Fearless: Mob Boss Book Two (Volume 2) (5 page)

10

They made love long into the night, Nico staking claim to her body all over again, mapping her with his hands, charting new courses over every curve, in every fold. Then there was no Syndicate. No assassinations or violence. There was only Nico’s strong hands on her skin, bending her to his will, invading her body with his own until it seemed they had always been one.

The next morning, they left Nico’s car with Ed and took Angel’s little Honda down I95 to Boston. Nico filled her in on everything that had happened within the Vitale family—the interrupted shipments, the defection of his soldiers, the physical violence perpetrated against his men. Alone, the incidents could have been chalked up to the kind of random interruptions that occurred in every business. Together the problems pointed to an obvious threat against Nico and his interests.

Not too long ago, her father would have been the first suspect. But he was dead and buried, and Angel had no idea who would have both the motive and the resources to launch such an aggressive attack. She didn’t love being back in close proximity to the Syndicate, but she meant what she said to Nico—she couldn’t return to her safe, quiet life while he was in danger. She would try to help, and then she would retreat from this world for good.

She’d never felt an attachment to Boston—she and David had been exiled to boarding school almost immediately following their mother’s death and had rarely returned home afterward—but the sight of it rising up near the water brought an unexpected wave of grief. This had been home once, and whenever she’d thought of her father, she had imagined him here. She and David had only been back a couple of times since the funeral, but she’d been too preoccupied with the work of going through the house to dwell on any residual affection she might have for the city. Now she realized there was nothing keeping her tied to it. She could go anywhere, start over, do anything. She wondered why the thought didn’t bring her the relief she expected.

They pulled into a parking garage near the business district. Nico’s brow was furrowed with worry as they exited onto Boylston Street, and Angel took his hand, pulling him out of the stream of suited men and women traversing the sidewalks.

She reached up, put her hands on either side of his face. “Hey.”

He looked down at her without saying anything, his face stony.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “This isn’t enemy territory for me.” She tried for a lighthearted grin. “I kind of own the place, you know.”

He didn’t smile. Instead, he pointed to a sandwich shop across the street. “I’ll be right there,” he said. “If you’re not back in an hour, I’m coming in after you.”

She had to resist the urge to shudder. The day Nico stepped into the enemy territory of Rossi Development was the day all hell would break loose. Because Nico wouldn’t come in politely asking for her. He’d come in shooting, and he wouldn’t leave until he had her.

“Don’t do that,” she said, even though she knew it wouldn’t do any good. “I’ll do my best to be back in an hour, but I don’t want it to seem like I just stopped in to pump Frank for information. Just… trust me, Nico. I’ve got this.”

She touched her lips to his and turned for the glass and steel skyscraper that was headquarters to her father’s legitimate—and unbeknownst to most people, illegitimate—business interests. She felt Nico’s eyes on her, but she didn’t look back. It would only make things worse for him.

She entered the marble lobby of the Prudential Tower and showed her ID to the security guard at the front desk. After they confirmed with someone upstairs that she had permission to be there, she took the elevator to the forty-eighth floor. Frank was waiting for her, a wide smile plastered on his face, when she stepped into the company lobby.

“Angelica!” he said, his voice an octave too loud. “What a nice surprise.”

“Hi, Uncle Frank.”

The words almost got stuck in her throat, and her smile felt painted on. Frank Morra had been a fixture in her life since birth, but she’d had no idea that he was part of the Boston Syndicate until Nico had kidnapped her. Seeing him spun a complex web of emotion in her brain—nostalgia and memory and disgust and bitterness all intertwined into something she couldn’t begin to sort.

She caught the scent of his imported cigarettes as he put an arm around her shoulders. “To what do we owe this honor? Are you in town with friends?”

Her face heated with annoyance. Is that what he thought of her? That she was some carefree twenty-something with nothing better to do than party?

“I’m here to see my father’s office.”

She saw him try to hide his surprise in the moment before he donned the trusty grin. “Why would you want to do that, honey? There’s nothing in there for you. It will just bring up bad memories.”

Like almost everyone, Frank was under the impression that Angel had been caught in the crossfire between Nico—the man who kidnapped her—and her father. He knew that she’d finally been exposed to her father’s other business interests, but that was as far as it went. That was fine. She would use his condescension in her favor.

“I need to see it, Uncle Frank.” She tried for an expression of grief-stricken angst. “I just do.”

He nodded somberly. “I understand. They say closure is important in these things.”

She didn’t know who “they” were, but she nodded anyway.

“Come on.” He guided her past the receptionist toward a long, carpeted hallway. “How are you? How is David?”

