Ruthless: Mob Boss Book One (9 page)

She took it, forcing herself to lower her eyes to the paper. A man was stepping from a limousine outside a courthouse. He was tall and distinguished looking even in the black and white photo. It was weird to see her father in the newspaper, but it was undoubtedly him.

She read the caption;
Carlo Rossi arrives at New York District Court to face twelve counts of racketeering.

“It looks like him,” she finally said. “But it’s not. I don’t know what’s going on, but my father’s name is Carlo Bondesan.”

Nico shook his head. “That’s his mother’s maiden name. He must have given it to you and David to protect you.”

“Don’t say my brother’s name,” she shouted. She took a deep breath, forcing her voice steady. “Don’t you say my brother’s name.”

He took a deep breath. “Your father is Carlo Rossi, head of the Boston Syndicate.”

“What Syndicate?”

“The Syndicate is the organization that oversees organized crime around the world.”

“That’s impossible.” And it was. It had to be. Because if it wasn’t, it meant everything she believed about her father, about her life, was a lie. “My father owns a real estate development company.”

“You’re absolutely right. Like many of the families in the Syndicate—myself included—your father owns a legal business that acts as a front for a lot of illegal businesses.”

“So you’re admitting to being a criminal?” Her voice was bitter. It was somehow easier to focus on Nico than to think about her father.

“I think it’s safe to say you’re not wearing a wire,” he said. “So yes. I suppose you can call me a criminal—of a sort.”

“That’s not hard to believe,” she said. “I’ve seen your name in the news. My father has never been in the news.”

“Have you ever done a search under Carlo Rossi?” He continued when she didn’t answer. “Listen, your father has chosen to manage his interests by making himself scarce. I’ve chosen a more… transparent approach. My hunch is that your father kept a low profile as much to prevent you and your brother from discovering his affiliation with the Syndicate as it was to stay under the radar of law enforcement.” He inhaled deeply, then looked at the ceiling, like he might find the words he was looking for there. When he returned his gaze to her face, his expression was perfectly composed. “I know this must be difficult for you, but it’s absolutely imperative to your well-being that we find your father. I’ll give you some time to think about that.”

He turned away, leaving the newspapers on the desk, and left the room. A moment later, the lock turned with a quiet click.

15

“Again.”

Nico ordered another punch to Bill Molten’s face before Vincent’s massive arm had fully retreated from the last one. Vincent punched again, and the bones in Bill’s face yielded with a wet slap.

“We don’t do business with child molesters,” Nico said.

“I never touched them, I swear!” Bill muttered through his broken teeth.

Nico shoved Vincent aside and grabbed Bill by the lapels of his jacket. After twenty minutes under Vincent’s fists, he was dead weight, his eyes almost entirely swollen shut.

“Do you think that matters?” Nico asked. He’d meant to keep his voice even, but it had lowered to a growl in spite of his efforts. Bill cringed, trying to move away from him. “You took pictures, made videos, sold them. You’re as guilty as anyone.”

Before he knew what was happening, Nico’s fist was connecting to Bill’s face again and again. The man had lost consciousness by the time Nico shoved him away, letting him fall to the ground.

He held out his hand, and Luca gave him a handkerchief. Nico wiped the blood off his knuckles.

“Wait until he regains consciousness,” Nico ordered Vincent as he put on his jacket. “Tell him our business is concluded. Permanently. And if I ever hear that he’s resumed his activities, I’ll have him dumped into the East River with his cock in his mouth and a concrete block around his neck.”

“Yes, boss,” Vincent said.

Nico walked across the concrete floor of the old warehouse with Luca by his side. Some people had no limit to their depravity. He was still teaching them that he had no limit when it came to punishing them for it.

“How did it go with Gianni?” Nico asked as they approached the car.

“Fine,” Luca said, opening the door for him. “He thanked you for your consideration. Said he’ll start making payments again as soon as his wife’s out of the hospital.”

Nico stepped into the back seat. “Good.”

Luca started the car, and Nico sat back, trying to clear his mind.

