Dealer and his Bestowed Bride (The Rossi Family Mafia Book 2) (7 page)

“You are staying at Hotel Il Salviatino, check in at the front desk and they should supply you with a honeymoon suite.”

I groaned under my breath and stepped forward in line as the travelers moved closer to the security check.

“Thank you, Mr. Armento,” Luca said. He was all prim and proper and it made me simultaneously want to throttle him and jump his bones.

I had vague memories last night of grabbing at his crotch and I had woken up without my dress on. He had seen me without a shirt and it was extremely embarrassing, I grew red-faced just thinking about it.

“Is that all?” I asked, trying to work through the conflicting feelings. Mr. Armento winked at me.

“Enjoy your honeymoon, you only get one.”

My eyes turned to slits and he gave me a chuckle, then offered me his hand to shake.

“Don’t make me hurt you,” I said, placing a hand on my hip. It only made him chuckle louder, then he turned to Luca, who took his hand calm and professionally.

“You have a firebrand there, Mr. Rossi. You may need to tame her.”

I kept my hands by my sides, trying to control the anger that was boiling up inside of me. With a final farewell, Mr. Armento turned on his heel and walked toward the JFK parking.

The flight was long, too long. I kept myself entertained by the in-flight films. None of them were great, but the mindless images and sounds soothed me. Every now and then, I took the business card out of my purse and looked it over, watching the light glint off of the card stock.

My mind wandered to what the Mafia wanted from us. Whatever the job was, they needed a married couple, and specifically picked out Luca and I for the job. A sniper and a drug dealer, brought together for what reason? My eyebrows knitted together with worry. Whatever it was, it gave me a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Every now and then I’d glance at Luca, who was sitting in the window seat beside me. My new “husband” had taken sleeping pills before getting on the plane. His head was leaning against the closed window and a snore would escape him every once in awhile. I wished that I could sleep like that, but I was wired since Armento gave us the card. Even though it would be better to sleep off my pounding headache, I sat and watched the moving pictures, envisioning all of the worst case scenarios that could possibly be awaiting us in Italy.

The trip lasted twenty hours before we finally stepped foot in Florence.

Luca, of course, looked like sleeping beauty, awakened from a well-rested sleep. While, I on the other hand, was pretty certain that I looked like death. So much so, I had recoiled after catching a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the train window from Milan to Florence. After only being asleep a few hours on the train, I was jerked awake by children running in between the seats.

The mid-afternoon sun was shining onto the platform, and since it was the off-season we didn’t notice a sea of tourists. I hoped we didn’t stand out like sore thumbs. Luca lead me toward an information station, where I was able to ask the woman behind the glass where our hotel was. When looking at the map, it was centrally located and close to many of the tourist attractions.

When we hit the cobblestone streets Luca grinned at me like a kid in a candy shop. I raised my eyebrows in reply and even if I was as excited as he was, I was trying to keep it inside. Everything was older than in the states, and memories of my childhood started to flood back to me. I had spent a holiday in Florence when I was a child and had memories of running through the Piazzas and ancient allies much to my parent’s dismay.

I moved to the states when I was six, so Europe was a distant memory, but it was still refreshing to be back where I spent such formative years.

“Hey,” Luca said, elbowing me out of my trance as I ogled the lovely buildings. “Wanna get some gelato?”

Sighing, I tried my hardest to look at him with an “are you kidding me” sort of look, but that quickly broke down. I let out a long sigh of defeat. “Alright,” I said.

 
Luca walked up to a small window that sold gelato and picked out treats for the both of us. A few minutes later, Luca offered me a small bowl of green and white with a grin.

“Pistachio and Coconut,” he said. I snatched it away from him and continued walking down the street, making him follow my lead. He caught up and we walked together in silence, enjoying the sounds and smells of the Renaissance city and eating our gelato.

I found myself smiling uncontrollably, even though I told myself that I wasn’t going to. Finally, we turned a corner and saw the large, white church with an orange dome. The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, the center of the city, rose over the streets and greeted us with it’s epic façade.

As soon as I saw it, the business card started to burn a hole in my pocket.

Damn it.

Luca started walking without me, but I grabbed his shirt to stop him.

“Hey,” I said. “Don’t you think we should call that number Armento gave us?”

Luca shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, we don’t have to hurry.”

I squinted, trying to figure out his angle. Then I realized, he looked uncomfortable, shifting his weight quickly from side to side.

He was just as nervous as I was to find out what the Mafia had in store of us. Based on the “test” I had been hired to work for, I didn’t blame him. If whatever they wanted him to do was like stealing drugs away from the Russian Mafia, I would want to bide my time too.

“Well …” I kicked one of the cobblestones beneath my feet. “I guess we could check into our hotel first.”

Luca grinned, his entire mood lifting at my words. He gave me a light slap on the upper arm.

“That’s the spirit,” he said.

“It looks like there’s an espresso shop over there,” I said, pointing and giving him a small smile, “Perhaps we could stop there on the way to the hotel.”

“It sounds like a marvelous idea,” he replied.

We ended up going to about six different places on “the way to our hotel”. We saw the inside of the church, walked through a few small shops, grabbed huge sandwiches for lunch, then had a glass of wine while sitting at the Piazza della Signoria. As we people watched, I noticed there were hundreds of well-dressed Italians walking the streets. Perhaps there was a fashion event?

Luca and I kept up a conversation about the things we observed. Luca was chattier than I was.

“Did you see that gypsy? She just pick pocketed that fat guy’s wallet!”

“Wow, this wine is very … dry.”

“I wonder how old that building is.”

“Can you translate the menu? I don’t know Italian.”

I was fine translating and doing all of the talking when we walked into a shop or bar. Luca just stood behind me, trying to look as masculine as possible, even if his wife was doing the ordering for him.