“We’re getting by.”

There had been a time when Frank Morra had been as familiar to her as her own father, but she hadn’t really known him at all. She’d done a lot of reading on the Rossi crime empire since she’d returned from London, and while the extent of her father’s illegal dealings was murky to law enforcement, one thing was clear; whatever her father had been involved in, Frank Morra had been right alongside him. And that made him every bit as responsible for the reprehensible things her father had done. She and David would have to do something about him—about everything.

They worked their way to the back of the giant office space and a shorter, more luxurious hall. Angel had a flash of memory; holding her mother’s hand, looking up at the carved wooden doors and the gold plaques that lined the hallway, David skipping along beside them.

“I’m acting as interim Chairman, as you know,” Frank said as they approached the double doors at the end of the hall, “but it doesn’t feel right to do anything with your father’s belongings before someone permanent is appointed to the position. His office is just as he left it.”

“I appreciate that,” she said, although really, she couldn’t have cared less about her father’s things.

Frank opened the doors, and Angel’s eyes swept the expanse of lush gray carpet and modern furniture, the sunlight muted through the walls of tinted glass at the other end of the room.

“Can I have Theresa get you something?” Frank asked. “Water? Scotch?”

She shook her head. “I’d just like to be alone for a bit.”

He squeezed her shoulder. “I understand, honey. We’re all here for you if you need anything. Don’t forget to say goodbye before you leave. I’m right next door.”

He stepped into the hallway, and she wondered if he’d left the door open intentionally.

It didn’t matter. This was her company now.

She shut the door and crossed to the big windows. The vantage point was expansive, looking out over the city and beyond to a sliver of the harbor. How many times had her father stood here, looking at this very same view? How much of the city’s crime was a result of the businesses he had run from this room? How many people had been hurt?

Her stomach turned over at the thought, and she spun around to face the room. She didn’t have time to agonize over the choices her father had made, to look behind her. There was only forward motion now. Help Nico. Dismantle her father’s business with the Syndicate. Get rid of Rossi Development. Move on.

In that order.

She studied the room, then moved toward the big cabinet that sat against one wall. She started with the cupboard doors that fronted the piece, opening them quietly in case Frank could hear her next door in his office. But the cabinet didn’t tell her anything other than the fact that her father liked to drink; there was a set of barware, enough liquor to host a party, several crystal drinking glasses, and a box of cigars. She closed the cupboard doors and started with the drawers on either side.

Empty except for a stack of clean white shirts in one of them.

Pulling her phone from her pocket, she checked the time and guessed that she had about fifteen more minutes before Frank came to check on her. The realization got her moving, and she hurried across the room to the desk, a streamlined design of right angles and light wood anchored with slim white panels.

The surface of the desk was virtually clean. There was a leather blotter, a metal cup full of pens and pencils, a picture of her mother. Had someone cleaned it, or had her father always been this neat? And what had happened to his computer? Would asking about it make Frank suspicious?

She opened the top drawer of the desk and was disappointed to find it empty. A quick check of two more drawers revealed only a few pieces of company letterhead, an old pair of eyeglasses (she hadn’t known her father wore glasses), and a dop kit with a razor, shaving cream, and saline solution. She had already resigned herself to coming up empty when she opened the last drawer.

Her nose was immediately assaulted by the smell of cigarettes. She reached into the back of the drawer and closed her hand around something cold and flat. When she pulled it out she saw that it was an ashtray, loaded with cigarette butts. She knew immediately that they belonged to Frank—the cigarettes he smoked gave off a uniquely unpleasant odor—but she lifted the glass dish to her nose anyway.

A million memories came rushing back; Uncle Frank lifting her into the air on her fifth birthday, putting her on his shoulders so she could see during the St. Patrick’s Day parade downtown, teasing her with gifts by switching hands behind his back.

She leaned back in the chair. It didn’t mean anything. Frank Morra had known her father most of their lives. He’d probably just come in here to think about his dead friend, to think about the business.

But something nagged at her. Frank had made it sound like the office was waiting for the next Chairman of Rossi Development while making it seem like he wasn’t interested in the job. Was it an act? Did he sit in her father’s office, dreaming about taking over?

The truth is, she didn’t really care. It was more about the deceit. About the part Frank played, the one where he was the grieving best friend of Carlo Rossi, determined to see to his legacy, not interested in building one of his own. If he was lying, it meant that he was more ambitious—and maybe more intelligent—than Nico gave him credit for.