Bill Molten was a holdover from Nico’s father who had been running a sanctioned skim off the profits from an underground poker ring. He’d also been taking naked pictures of little kids, and that was something Nico wouldn’t allow. He didn’t prey on the weak, and he didn’t allow others in his family to do it either. The soldier who’d taken a cut of Bill’s earnings to keep the pornography ring from Nico was already gone. Nico’s father had been a good man, but he’d been out of touch. There had too many people on the payroll, too few conscionable men keeping tabs. Nico was still cleaning up the mess.

He sighed, a bone-deep weariness snaking through his body. His mind went unbidden to Angelica.

Angel.

He’d been surprised to realize she didn’t know about her father’s illegal business. Carlo Rossi had been head of the Rossi family for over a decade. How had he kept such a secret from his daughter? Was his son equally in the dark?

Nico tried to imagine being so cut off from his family. Shipped off to boarding school, discouraged from coming home for holidays, attending college upstate… If Angel hadn’t been overly curious, if she’d been wrapped up in her own life like most young people were, it was possible that she had no idea, especially given her father’s business use of the name Rossi while Angel and her brother went by Bondesan.

He flashed back to her face in the basement, the shock giving way to horror, then denial, as she looked at the newspaper. He’d done that to her, and he hated himself for it. Fuck Carlo Rossi. Anything could have happened to Angel. She could have been kidnapped—or worse—by someone far less conscientious than Nico, and she wouldn’t even know why.

The thought of someone hurting her caused an unfamiliar surge of protectiveness. She’d been sheltered from his world, and he was surprised to find he wanted to keep it that way.

Too late
, he thought bitterly.

And finding out about her father wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to her. Carlo still hadn’t shown himself, and Angel didn’t seem to know much about where her father might be hiding. Nico would have to force Carlo’s hand—and soon—to draw him out of hiding.

The thought made him want to punch something.

Could he hurt her? He saw her as she had been in the kitchen, head tipped back as he’d taken her pink nipple in his mouth, the mound between her legs hot even through the silky fabric of her pants. He’d wanted to pull them off, taste her, devour her, own her. But it was more than that. He wanted to cloak himself in her innocence. Wanted to ease the loneliness in her eyes that was a mirror to his own.

But that could never happen. He needed Carlo to come forward, give him the tape. Then he could let Angel go. She would never forgive him for what he would have to do to her father after he relinquished the tape, but at least she’d be safe. And free.

“How’s the girl?’ Nico asked Luca as they turned onto the parkway leaving Queens. He avoided her name, hoping to hide his feelings from Luca.

“She didn’t eat tonight, but I don’t think it’s some kind of statement.” Luca said, pointing the car toward Brooklyn. “I think she’s in shock.”

“Is she reading the newspapers?”

“Looks like it,” Luca asked. “Any word from Rossi?”

“None,” Nico said.

“What a bastard.”

Nico nodded. He had a reputation for having a higher moral ground than many of the families in the Syndicate, but he wasn’t above violence, and Carlo knew it. Which meant that Carlo was leaving his daughter to Nico and his men, knowingly forcing Nico to commit an act of violence against his daughter to prove a point.

Bastard was an understatement.

He wished he could talk to Angel, ask if she was okay. Nico had been told about the family business when he started college, and he still remembered how hard it had been to reconcile what he knew about the mob with his father, a man he loved and respected like no other. It was true that Carlo Rossi was a different brand of criminal from Raphael Vitale, but Nico was still hoping to shield Angel from that particularly ugly truth.

“Bring her to the gardens tomorrow at eight am,” Nico said from the back seat. “I’ll have Jenna clear the park.”

“No problem,” Luca said.

If he had questions about Nico’s plans, he didn’t voice them. One of many reasons Nico trusted the other man so much.

They exited on Fulton and made their way to Headquarters. Nico wanted to get in a workout before he headed home. He needed to regain control—of his desire and the unfamiliar emotions Carlo Rossi’s daughter brought out in him.

16

She woke up the next morning surrounded by newspapers. She’d read and reread until her eyes burned, until there was absolutely no way to deny that what Nico had said was true.

