Ties That Bind (15 page)

“Sir-”

“Go or I'll shoot you myself!” he roared and the man disappeared immediately.

“You rule with an iron fist.”

“Is there any other way?”

“There used to be,” Mitch shrugged. “I was surprised to see Antoinette.”

“Yes, I thought you might be. She's turned into a beautiful woman, hasn't she?”

“Indeed. Looks just like her mother.”

Nicolai chuckled at the implied insult. “We can all thank God for that, can't we?  Hopefully, she'll age with grace.”

“Grace is an interesting description for your daughter.”

“Oh, you'll see. She has calmed herself since the old days. She'll make a fine, loyal wife. Knows how to mind her own business to, if you know what I mean. But loyal. Loyal above everything.”

“As any daughter should be,” Mitch nodded. “Nicolai…”

“You want to warn me about Jimmie?  He's a hot head, I know. It warms me to know you still care enough to take the time for me, Mitchell. Vinetti's no good for you. He has no vision. Not like you and I-”

“I didn't come here to warn you about Jimmie,” Mitch corrected. “I came to let you know, you'll receive no loyalty from me should you make a move against Vinetti.”

Nicolai raised his hands, laughing. “No, no. Of course not. He will not make you happy but I wouldn't interfere in your decisions. Vinetti will be safe. It was you I wanted to see anyway.” He took hold of Mitch's hand, grasping it tightly in his own. His voice dropped several octaves. “You have not told him, then, about our history?”

“I didn't feel it necessary.”

“And if I should?”

“Then so be it,” Mitch shrugged and stood up. “Your choice is your own.”

“You mistake my words for a threat, Mitch. I mean no such disrespect. I merely wanted to make certain you are comfortable with whatever may slip out of this old, addled brain.” He waved a hand across his forehead dismissively, a crooked grin across his face.

“Addled will never be an apt description for you, Nicolai. And tell him what you wish. I care little what Jimmie knows of our relationship.”

“You know, we are celebrating tonight,” he said, clapping Mitch on the shoulder. “Yesterday was my daughter's birthday. You and your friends are welcome to join in the merriment. Then, tomorrow, we shall meet, hm?  Pleasure before business?”

“Nicolai-”

“Come, we mustn't disappoint Antoinette. How long has it been for you two?”

“I'm certain she wants nothing to do with me, Nicolai. Surely you remember-”

“She has grown up, Mitchell. Seen the error of her ways. She is at my side. She could easily be at yours-”

“I doubt she is nearly so forgiving of me as she is to her father,” Mitch smiled. “But nonetheless, I shall make sure to save her a dance.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Something had changed in Ashli and Mitch couldn’t decide if he quite trusted it or not. The party had been in full swing for hours but she had remained on the sidelines, quietly sipping the same glass of wine all evening. She chatted with those that approached, danced a few times with Jimmie and Sonny but had otherwise remained a quiet, dutiful Vinetti. It unnerved him.

“You are ever the wallflower tonight.” He sank down into a chair beside her. “Should I be wary?”

“Always.” She offered him a brief smile. “I’m pretending to be you tonight. Watching, observing, evaluating.”

“How’s that going for you?”

“Honestly? It’s no wonder your brain is always functioning at, like, some higher level. It’s exhausting trying to keep track of the goings on.”

“Was that a compliment or an olive branch?”

She shrugged. “Both. I think.”

“Then I accept. Both, I think.” He leaned forward and clinked glasses with her. “So what have you surmised?”

“You know Antoinette. And Terenari, for that matter.”

“You’ve been surveilling me?” He laughed. “Okay, I’ll bite. Yes, I know them both.”

“How well?”

He frowned. That was the question, wasn’t it? He knew the people they used to be. Who they had turned into? That still plagued him.

“That wasn’t meant to be a hard question.”

“It’s a complicated one nonetheless. How well do I really know you, Ashli?”

But she was not to be diverted. “You look at her differently.”

“Pardon?”

“Antoinette Terenari,” Ashli explained. “You look at her differently than you do everyone else. Like she has broken your heart.”

“You are observant tonight.”

“Is it true?”

“No,” he shook his head, offering her a false smile. “I broke hers.”

“You were lovers?”

“No. I was a big brother. Her superman, I suppose, in the world in which we grew up.”

“As you are mine now,” she offered.

“I failed her,” he warned, his voice emotionless.

Ashli softened, her hand reaching out to touch his. “You won't fail again,” she whispered. “It's no longer in you to fail.”

“You trust in me far too deeply,” he replied, uncomfortable with her sudden possessiveness. “If you'll excuse me.”

She was standing in a group of men, the smile plastered across her face seemingly an opening for any of them. They were chattering, offering her birthday wishes or some other nonsense. She was adjusting her dress, a long burnt orange velvet that contrasted with her dark hair, when her eyes lifted to meet his. He stepped through the crowd, offering her his hand. She hesitated and he half expected her to reject it completely but, with a glance around her, she took it and let him lead her onto the edge of the dance floor. He stood without moving, one hand sliding to her waist, and the other drifting across her cheek as if he was still afraid she was a mirage.

“We're being watched,” she murmured, her eyes meeting his. “Dance with me?”

He nodded, pulling her into his arms, keeping her body inches from his in an awkward formal stance.

“You certainly know how to make a grand entrance.”

“After this long, any entrance would be a grand one. Tell me, do you always surprise so easily or was it just for me?”

“Only you.”

“At least that's something,” she grumbled. “You haven't lost your ability to charm the ladies, I see.”

“And you haven't lost that venomous tongue of yours,” he laughed.

