Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Valentina (AKA Landry)
I’m not even sure where I am right now.
I glance around the small hotel room, taking in the crown molding, fancy floral wallpaper, and the four-poster bed with what looks like a handmade quilt on top.
It’s beautiful, if you like that sort of thing.
It’s just not what I’m used to. Penthouses in New York don’t have this country down-home charm.
I have a feeling Dorothy isn’t in Kansas any longer…
“Serves you right for falling asleep with Bettina in charge,” I mutter to myself.
The woman adopted me when I was only eight years old.
How a New York crime lord was able to adopt a kid is a bit fuzzy, but I’m assuming lots of money changed hands.
That’s how Bettina gets everything done.
I know this about her, which is why falling asleep after her two bodyguards picked me up in the dead of night was probably not my best move.
I’m just so fucking tired.
Tired of managing everything. Tired of making all the decisions.
Tired of the brain power required to be one step ahead of all the people who’d love to take down the Barzetti empire.
Which is why I found a replacement, trained her, and stepped down last year.
Well, there were other reasons why I had to hand everything over, but I don’t dwell on that.
Not even in my thoughts as I pace this hotel room.
I step softly over to the door, leaning my ear against it.
I can hear muffled voices, including a deep baritone I can’t place.
Straining harder, I realize I must be quite desperate to let Bettina handle things without a single question aimed her way.
Guess that’s normal considering yesterday I was sent a video showing my replacement shot execution-style in the mansion I’d once called home.
Those masked invaders were now occupying the mansion and trying to take over the Barzetti crime family.
I didn’t have much sympathy for my replacement: I was in her shoes for ten years and never got myself killed.
She clearly wasn’t up for the task. But I did care that some faceless asshats were taking over the empire that Bettina had built from the ground up.
The empire I stewarded just fine for ten years.
I didn’t turn myself inside out for a decade just to have it all taken away by some entitled thugs.
Bettina hadn’t panicked when I called her.
She just said to pack a bag and hop in when they swung by my condo in the city.
She thrust a packet at me. I flipped through to find a new passport and driver’s license in the name of Landry Greer with my exact face, and a pearl necklace, of all things.
I must have fallen asleep because next thing I knew, I was perp-walked into this hotel and told to wait in the bedroom until I was called out.
I don’t like taking orders. The only orders I’ll ever take are from the Mafia Maven herself.
“Come on out, Landry!” Bettina finally calls.
I make sure none of my hair has come loose from the severe ponytail I put it in once I was stuffed in this room, and grab the doorknob. It’s about damn time I meet the bodyguards that will be protecting me during whatever counter operation Bettina has planned. I step through the door.
“Son, meet your new girlfriend, Landry Greer.”
Every thought in my brain screeches to a halt. Son?
Oh, hell no.
I lift my head and glare incredulously at Deuce St. Legare, the boy I thought at one time was my friend. He took my virginity at seventeen and then bragged about the intimate details to my new bodyguard, Fazio, embarrassing the shit out of me.
He deserved the knife to the ribs.
Calm down. I’d been careful in my placement of the blade. I knew I wouldn’t hit any vital organs.
Except this is no boy standing before me.
Deuce St. Legare has grown into a man since I saw him last, bloody and whimpering like a fucking baby at the door to my bedroom.
He’s a man with an impeccable three-piece suit that he fills out to perfection, dark skin that highlights startling green eyes, and the kind of hair you’d find on James Dean or a young Elvis. Just looking at him I feel like I got sucker punched in the gut. And I don’t fucking like it.
“What the fuck?” I snap.
The shock on Deuce’s face fades within seconds. His jaw clenches and I’d be shocked if that sharp jawline didn’t cut glass. His eyes smolder, but not with sexual attraction. More like unbridled hatred, and he doesn’t care if I see it.
I spin to Bettina. I don’t care who she is, she owes me an explanation. And then a plan B because plan A is utter horseshit.
“What the fuck is this?”
Bettina takes a sip of her coffee like she’s having tea with the fucking queen of England and doesn’t want to rush it. She sets down the cup with a soft clink and waves her bejeweled hand through the air.
“They’ll never find you in this small town in Mississippi. I need to know you’re safe so I can stabilize the situation and find a proper successor. Since you failed on that front.” Bettina turns a sharp eye toward me, pinning me in place.
She’s right, my successor failed spectacularly. A tiny bit of wind gets knocked out of my sail at the reminder.
I dip my head toward Deuce, unable to say his name out loud. “Fazio will surely protect me better than this…” I finally glance at him again, if only to grimace during my scathing once-over. “…this suit salesman playboy.”
Deuce chuckles, surprising me. I know it’s fake, but it’s still a pleasant sound. His haughty voice isn’t, however. “This is the first and last time I’ll ever agree with you.”
Bettina carries on with her plan like the hatred between us isn’t filling the room with a foul scent. “Until we know who’s behind this coup, we can’t trust anyone. Fazio included. Deuce is your best bet.”
I snort. “I’d be better off on my own in Los Angeles or Denver, not some backwoods town in Mississippi with Barney Fife over here.”
