Not Mine to Keep (The Costa Family)

“Please tell me you have nothing better to do on a Saturday night than be at work,” I said, wasting no time once the call connected with Hudson, both a friend and a colleague at my family’s security firm—a.k.a. my volunteer work. Quite different from Calliope’s.

“You know, I feel like I should be insulted you assume I have no life,” Hudson drawled. “Oddly enough, I’m not. Of course I’m at work. What’s up? And why the hell are you in Nashville?”

So they told you. “I’m taking a case.” Not that I have a choice. “It’s a ‘need to know’ situation right now.”

“Need to know?” A deep, husky laugh cut over the line. “Are you shitting me? I’ve known you for twenty years, and we work together. I’m always in the know.”

Sitting inside my rental Maserati, I leaned back and placed the call with him on speaker while I pulled up Calliope’s address, which I’d far too easily found online.

She lived in Franklin, a small town about thirty minutes south of Nashville—where I was currently waiting for her. And thanks to a friendly chat with the valet, I was able to identify the Jeep Cherokee she drove as well. Damn. She needs better protection; it was too easy to get her information.

“Alessandro?” Hudson prompted, since I’d yet to reply.

“First, promise me you won’t share what I’m about to tell you with my family. Especially Constantine.”

Constantine had been Hudson’s best friend since high school, when the Texan had moved to the Big Apple, where we lived. They’d also both served in the navy, and I had a feeling because of that, Constantine shared more with him than me. I wasn’t jealous, but . . .

Hudson grunted his displeasure at my request, and from the sounds of it, plopped down into his desk chair and was drumming his fingers in a countdown, trying to make up his mind. “Why?” The word barreled out of his mouth like a gunshot.

“Because Constantine will do what he always does, and he’ll try and sacrifice himself instead. And I don’t need him doing that. This is my problem, and I’ll handle it.”

My problem, because Gabriel had made it my problem. My brother would offer to take over, and I knew he wouldn’t want to marry Calliope and would exhaust every other possibility first before coming to that, just as I was about to try to do. But at the end of the day, my brother would do what was necessary to save a life, even if that meant tying the knot.

Temporarily tying the knot, I reminded myself.

“And what is this problem you speak of? I thought it was a case.”

I pulled up the photo of Calliope I’d saved to my phone, one I’d found from the high school she worked at. She looked so sweet and innocent. How was she the daughter of Armani DiMaggio? Must take after her mother. It wasn’t shocking that her father had had an affair, but it was a little bit of a surprise he’d done so with someone not of Sicilian blood. The man was old school about his bloodline. Evidence of the fact I’m now in this mess.

“As much as I enjoy sitting on the phone in silence, are you planning to answer me?” Hudson asked.

“I have no choice but to take this job. Or else . . .” I let my words trail off for dramatic emphasis. I needed him to buy what I was selling. I also didn’t like the idea of Constantine marrying Calliope. Or anyone, for that matter, which was crazy since I barely knew the woman.

“You knew I’d meet her tonight. You were expecting that,” I recalled from my earlier phone conversation with Gabriel.

“She’s a stunning woman. Born to stand out. Of course you’d wind up talking to her. You’re you, after all.”

“You knew if I spoke with her, put a face to the name, it’d be harder for me to turn you down,” I had hissed back.

“Just tell me what’s going on. You have my word, even if I hate keeping secrets from the rest of the team.”

“Thank you.” I swallowed, taking a moment to prepare myself for the bomb I was about to drop on him. “I need you to find out everything you can on Calliope Dawn Anderson. She’s based in Franklin, Tennessee. All I know right now is she’s a high school history teacher, a musician on the side, and likes to volunteer for charities.” I waited for him to take notes, and to buy myself even more time. “Also”—Now would be a good time for an awkward throat-clear from me—“she’s the daughter of Armani DiMaggio.”

An eerie quiet filled the air as he processed the news. “The DiMaggio? The head of the criminal group that has existed so long they predate the word mafioso? That Armani DiMaggio?”

Yeah, I thought he’d know of him, even if Hudson wasn’t Sicilian like me.

“Yeah. Him.” I rested my phone on my thigh to grip my temples, massaging a bit roughly, as if that’d do the trick and eradicate the tension throbbing there.

“You realize the DiMaggio organization is now the most powerful criminal group in all of Italy after The League took down The Alliance?”

“The League . . .” I muttered under my breath.

“Have you forgotten about them? The group of wealthy do-gooders your father was once part of in Italy? They make what we do look like we’re just kids playing war games in the woods.” He hit me with a sarcastic tone he wasn’t all that well known for, but he’d managed it tonight.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” My hands plummeted to my lap, nearly knocking my phone from my leg. “They’re a hurdle I’ll need to, uh, scale if this plan moves forward.”