Her father wasn’t a commercial real estate developer. Not really. He was one of the most violent and dangerous men in the country. He’d been lying to her and David all their lives.

And not just him.

She sat up and sifted through the newspapers on the bed. When she found what she was looking for, she reread the caption.

Frances (Frank) Morra, alleged member of the Boston mafia, is escorted by bailiffs from the Massachusetts District Court.

It was her Uncle Frank. The man who was her godfather, who had been a fixture at every birthday and graduation, who had given her a thick stack of cash to mark the passage of every important occasion of her life. In the photo, he was flanked by uniformed men guiding him through a door at the side of the courtroom. The date on the paper was three years earlier.

She thought back to her senior year of college. Her relationship with her father had already been distant, but she remembered him saying something about an extended business trip to Tokyo for Uncle Frank. Had her father created the story as a way to explain a prison stay for the man who was her godfather? And how many other people who had been a fixture in Angel’s childhood were part of her father’s real business? Had her mother known?

If what the papers said was true, her whole life had been financed by organized crime. The private school she and David attended as kids. The boarding schools they’d gone to as teenagers. Their college education. The houses and cars and vacations.

All bought with money from cheating and stealing and killing and who knew what else.

She’d been so self-righteous with Nico when all along they came from the same kind of people. And now she knew why he hadn’t been worried about keeping her here, about bringing her to his apartment. The pillowcase over her head had just been part of the game. They knew she wouldn’t be able to go to the police if—and it was a bigger if now than it had been yesterday—she made it out alive. If she turned in Nico and his men, she’d be outing her father, too.

She swept the newspapers to the ground in one angry motion. How dare her father put her and David at risk this way.

Oh, god… David. Did he suspect? Did he know? She would give anything to pick up the phone and talk to him. To tell him everything that happened. Was he safe? Would Nico and his men go after David next if they didn’t get what they wanted from her father?

The questions just kept coming. Too bad there weren’t any answers. And she didn’t have any for Nico either. Knowing the truth about her father didn’t change the fact that she had no idea where he might be hiding, or why he hadn’t come forward to save her. The reality of it twisted in her stomach. Maybe something had happened to him. Would Nico let her know if it had?

His face flashed in her mind. He hadn’t enjoyed telling her about her father. That had been obvious. Was it because he actually cared? Or because it was yet another thing that ran counter to his business interests? She didn’t know, but she thought she’d seen regret in his eyes. She didn’t know what was worse—being kept prisoner by Nico Vitale, being pitied by him, or wanting him the way she had in his apartment.

And how she had wanted him. She remembered his hands on her breasts, his fingers gentle but demanding, his tongue teasing her nipples until the warmth smoldering between her legs had burst into a full fledged inferno. She’d almost felt him inside her then, imagined him sliding into her heat, filling her, completing her.

She stood up, her face hot, and hurried into the bathroom. She took a shower and brushed her teeth, then stared at her reflection. She almost didn’t recognize herself. Outwardly, not much had changed. Her skin was a little paler, and she’d lost weight she hadn’t needed or wanted to lose. But it was her eyes that made her seem changed. Still green, but there was something else there now, too. Something haunted and sad.

She shook her head. This was temporary. Her father would give in to Nico’s demands. She would be set free. Then she and David would figure things out with their father.

She threw on the long skirt and one of the t-shirts sent by Nico, then combed through her hair. She was stepping back into the bedroom when Luca walked through the door. She hadn’t heard the key in the lock from the bathroom.

“Good morning,” Luca said.

“Morning.”

“I need you to put on your shoes. We have somewhere to be,” he said.

She didn’t know whether to be scared or relieved. “Where are we going?”

“Nico’s asked to see you,” Luca said. “That’s all I can say.”

She thought about pressing for details about their destination, but there didn’t seem to be a point. At least she’d get to leave the room for awhile. She ignored the voice inside her head that wondered if she would get to be alone with Nico again. It didn’t matter. What happened in his apartment couldn’t happen again.