Bettina snaps to her feet, her nose in the air, looking six feet tall when she only tops out at five foot three. “Too bad. This is where you’ll stay and Deuce will keep you safe and, more importantly, keep you a secret.”
I’m not proud of it, but my words come out on a sputter. “He spills the beans more than a hillbilly coming off the Jim Beam habit, Bettina. He’s no more trustworthy than the Kazarovs.” Referring, of course, to the Russians who’ve always had it out for the Barzettis.
Deuce takes a step forward, that jawline back to sharp granite. “I may not be part of your little mafia family”—he does finger air quotes which sets my teeth on edge—“but I know how to keep a secret. I also know how not to fly off the handle unlike some people here.”
I gape at him, irritated that he looks like he stepped off the pages of GQ magazine, completely at odds with the homey framed picture of a small-town row of boutiques on the wall behind him.
“I know for a fact that you’re a fucking tattletale, not exactly a ringing endorsement for someone man enough to protect me. I doubt you’ve grown up much since I saw you last.”
He takes another step toward me, so close I get a whiff of his spicy cologne. That’s new. And not unpleasant. “And I know for a fact that you react without getting the facts first, not exactly the type of woman I feel comfortable aiding and abetting.”
“You’re a fucking piece of work, Deuce St. Legare,” I spit back, now suddenly right in his face thanks to the three-inch heels that put me almost nose to nose with him.
He peers down at me, purposely tilting his head to view me from the slope of his haughty nose, those eyes drilling into my skull.
His shoulders are wide enough to block out the sunshine streaming in through the windows behind him.
“You better clean up your language, Landry, or you’ll never fit in here.”
“You’re telling me what to do, you incompetent cockwaffle? I hope your tight pants cut off your circulation so you can’t procreate.”
Deuce’s jaw pops open just enough to show his disdain.
Bettina claps her hands. We both turn our heads to stare at her. “Children!”
Deuce snorts. I turn back to see him rolling his eyes. “This will never work.”
“Couldn’t agree more.” The words are out before I’ve had a chance to rethink them. Acting like I’m in agreement with Deuce is not a stance I prefer to ever take.
Deuce’s gaze locks with mine and for a split second it’s like the whole world fades away.
No one is threatening my family. I’m not facing going into hiding for the foreseeable future.
This man didn’t betray me all those years ago.
It’s just a charged moment where a good-looking man stares deep into my soul and likes what he finds.
And then Bettina speaks and the moment dissolves.
“You will stop this bullshit between you. You two act like children, squabbling and pointing fingers. You will make this work while I will fix this little issue.” When we don’t respond, she snaps, “Do you understand?”
The door opens and both bodyguards step inside with weapons drawn. When Bettina raises her voice, there’s clearly something wrong.
I suddenly have a need to stare at my stilettos. Fuck, I hate feeling like a chastised child at forty fucking years old.
Deuce mutters under his breath, “Yep. Got it.”
Bettina snaps her fingers. I lift my head to see her glaring at me.
“Yes, Bettina. We’ll make it work.”
She lifts an eyebrow.
“And thank you,” I say begrudgingly.
She may no longer be the head of a powerful crime family, but she has all the connections and power as if she did.
She could have me snuffed out with the flick of her wrist. I’m not foolish enough to think there’s enough familial connection for her to stay her hand even if she did adopt me when I was a little kid.
People like her and me don’t operate from a place of love and trust. It’s power and money and threats that make the world spin.
Bettina sniffs. “Now get out of here so I can enjoy my breakfast in peace. I expect to not hear a peep out of either one of you until I send for you.”
Deuce buttons his suit jacket, pulls at his expensive cuffed sleeves, and gestures for me to go in front of him to the door where the bodyguards continue to wait, though they’ve holstered their weapons at least.
“I need to get my bag,” I mutter, turning back to the bedroom.
Deuce stops me with a hand on my arm. “I’ll get it.”
“I don’t need help carrying my bag,” I snap.
“Didn’t say you did, but here in the South, we gentlemen like to take care of our little ladies,” Deuce drawls.
Where the fuck did that accent come from?
He strides ahead of me and I see him swipe my leather duffle off the bed and come back through the suite.
I glance at Bettina but she refuses to make eye contact with me.
She knows I’m angry. She’s well aware of my longstanding hatred toward her flesh-and-blood son.
Deuce’s hand lands on my back, spinning me in the direction of the exit.
I rebuke the shiver that wants to streak down my torso at his touch.
“Where are we going?”
He doesn’t bother looking at me as he pushes me out the door. “To my house, darlin’. You now live with me.”
I roll my eyes and stuff down the words I actually want to say. I’ll let him drag me away from Bettina, but as soon as she’s back in New York, I’ll find my own place to stay. If she can’t provide a plan B, I’ll make one my damn self.
Because there’s no way in hell I’m living with Deuce St. Legare in Heaven, Mississippi, pretending to be his sweet little girlfriend.
I’d rather offer myself up to the masked mystery men and drop to my knees to let them end it all.