She set the ashtray on top of the desk and felt around the back of the drawer. She didn’t expect to find anything else. The cigarettes weren’t exactly incriminating. But then her fingers brushed against something thin and dry at the back of the drawer. She pulled it out, and realized she was looking at a folded piece of paper. When she smoothed it out, she saw that it was a sheet of company letterhead, STRAND SOUTH BAY, written in neat block letters across its surface.

“Strand,” she murmured.

She glanced quickly at her phone and thought about Nico at the cafe across the street. She didn’t doubt for a second that he’d make good on his promise to come in after her, and it been almost an hour since she’d left him on the sidewalk outside. She needed to get moving,

She folded the piece of paper and returned it to the drawer where she found it. If it did belong to Frank, she didn’t want him to know she’d found it. Then she put the ash tray back and closed the drawer. She was preparing to leave the room when the door opened.

Frank entered the room, all smiles. Was it her imagination that he seemed nervous?

“How are you doing in here?” he asked.

“I’m fine.” She didn’t bother with the grief-stricken daughter act. She’d gotten access to her father’s office. Frank would either let something slip or he wouldn’t.

“Good, good,” he said. “You hungry? Want to grab some food?”

She shook her head. “I can’t. I have an appointment.”

He looked relieved. “I’m sorry to hear that. Next time then.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll walk you out,” he said, taking her elbow and propelling her out the door.

She waited until they hit the lobby to face him. “What’s going on with the Vitale family?”

A look of panic crossed Frank’s face before he recovered. It was all she needed to see.

“What do you mean?”

He was stalling for time, but it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t tell her anything, but now she was sure that he knew something about what was going on.

“I heard about Carmine,” she said.

He almost sighed with relief. Carmine’s murder had been splashed all over the news. Her knowledge of it didn’t imply any kind of contact or sympathy with Nico.

“I don’t know about that.” He looked around, then lowered his voice. “But we shouldn’t be talking about that kind of business here.”

She nodded.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked.

She met his watery gaze. “I think I have everything I need.”

He shuffled a little on his feet, like he was unnerved by her stare. “Glad to hear it. Just let me know if you think of anything.”

“I will.” She headed for the elevator, than remembered something and turned around to look at him. “Actually, there is one thing.”

He smiled. “Anything.”

“Make sure the security guards downstairs know I’m not a visitor. After all, I own this company now.”

11

Nico was still on edge when they landed in Miami later that day. It had taken every ounce of his self-control to stay in the cafe across the street while Angel went inside alone. He’d killed some time calling John Lando in LA, trying to feel him out for information about the uprising against him. But John had been distracted and unhelpful, and Nico couldn’t tell if it was because he really didn’t know anything, or because he was hiding something. Nico had spent the rest of the time watching the clock, more than willing to go in after Angel if she didn’t return in time.

But she had, safe and sound, and he’d been surprised by the resolute set of her spine, the stubborn lift of her chin. She even looked a little pissed. She hadn’t gotten anything but a piece of paper with a couple of words on it, but Frank’s reaction had made her almost certain he knew something about what was going on.

It wasn’t good news for Nico. It meant the conspiracy against him was probably bigger than one person, or at the very least, was being allowed by other members of the family. He revisited everything that had happened, wondering again if Carmine and Raneiro been right. Had Nico’s reorganization of the family proven too much for the old world mentality of the men who had been a part of it for generations? Was the added income too small an upside for business strategies that might have seemed soft to men who had made their living wielding power through brutality?

Or had he lost their respect when he’d spared Angel? When he’d revealed his weakness for her by keeping her safe and killing her father?

He knew there were people in the family who supported him, but they were young, mostly members of his own generation. He’d tried to pave the way for the older members to retire in comfort, but it was impossible to know if they’d left with their dignity intact. And then there were the others. Members of the family for whom age wasn’t an excuse.

Like Dante Santoro, who simply liked violence for the sake of it.

He looked down at Angel as they walked through the airport. She was as beautiful as ever in a sundress with slim straps, her hair falling in waves around her shoulders. He would kill without hesitation to protect her, and yet here she was, drawn back into the web of danger because of him.

“Should we catch a cab?” she asked when they stepped out into the sticky, heavy heat of Miami.

He took her elbow. “No cab.”

“But—”

“I’ve got it under control.” He guided her to short term parking and scanned the lot until he found what he was looking for. Then he led her toward the sleek, red machine crouched in the shadows.

She narrowed her eyes. “What is this?”

“This is a car,” Nico said. He reached under the wheel well and withdrew a set of keys. A high pitched beep echoed through the garage, and the doors opened out and up, flanking the car like wings. “An F150 LaFerrari , to be exact. Now get in.”