Arrogant Prick: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (14 page)

“What do you mean?”

He turns in my arms and looks into my eyes. His eyes have a darkness in them I haven’t seen before. “You asked me who I was looking for when I first came to Hush.”

I drop my arms from him and take a step back, wary of him. The look in his eyes is starting to scare me. “What does that have to do with this?”

“Do you still want to know?” He takes me by the arms and pulls me close. “You're not going to like what you hear if I keep going.”

My mind is racing. What is he talking about? His eyes are so intense; I have no doubt he’s telling me the truth. But what could he have done that would make me turn away from him? I’ve come to accept what my father does and still love him all the same, so couldn't I do the same for Gio?

“I want to know.” But a part of me just wants to cover my ears so I don’t have to hear what he has to say.

“I came in that day looking for Rizzo.”

That name hits my stomach like a punch. I want to ask him why, but I can’t summon the breath to sound out the words.

“He was one of the men that was here that night.”

My eyes go wide and my heart hammers in my chest. “That’s impossible…”

“Think back on that Thursday, four weeks ago.” He points to a broken clock on the fireplace mantle. The time reads 1 a.m. “Was he at Hush that night?”

I try to think back to that night, four weeks ago. Rizzo was always at the club, but there was one night when he didn’t come in. And the next night he had a fresh cut on his face. I remember insisting on applying Neosporin to the cut and changing his bandage.

I look up at him, my eyes wide and glistening with tears.

“There were three of them here that night.” He looks around the broken home. “My family never stood a chance.”

Tears are streaming down my face, and I can’t manage to speak.

“I found Tommy first.” His voice is a mix of emotions. Anger, sadness, and despair.

“He told me who the others were.”

I turn on him, my lips trembling and I pound my fists against his chest. “What did you do?”

“I did what I had to do.”

“No…” I turn away from him, refusing to look at him.

Blood pounds furiously in my ears and I start to feel lightheaded. Rizzo and Tommy are both dead. I was just at their funerals.

“Why wouldn’t you just go to the cops?” I can taste the salt of my own tears as I speak.

“The police never cared to solve the case.” He laughs darkly. “No one came forward to tell them what they saw, and they gave up, claiming they had no leads. They just called it another unsolved home invasion.”

I hang my head. I know he’s right. The cops never bother us over the things they bother other clubs about. I know we get a pass from them because of who my father is. How far would that go? Would they turn their eyes from murder? Probably if they were paid enough.

“Then how did you know it was them?” I sniffle. “How did you know to go after Tommy?”

“My neighbor would never go to the police.” He walks up to the window and opens the shade. I can see the light is still on in the front window of the house across the street. “He’s an old school guy. He knows better than to snitch on the mob. But I’m a different story. He’s known me my whole life. I grew up on this street. He told me what he saw that night.”

I nod sadly.

“He described the men who came into the house that night, and their car. His eyes weren’t good enough to get the full license plate, but a partial was all I needed to track down the car.”

My mind reels, trying to escape the truth, but it’s impossible. “They couldn’t have open casket funerals…”

“Tommy didn’t break easy.” His voice is like steel now. There’s no emotion left in it. “He made me work for what I needed. He gave me Rizzo and Michael’s names.”

“Rizzo was always so nice to me.” My voice fades into silence.

“Everyone’s always nice to the boss’s daughter.” He looks back at the stains left on the floor by his sister’s lifeblood. “Others don’t get the same courtesy.”

That last sentence feels like a slap in the face. “Why are you telling me all this?” My voice cracks, and my lip quivers as tears fall freely down my face.

He presses his hand against my face, and he brushes away the tears falling down my cheek. He’s so gentle despite his strength.

“Because I love you.” My heart swells in my chest. I feel his warmth returning to his voice. He sounds like the same man I sat with under the moonlight, watching the majestic hawk circling the skies above us. “I want you to know who I am, and what I've done.”

I want to tell him I love him, but I can’t. I pull away from his touch. This same hand that can so gently stroke my face is the same hand that tore apart a man I knew.

“I’ve never lied to you,” he says. “But that wasn’t enough. I wanted you to know what I’ve done.”

I look up at him. Can I judge him for what he's done? If my family was killed, wouldn’t I want to do the same to their killers? “Are you finished?”

He looks away from my eyes and his voice is barely a whisper. “I don’t know.”

My blood feels like it's burning me underneath my skin. I grab him by the shoulders and try to shake him, but he’s as solid as a tree. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

“Someone else is responsible for all this.” He looks away from me to hide the guilty look in his eyes.

I pound him on the chest uselessly with my fist. “You mean my dad, don’t you?”

