it just as fast. I can’t stomach the idea of Lena being taken from me, not now that I’ve tasted her and held her as she sobbed in her sleep.
I put that engagement ring on her finger as a means to an end. It just so happens the end in question has changed.
Am I actually going to make Lena marry me? I’m about to answer Johnny’s question when Bruce knocks. He’s wiped the blood off his hands, but a few spots mark his cuffs. “Boss. Giordano.”
His report on the status of our prisoner is short and to the point. Bloodied, broken, still breathing.
“What information were you able to get from him?” I ask.
“His English is shit, could only get some Italian out of him. He’s not been here long. A week, two at most.”
“From Italy?” Johnny asks.
Bruce nods, his expression carefully blank.
Awareness pricks at my skin. “You’re sure?”
“Yes, boss.”
“Fuck.” I push back from my chair, start to pace the space behind my desk.
“He has a return ticket, too.”
“What the fuck?” Johnny looks between us. “You’re telling me he was sent here to execute a hit on Lena and that’s it? In and out of the country once the job was done?”
Bruce’s eyes track my movement. “Broke three fingers and shattered one knee, just to be sure.”
“It makes no fucking sense. Why would anyone go to those lengths to kill her? First the Russian and now a hitman brought over from Italy. Even if what Aldo and Ari say is true, that is a helluva lot of firepower for one woman. Who in Chicago wants her dead so badly?”
“What about the Paganos?” Johnny asks. “Trying to take her out to erase any ties back to them?”
I dismiss the idea. “There is no connection between Lena and the Paganos, so that isn’t possible. And even if they were targeting her for some other reason—as an indirect attack on me—they can’t afford a hitman like The Archangel. He’s miles above their pay grade. Which leaves—?”
“What about…” Johnny looks at me, and I know I’m going to hate what he says next. “What if the hit wasn’t ordered from here? What if it came from San Luca? What if it came straight from—”
“Aldo.” I brace my hands on my desk, buckled over like I’ve just been punched in the gut. “I don’t believe it.”
Johnny mirrors my position on the other side of my desk, his gaze seeking mine.
“No, you just don’t want to believe it. But it makes sense.
The capo and his underboss have stack after stack of evidence saying that Lena Haywood is a threat to the Family, one that needs to be eliminated.
But instead of just executing her like ordered, you convince Ari to give you time.
To do surveillance. To see if she’s really as much of a threat as he and your uncle believe.
And Ari agrees, against what I’m sure he thinks is his better judgement, because it’s you asking.
Except weeks go by, and you still can’t prove your brother and uncle wrong.
Maybe Ari gets impatient and decides it’s time to go to Aldo. Get the boss’s say.”
Curses, Italian and English, rampage through my head as Johnny continues.
“And unlike you, fratello, Aldo is convinced Lena is worth killing. He’s old school.
He might have a soft spot for you and Ari, but that man is ‘Ndrangheta through and through. He’ll kill women without hesitation and we both know it. ”
Fear curdles in my stomach. If this is true, keeping Lena alive is going to be significantly harder than I realized. “So, what—he orders a hit from Italy?”
I don’t want Johnny to answer, but I know I need to hear it.
“Yes.” Johnny says, awareness of what this is doing to me clear on his face. “So Aldo orders another hit on her. A separate one that doesn’t involve you. It makes sense, Rem. Even more so if he’s somehow gotten word that you’re fucking around with the woman he wants dead.”
“Motherfucker!” I grab the closest thing on my desk and hurl it against the wall. The rocks glass shatters, whiskey and shards of crystal going everywhere. “I’m not going to let that happen. No fucking way.”