“How long has it been since we arrived?” I finally asked after my second glass of wine. I had felt like we were getting to the point where we were putting off the inevitable, even if I was enjoying my time with him. Damn it, I wished I didn’t like listening to his opinions about food, art and the Italians that walked the street so much. He always had something witty to say and I had to hide a chuckle more than once.

I would sneak looks at him sometimes, as he was people watching. His hair was fluffed up and his eyes sparkled in the Italian sun. He seemed so … alive inside.

Why did I seem so dead compared to him?

"I guess it's been long enough," Luca replied, getting up and dusting off his pants. He left Euros on the table and then offered me his arm. For a few seconds I didn't think I would take it, but something in me decided on a whim to grab his forearm and let him walk us out of the piazza.
 

I hadn't noticed his smell while we had traveled, but it was starting to get into my head. He was an intoxicating mix of cologne and sweat. He smelled manly, but not bad. His scent triggered something in my body, in my reptilian brain that only wanted to mate.

After we walked for a few minutes, I noticed that I was starting to get hot and bothered against my will. Wetness was forming in my panties and I about swore to myself.
 

Stop it, stop it, stop it, I told myself over and over in my head. But it was no use. There was something just physically attractive about Luca that my body could not get over, even if my mind was screaming at me to get it together.

"Here we are," Luca said. I had been too distracted by my feelings to realize we had made it to our destination. We had walked through the weaving cobblestone streets and finally exited the maze at the river. The Arno was shining in the morning sun and people were walking and driving their scooters along it. Statues flanked one of the bridges and the lovely art seemed to watch us from above. I couldn't help but feel the inanimate objects were judging me. Perhaps the saints knew what we had done, and who we worked for. I smiled at the ridiculous thought. Had the one wedding supplanted a large dose of Catholic guilt in me?

"Where is it?" I looked around for any sign of a hotel, but couldn't find it.
 

Luca pointed across the river toward a group of buildings that looked out onto the water. "You see the one with the flowers hanging off the balcony?" he asked.

"Yeah," I followed his finger over to the grand building next to it.
 

"We're staying there. Our luggage should already be delivered since we took so long to find it," he winked at me and I found myself catching my breath. Damn it, I needed to focus on the job at hand, not my fake husband.
 

We walked along the river, feeling the breeze that danced across the water. It was time that people were going to work and many professional Italians passed us, going about their day-to-day business. It seemed like it would be magical to live in such a place.
 

When we arrived the woman at the front desk checked us in without a word. It seemed like she had been waiting a long time to check us in, and she was nervous as she handed Luca our keys. She knew who we worked for, to be sure.
 

There was no elevator, so we walked up three stories in order to get to our room. Luca kept a quick pace while I huffed and puffed up the stairs. I wished that I was in better shape, the type of shape that I had been in two years ago, but that had been lost to the bottle and Chinese take out.
 

When we finally checked into our room I tried not to look in awe at the place we were staying. I didn't want to give Luca the impression that I liked the job in the least.
 

What I didn't want him to know was that I had never seen a room so beautiful in all my life. It was smaller than the hotel room we had stayed in the night of our “wedding”, but that made it feel cozy, not cramped. There were freshly cut flowers in a vase in the middle of the room, along with chocolates and more champagne. In the corner, there was a lovely antique arm chair next to a shelf of books, most on Italy or Florence and other neighboring cities.
 

Two large windows were open, letting the fresh air from the Arno sweep up the delicate white fabric that framed the windows. Our luggage had been placed on the side of the room and as I stepped out to inspect our bags, they had already been emptied into a large set of drawers that were near the bed. The bed itself made the room. It was made out of dark mahogany and had four posters. The blankets were deep red, embroidered with gold.
 

I walked to the bed and sat on it, letting my fingers glide across the silky smooth fabric. I sighed and allowed myself to fall back onto the poofy bed. The exhaustion of the trip was starting to get to me and at that moment I wanted to fall asleep. But before I could slip into a deep slumber, a rough hand grabbed me and jolted me awake.

"Hey," Luca said. "It's the morning, you're going to have to stay awake.
 

He had taken off his coat jacket and placed it on the bed, then rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt. He was more casual than I had ever seen him, and I liked it. I could see a tattoo peeking out from underneath his shirt, a casual reminder that the person I was married to was a dangerous criminal.
 

So was I.
 

I grumbled and pushed myself up from the bed, rubbing my eyes. I couldn't wait until I was able to get some real sleep, but until then I would just have to power through the day.

As I thought about what the day had in store for the both of us, I felt my heart beat faster. We still hadn't checked in with the person Armento had told us to.
 

"So ... what are the next steps?" I asked.
 

Luca rubbed the back of his neck and walked over to the window. "I guess, we call that number," he replied.
 

We both looked at the phone that sat next to the bedside. Neither of us made the move to go grab it, so we looked at each other, trying in vain to see if one of us would go for it and make the call.
 

Luca closed the windows so that the curtains settled rather than blow in the wind. The sounds of the river and Florence fell away and were replaced by the awkward silence between us.
 

After there was no way someone could overhear us from the windows, he came over to the other side of the bed and sat down, reaching into his pocket for the card. He threw it down on the bed between us.
 

The silver of the numbers glinted back at us and we both just stared at it.
 

"You should call," I told him. "You are the one who was tested, you're the one they want to talk to."

Luca shook his head. "You're the Italian, you can speak to them in their language."
 

"I don't think knowing how to order wine in Italian will help," I said.
 

"Well I'm not calling them," Luca said, crossing his arms.

"Don't you want this job?" I was starting to get angry again, something that had happened too often in the past week. "Don't you want to be recognized for your talents? To make something of yourself?"