But he remains silent. I drop back down onto the couch and put my head in my hands, breathing, trying to steady the world around me.

“I’m sorry,” he says uselessly.

“No!” I glare up at him. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry like this is a foregone conclusion. My dad had nothing to do with this.”

“I heard it from his own men.”

“No!” I shake my head, sending my tears flying from my cheeks. “Sit down. We’re going to talk this through.”

He slowly sits down next to me, and turns to face me.

I close my eyes and breathe in deeply, trying to steady myself. Then I turn back to him and lower my voice. “How could you even think about killing my father if you care for me?”

He blinks. I can see him tempted to turn away from my eyes. I put my hand on his cheek and pull him back, forcing him to look at me. “Vengeance is all I have.”

I tilt my head at him and smile softly. My heart aches at the pain he must be going through. As mad as I want to be at him for what he’s done, and what he's planning to do, I can’t really blame him. I’d want to do the same in his place. But I can’t let him. I
know
my father, and he would never do something like this. No matter what people may think about him.

“No, Gio. You're wrong.” I cup my other hand on his cheek and brush my lips against his. “You have me.” I pull back from him, immediately missing the feel of his lips on mine. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes.” I’m so happy to hear the confidence back in his voice. If I have his trust, I know we can get past this.

“You asked me to trust you when you came into my house and we made love in my room.” That day feels so far away right now. I wish I could just go back to that moment. “I risked my world for you.”

“I remember.” There’s a small smile on his face. I can tell from the heat in his face that he’s reliving that memory right now.

“Now I’m asking you to do that for me.” I get up on my knees on the couch and I lean over him, his face still cupped in my hands. I kiss his forehead and move my hands back, and fist his hair in my hands. “I don’t pretend to know everything about my father. But I ask you to trust that I know him. Do you understand?”

He puts his hand on my back and pulls me closer to him. “I do.”

I kiss him down the side of his face and to the corner of his lips. “I know deep in my soul that my father would never have something like this done in his name. I don’t care what anyone told you. I
know
this.”

I move my lips to his and I kiss him with a passion I’ve never felt before. I reluctantly pull myself away from his lips and stare into his eyes. “If you want to be with me, I need you to forget whatever you were planning to do next.”

I see his eyes wavering, so I grip his hair tighter and kiss him again, forcing my tongue between his lips and tasting his. I break the kiss and look at him again. “Will you do that for me?”

The silence is unbearable. The seconds pass like minutes, and the minutes like hours. I see it in his eyes first. Then I feel the tension easing in his body. A tear drops down the corner of his eye, and I kiss it away, tasting the salt on my lips.

“Yes.”

I laugh and cry at the same time, and wrap my arms around him, and press his face into my breasts. He wraps his arms around me and holds me tightly. We rock together on the couch until my tears are done.

I brush his hair back on his forehead and look down at him.

I’m going to ask my dad to look into this. I’ve never asked him to use his power before, but I know if anyone has the power to find out who did this to Gio’s family, it’s him.

I
rub
the sleep out of my eyes and fumble with my phone to turn off the alarm. Lord, it’s six in the morning. I pull the sheets over my head and close my eyes to go back to sleep when I belatedly realize why I set my alarm so early. I want to make sure I get a chance to speak to my dad before he heads out for the day.

I throw the sheets off me and crawl out of bed to get dressed. Mom’s already cooking breakfast by the time I make it downstairs.

“Morning, princess!” She looks over and waves her spatula at me.

“Hey, Mom.” I pad into the kitchen on my bare feet. I notice she hasn’t started making the espresso so I grind some beans to help her out. “What’s for breakfast?”

“Nothing fancy.” She smiles. “Eggs, sausages, custard and some roasted vegetables.”

I laugh softly as I pack the grind into the two portafilters and pack it in. It’s going to be rough when I move out and can’t wake up to my mom’s breakfast. Though, I know if she could have her way, they’d just build a second house on the property for me to move into with my family. Like in the old country.

I brush the old grinds out of the machine and run the water to clear out what the brush doesn’t get. It’s weird even thinking about having a family. I feel like a stupid little girl thinking about this when I’ve barely started dating Gio. But it’s hard not to. He’s the first guy I’ve met who just refuses to leave my mind.

I slide the portafilters into the machine and pour out two cups of espresso. A pair of single shots for my mom and me. I love watching the black espresso pour into the cup and how the caramel colored foam settles in over the coffee.

My mom glances over at me with a weird smile on her face. “You’re thinking of Gio, aren’t you?”

I glance at her and bite my lip. “Yeah.”