The League had cut off the head of an evil organization known as The Alliance, effectively wiping it from the map. But in its absence, evil had filled the power vacuum; it had been Calliope’s father who took its place.

“Armani’s brother and nephew died in a fight against The Alliance, just before it was eliminated by The League,” I reminded him. “That’s how Armani came to power, but it also left him as the last living member of the original DiMaggio bloodline.”

“Humph. Or so they thought,” Hudson remarked dryly.

“Right.” I wanted to sigh, but this wasn’t a sighing matter. My bachelorhood was at stake. My life. This was horrible on so many levels.

“So since when does he have a daughter, and why is she in Tennessee?”

I went back over my conversation with Gabriel, remembering what he’d told me. “All I know is that Calliope’s mother, Christie Anderson, was a traveling musician in Europe and became one of Armani’s mistresses. The man didn’t believe in divorce, but he was fine with fucking around.”

“Sounds about right.” From his unusual tone, he’d been hanging with my sister too much, taking lessons from her.

“Christie never told him she was pregnant. Disappeared for a bit with plans to end the pregnancy, but her younger sister convinced her to have the baby and promised to take care of her. Calliope was raised by her aunt Tia here in Tennessee.”

“How’d Armani find out he had a daughter, then?”

“Christie died last year, and Armani attended the funeral. He’d been seeing her on and off for the last three and a half decades. Both before and after his wife died. He never thought he could have kids, which is why even though he was the eldest, his brother was originally crowned king of their empire.”

“So there he is, finding out his mistress had a daughter that’s . . .” Hudson paused. “Well, Calliope’s going on thirty,” he picked up, researching while talking from the sounds of it. “So she would’ve been almost twenty-nine at the funeral. And well, look at that: you two share a birthday next month. When she turns thirty on June twenty-first—”

“I’ll be forty,” I cut him off. “Thanks for the reminder.”

“What else do you know?”

I thought back to that damn conversation with my once-upon-a-time-ago best friend. “After Armani met Calliope at the funeral, he forced her to get bloodwork to verify whether he was her father. And he discovered he had an heir, after all,” I finished the story for him.

“I assume he also attempted to fuck his way through Sicily after that to see if he could have more kids,” Hudson said bluntly. “And no luck.”

Not the mental image I wanted.

“Why didn’t he force her to come back to Italy with him?”

“As much as I hate the DiMaggios, they have a few rules that they’ve maintained in their four-hundred-plus years of criminal enterprise that make them slightly less repulsive, one of which is no one in their organization can force themselves upon a woman in any way. No trading or trafficking of people. And nothing involving minors. Not even drug sales to anyone under eighteen.” I revealed what my father had shared with me years ago when he’d given me the bad news my former best friend now worked for the DiMaggio crime family. “If anyone breaks the rules, there are consequences.”

“So as the leader, Armani can’t exactly force his daughter to try and give him a male heir without breaking a four-hundred-year-old tradition of not harming a woman. But now . . . something is clearly wrong, or you wouldn’t be calling me.”

“Armani’s third-in-command is the reason why I’m here. We go way back. And clearly we’re no longer friends, but I’m indebted to him. I don’t want to get into why, but he doesn’t support what Armani plans to do. He wants my help overthrowing him.”

“And this involves Calliope somehow?”

“Since Armani couldn’t kidnap his own daughter and force her to come to Italy, he’s been trying to set her up in the last year with men he deems suitable: Sicilian, Catholic, and wealthy. She’s rejected every one and quickly realized they were bait to try and entrap her. Give him the heir he wants.”

“But?”

“Two weeks ago, Armani found out he’s dying. A rare blood disease. He has a few years to live. So he’s lost his patience. He’s willing to bend the rules and family traditions to ensure Calliope is married and pregnant before he dies, and that her child will one day run the family dynasty.”

“Get to the part where this involves you.”

“If I want to save her life, I either need to force her to go on the run with a new identity and stay hidden forever or . . . well, marry her myself.”

“Now you’re just fucking with me, right?”

I wish. I gave him silence as an answer.

“So I assume you’re going to push her to go into hiding until her old man dies instead of becoming your wife?”

“She’d need to hide a lot longer than that,” I shared, my shoulders falling in frustration. “Armani’s second-in-command, Marcello, will take over without an heir, and he’s an asshole of the highest order. He’ll hunt her down to ensure she’s never a threat to his power. DiMaggio’s people are loyal to the bloodline, and they’ll choose Calliope over Marcello if it were to come down to it.”

“So why not kill Armani and his second-in-command now,” Hudson tossed out. “Problem solved.” He went quiet for a moment, as if quickly realizing the issue with his solution. “Unless whoever takes over also has the same line of thought about her, and that’s a lot of dead bodies we’d need to pile up. Shit . . .”