“Is she your latest conquest?” she asked, nodding towards Ashli who was now spinning around the floor with Jimmie.

“Wouldn't you love to know?”

“Looked more like you were conversing with the devil,” she countered.

“Feels a bit like that when I'm around Ashli,” he admitted. “But she's completely different when you get her out of public view.”

“I can relate to the two different worlds syndrome,” she laughed. “Vinetti seems like a pretty decent guy.”

“Haven't been with him too long,” he hedged.

“Do you stay anywhere very long?”

“Not if I can help it. What about you?  What happened to those college dreams and getting far removed from all of this?” he made a sweeping motion with one hand before pulling her back into his arms.

“Do we really want to relive how our choices over the past decade had led either of us to this spot right now?” she asked, inclining her head to one side. “You, Gino's gifted one, being courted by my father?  Me, the former anti-mafia girl, being bounced around the room as if I'm up for show?”

“Are you saying we're both making mistakes?”

“I'm asking if it really fucking matters,” she grumbled and dropped her head back to his shoulder. “We're here and there's not a damn thing either of us can do about it now.”

“Damn, you have become one bitter broad, haven't you?” he laughed and pinched her waist playfully. He slipped his hand into hers, entwining their fingers. “Come, let's get some air.”

“They're watching us,” she hissed, trying to hold him back.

He chuckled, dropping his lips next to her ear. “They'd be fools not to.”

She stood a pace behind him as they stepped onto the balcony, his hand still holding tight to hers as if afraid she might leave his side. Several men lounging against the railing straightened with their appearance, nodded a silent greeting and then moved passed them and back inside. She smiled, knowing even her father could not clear an area so easily. He turned without warning, and her hands went instinctively to his chest, blocking a collision. But once they were there, she seemed unable to move them.

This was the body that had once laid beside her in the backyard, hoping for stars but seeing only citron glows from the street lights overhead. The chest was wider, definitely more muscular but the curves and angles all still felt the same. She had memorized them in the days following her mother's death, when she curled into his protective arms and shut the world away even when a dozen mourners were in the same room offering their condolences. Her couch had forever smelled like him- smoky, from his family's wood fire, with a hint of menthol from the crème he'd been using since he started shaving a few months earlier. He was the only one that she ever really considered her friend.

And yet, he was the one who had left her. Deserted her to join this family of lawbreakers and murderers that she had once abhorred with a passion deeper than any lust she'd ever experienced. She'd spent weeks curled up on that same spot on the sofa, worrying about the terrible things that might be happening to him in jail but, at the same time, cursing him into oblivion for being so stupid to have involved himself in this world in the first place. By the time he'd gotten released, Nicolai had shipped her away to boarding school in France. She'd never heard from him again and never had the courage to try and contact him.

“I hated you,” she whispered, her head dropping into him, his arms tightening around her shoulders in the hug he couldn't offer her in public.

“Have you grown out of that yet?” he questioned, his voice equally soft with no trace of sarcasm. “Because I've missed you, girl.”

She didn't respond immediately, moving a few paces away from him so she could think clearly. Memories flooded through her, as she knew they were Mitch, and she needed time to quiet them. She had forgiven him. Years ago, in fact. And the moment she had returned to Nicolai's side she knew they would meet again- the circle they ran in was much too small to believe otherwise. But this was not the way she had anticipated. She had envisioned a wedding or perhaps a funeral where she could be aloof and cold and treat him as if he was nothing more than a hired hand while she was the daughter of the man Mitch feared.

But Mitch feared no one- his easy stride into the meeting with her father had proven that. Whether it was because he had become so self-assured over the years or just because he no longer gave a damn about anything, she couldn't hazard a guess. He should fear her father. He was not the honorable man he had been when they were kids. She had been with him, stood beside him, as he strangled a rival boss in their living room. If Mitch believed Nicolai would offer Mitch some sort of reprieve because their families had once been neighbors, he was deluding himself. He retained no such ties of loyalty.

“You have become quite the commodity it seems,” she murmured, refusing to face him. “Is that what you wanted?  Is this what you've worked so hard to achieve all these years- having men make fools of themselves to have you at their side?”

“I am not a piece of meat that can be bought at the local market,” he growled, sliding his hands in his pockets to prevent her from seeing the fists that were drawing tighter. She of anyone should know him better than that. “My loyalty is not for sale. Feel free to take that back to your dearest father.”

He was leaving her. Storming out. His blue eyes flashing daggers, hatred and fury she hadn't witnessed since Gino had cornered him into staying in the States after the deportation fiasco when they were teenagers. She had cornered him now, even though she knew better, and she immediately regretted it.

Her hand reached to his arm, yanking him hard back toward her before he could escape. “I am not my father's errand girl,” she murmured. “And I had no idea. I'm sorry.”

“No idea what?”

The bitter voice told her she was still not forgiven so she pulled him closer, ignoring the tense muscles and the fists still clenched in his trousers. “I had no idea what this must be like for you. Everyone wanting something from you. Every hour of every day someone gambling for a piece of who you are.”

She tugged gently, and he let her pull one hand out so she could hold it tightly in hers. She stretched to her tiptoes but only when he leaned toward her could her lips reach his ear. “Please, I meant no offense.”

“Are you always so apologetic to everyone?  Or just the men your father wants on his payroll?” he asked icily, jerking away from her.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” she hissed.

“One minute you are insulting me and the next apologizing?  Go find another sucker, Toni.”

“Fuck you,” she spat, her anger now matching his. “Do you think I want you working with my father?  I'd do everything in my power to keep that from happening whether you are treating me like shit or not. I certainly wouldn't do anything to help him achieve his goals. Not without a gun to my head anyway.”