“You really like him, don’t you?” She accepts her cup and takes a quick sip before setting it aside to take the roasted potatoes and carrots out of the oven. The smell is intoxicating. She cooked those little waxy purple potatoes I’ve loved since I was a kid.

“I do.” I start on the third cup, a double shot for my dad.

“Enough to give me the grandkids I’ve always wanted?” Her eyes are bright and hopeful.

I laugh. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Mom. I’m only twenty-three.”

“All the stars are getting married and having kids at a young age, you know.” She divides the eggs onto three plates. “It’s the hot thing now. I read about it in all the magazines.”

“Well, I’m no star, Mom.” I finish off my dad’s cup and set it on the counter on his tray. It’s the one with the four eggs, sunny-side up.

She puts her mittened arm around me and gives me a kiss on the cheek. “You are to me.”

“I love you too, Mom.” I smile, feeling my cheeks blush. “I’m going to take Dad’s tray down to his study, okay?”

“Okay, princess,” she says. “Just don’t take too long, I don’t want your food to get cold.”

“Alright, Mom.” I wait for her to finish setting his food on the tray, put my own espresso on it and head to my dad’s study. It’s where he likes to read the paper in the morning.

The door to the study is ajar. “I’m bringing in your food, Dad.”

“Morning, princess.” He looks up from his paper as I come in and set the tray on the table before him. “Thanks for the dine-in service, but I was planning to come upstairs and have breakfast with you and your mother.”

I close the door softly and pull up a chair to the side of his desk. He looks at me curiously as I take my cup of coffee and have a sip. My stomach is starting to do flips and it’s comforting to have something to hold on to while I have this conversation.

He takes his own cup and leans back in his brown leather chair. “I’m not sure I’m awake enough yet for a
talk
.”

“I’m sorry, Dad.” I lean my elbows on the table. “I wanted to make sure I caught you before you left.”

He folds the newspaper back up and places it next to his breakfast tray. “You have my attention.”

I bite my lip, but go on before I let my nerves get the best of me. “What do you think of Gio?”

He slowly crosses his arms in front of his chest and looks at me for a moment before going on. “He worries me.”

I swallow a lump in the back of my throat. “Why?”

“Because I’m not sure about his motives.”

“Is that why you had us followed out of the restaurant?” I know I’m pushing my luck, but I might as well. As Sarah loves to quote, go big or go home.

He barks out a laugh. “Yes, not that it worked.”

“Gio doesn’t like being followed.”

“No, I don’t suppose any
security contractor
likes that.” He smiles.

“Then why aren’t you demanding that I stop dating him?”

He looks at me for a long time before speaking. “Did I ever tell you how your mother and me started dating?”

“Mom told me.” I smile. It was an old school courtship. It involved a lot of flowers and permission from her parents.

He chuckles. “Her version of the story isn’t what I’m talking about.”

I tilt my head at him. “Oh?”

“You know your grandparents on her side.” He stands up and turns to an old photo hanging on the wall. It’s a black and white photograph of him and my mom when they were young. “They come from a proper family of doctors. Respectable people, living in respectable neighborhoods.”

He turns back to me. “My family, not so much. My dad was a hard worker and earned a living for the family. But he was just a mechanic. My mother, she took care of the children of other working mothers and cleaned houses to make extra money for Christmas. We weren’t respectable Italians.”

I finish my espresso and set it down on the tray. I’ve never heard the story told like this before.

“The one place the respectable families and families like mine mixed was in church.” He grins. “So I did what you did back then. I asked her dad for permission to take her out to dinner and a movie.”

“What did he say?”

“He practically set the dogs loose on me.” He grins.

I can’t help but laugh.

“So what’s a young man who’s fallen in love with the prettiest girl he’s ever seen to do?” He shrugs. “We started sneaking around her family.”

I can’t believe I’d never heard this story before. “That’s so romantic.”

“You know me.” He laughs. “The consummate romantic.”

“When you told me you’d been seeing someone, I saw the same determined look on your face that I saw on your mother’s when she told her dad that she’d be marrying me, whether he approved or not.”

He walks over to me, and cups my chin in his big hand. I look up at him and see the warmth in his eyes. “You had that same determined look on your face,” he marvels quietly.

I blink and feel tears starting to well up in my eyes. “That’s such a sweet story, Dad.”

“It was a long time ago.” He smiles down on me and kisses my forehead. “And I’ve changed a lot since then. I don’t trust easily. That’s why I had you followed. I just want to protect you.”

I stand up and wrap my arms around his neck, and he gives me a warm hug. “I trust him, Dad.”