“I don’t think she’ll even run. Hell, she hasn’t yet, and she’s aware her father is a monster who has her under his protection even as we speak.” I gripped the steering wheel and let go of a heavy breath.

“What does this old friend of yours that’s third in charge get out of all of this if you marry her? What’s his endgame?”

“When Armani dies and Calliope takes over, she’ll then pass on the mantle to him. Give him her blessing publicly to run the family business. No one will hunt her after that. No one will come for her if he’s the one in charge and it was a DiMaggio who put him there.”

“Ah, so he wants to be crowned king. Of-fucking-course. So you’re supposed to marry this woman until what, Armani dies? That’s—”

“Insane, I know. And no, the marriage wouldn’t last years.” I sure as hell hoped not. “A few days ago, Armani went ahead and negotiated a deal with who he wants Calliope to marry. He’s arranged for her to be taken on Monday and married by Wednesday.”

“And if she chooses to marry instead of run, how will you convince her father to let you have her hand instead of his choice?”

Another problem to tackle, but Gabriel had thought out everything in advance before contacting me; he also knew he’d need someone he could trust who wouldn’t ever want “the throne” once married to Calliope. “I meet his requirements, but I can also offer something that no one else in Sicily can, and that’s—”

“A truce with The League, like The League once had with The Alliance,” Hudson finished for me, connecting the dots.

“But if I marry into the DiMaggio family, that should alleviate their concerns The League would terminate the truce.” Well, that was the idea Gabriel would help me sell to Armani.

“And do you think she’ll choose you over this other guy?”

“I have until tomorrow night to convince her since Armani’s men are taking her after she gets off work Monday.” This was a damn tight timeline.

“Do you plan to live in Italy during all this?” A harsh breath cut over the line.

Just wait until I get to the real bombshell I haven’t dropped on you yet. You’ll breathe so hard you’ll nearly pass out, like I almost did.

“No, I’ll figure out something,” I finally answered. “The thing is, as much as I’d prefer her to go into hiding forever so I don’t need to get hitched, it’d be better if she doesn’t choose that option.”

“Why?”

I squeezed my eyes closed, memories from a past operation rushing to mind, and my stomach turned. “Because this might be our first shot to get the man we’ve wanted to take down for four years.”

I let that sink in. Gave Hudson the gift of time to process it all.

“The savage who . . .” He cleared his throat, emotion cutting him up, and I felt it through the phone. “The man who tortured Constantine . . . is the man Armani wants to marry his daughter?”

“Yes,” I hissed, my blood boiling at the very thought of Rocco Barone ever setting a hand on Calliope. The same man who’d nearly killed my brother had Gabriel not saved his life; hence the favor now. But this favor offered me a chance at revenge, so in a sense, I might owe him yet again.

“Rocco has been off the grid and is heavily protected. Plus, there’s that truce your father made with his dad . . . But if this is our chance to finally take him out, count me the fuck in. I’ll play the long game right along with you if I must. Just tell me what you need,” Hudson said with conviction, “and you’ve got it.”

“We protect Calliope from these assholes and get justice for what Rocco did to Constantine, one way or another.” I opened my eyes. “But before we let everyone else know about this, let me first—”

“Convince Calliope to either go into hiding or agree to marry you. But if she chooses to run, that eliminates our shot at getting Rocco, right?”

Yeah. But I couldn’t choose revenge over her life, even with how desperate I was to take out that animal, and Hudson knew that.

I thought back to the beautiful woman I’d met tonight, sensing the fire in her belly, right along with her stubbornness. She wasn’t going to play ball so easily, and I’d have to find a way to make her see the light somehow. She wasn’t from my world, and she was never meant to be. But now that she was being dragged into it because of the blood that ran through her veins, it was up to me to save her from the darkness before it swallowed her whole, like it had me.

“And you’re right, Constantine can’t know about this right away. He won’t let you do this for him. And he’d never be able to share a room with Rocco, if it came down to that, without snapping,” Hudson added when I’d yet to speak, because I was still trying to wrap my head around the possible idea of marriage, even if temporary. My mother would kill me for getting a divorce, but . . . “You sure you want to marry her, though? This is you we’re talking about. What if you wind up falling in love with your wife?”

“Me? Fall in love?” I fake-laughed, but honestly, there were only three women I’d ever loved in my life: Izzy, Bianca (now from the beyond), and my mother. I had no plans to fall for Calliope, and I sure as hell wasn’t giving Armani an heir. “I just have a feeling Little Miss Tennessee Whiskey is going to be a major pain in my ass, regardless of what choice she makes.”