“I know.” He nods into my shoulder. “You’ve always been a good judge of character, and you’ve always been the perfect daughter. That’s why, despite the misgivings I can’t help but have, I’m going to let you two be.”

I turn my head and kiss my dad on the cheek. “Thanks, Dad. I really appreciate that.”

He chuckles as he pulls back from the hug and holds me by the shoulders. “Not that you need my permission.”

I laugh. This is going so much better than I could have imagined. Time again to push my luck.

“There’s one more thing I wanted to ask you.”

“Of course there is.” He laughs as he sits back down on his chair. “Go on.”

“You said the police are too incompetent to find out what happened to Gio’s family.”

My heart is pounding in my chest as a dark cloud passes over my dad’s eyes. “I did.”

“Could you look into it?” I look up at him, trying to ignore the churning in my stomach.

“I’ve already started looking into it.” He pats me on the cheek. “Dominic was an old friend, and he and his family deserve justice for what was done to them.”

* * *

“
C
ould
you finish that shit later?” Sarah is leaning over my shoulder, staring at my invoices.

“You know that doesn't help, right?” I glare at her jokingly.

“I’m not trying to help you.” She grins. “I’m trying to make you stop doing paperwork so we can gooooooo…”

“We can’t leave till Gio gets here anyway.” I say. “So I might as well finish this. The bills won’t pay themselves.”

“They do if you let them!” She laughs. “It’s called auto-pay.”

“You can’t run a business on auto-pay.” I shake my head and laugh. I take what I’ve finished and put them in my outbox, and take the sizable stack left to go over, straighten them back up and return them to my inbox. I don’t know what I was thinking, trying to get work done after Sarah arrived.

It’s a hot day out today, and she’s taking advantage. She’s dressed in a romper that barely covers anything. She’s all legs and arms. I walk over to my mirror and make sure I look good for when Gio comes over. I’m dressed a bit more conservatively than Sarah. A pair of booty shorts and tank top from Theory, plus the Coach wedges Sarah gifted me the other day. I turn around and check out my ass in the mirror.

“Gio’s gonna love it.” Sarah smacks my ass and laughs.

“He better.” I grin.

“I can’t wait to meet him.”

Almost on cue my phone buzzes--my iPhone, not my burner. I finally gave him that number and told him he can text me on it. It’s such a pain to text on the Nokia, and now that my dad’s okay with me dating him, I don’t have to hide his texts.

“He’s outside!” I stuff my phone in my purse. “Let’s go!”

* * *

C
oney Island is packed today
. The high is in the mid-eighties and it looks like everyone took the day off to come to Coney Island. I’ve got my arm wrapped around Gio’s, who’s great at making a path through a crowd, and Sarah’s between the two of us, but a step behind, talking our ears off.

“You guys want to go on the Cyclone?” she asks, her eyes on the old wooden roller coaster. A train of cars rolls by, sending the whole structure rocking in the air.

“No way!” I laugh. “It's going to collapse any second now. No way I’ll be caught dead on that thing.”

Sarah puts one arm on my shoulder and the other over Gio’s and sticks her head between ours, grinning. “Come on! It’s not that scary.” She turns to Gio. “You’re not scared, right, Gio?”

Gio looks at her and laughs. They’ve been getting along great from what I’ve seen. At least Gio hasn’t gotten annoyed with her yet, despite her constant teasing.

“I’m good to go if Allie is.” He squeezes my hand. “What do you say?”

I stop to look at the roller coaster. The line isn’t too bad. Everyone else is more interested in the Thunderbolt, the new roller coaster they finished a year ago. But the Cyclone is a classic. It has a mystique that only comes with age.

I turn to him and Sarah, who’s grinning like a maniac. “Alright, fine!”

Sarah pumps her fist, grabs our hands and makes us run to get in line. A short while later, I’m locked into a metal seat with a thinly padded metal bar locked down over my thigh. Gio barely fits in this thing, and the attendant had to come over to make sure the bar was locked over his thick thighs. Sarah’s in the car behind us, taking a million selfies.

“You’re gonna lose your phone if you keep it out!” I yell back at her as the roller coaster jolts us forward.

I grip Gio’s hand tightly as the chain starts to ratchet us up the first hill. My stomach is doing flips, and I’m grateful we haven't stopped at Nathan’s for hot dogs yet. He leans in toward me, kisses me on the cheek, and puts his arm around my shoulder. I start to feel comfortable under his protection.

Then we round the first crest, my eyes go wide, and I scream as my stomach drops and we tumble down the first hill. The Cyclone feels even more rickety when you’re on it, which I thought would be impossible. How is this thing not condemned?