SWNOVELS Sold to the Italian Mafia Boss: Chapter 1
This is stupid.
It’s the thought running on a loop through my mind as I walk fast down the wet black sidewalks of Dublin’s downtown. This is so, so stupid. I’ve lived half my life in Ireland and half in the United States. I know when it’s wise to hit the streets, and I know when it’s an invitation for drama.
For someone like me, drama often means danger—and the real kind, too. The kind you don’t always come back from. Dad would kill me himself if he knew. Of course, he would. That’s what happens when your father is the head of an Irish mob syndicate. The standards shift. An average twenty-five-year-old woman would usually be fine with a taser in her coat pocket on a dark city night, head ducked against the wind and spraying rain.
But I’m not an average twenty-five-year-old woman. Am I?
This is so fucking stupid.
When my phone buzzes, my heart jolts hard in my chest. I duck into the old cracked shell of a bus stop, the plexiglass webbed and rippling with rain. Overhead, the butter-colored streetlight flickers hard once, then twice, before snapping out and shoving me into darkness. Well, if that’s not a fucking omen…
“Hello?” I bring the phone to my ear, eyes skirting the opposite curb. But the old residential buildings are, for the most part, dark, and there isn’t a soul in sight. One lone beater comes kicking down the way, rain slashing off its wheels. Then it’s gone, and I’m alone with the silence on the other end of the line. “Are you there?”
“Is this Kate McNamara?” The voice is hard and low, male, twisted with the brogue of an Italian accent.
I hesitate. But what’s the point? I know what I’m doing, right? I hope I know what I’m doing. “Yes. This is Kate.”
“Do you know who I am?”
I swallow the hard stone that forms in my throat. “Yes.”
Silence.
I bite my cheek. Well, you came out here for this. Didn’t you? This is what you wanted, isn’t it, Kate? “Your name is Giorgio Rosso. You…”
“I, what?” There’s a hyena hint in his voice. An eagerness that’s primal, that smells like fire. “Go on.”
“You used to work for Luca Romano.” His name is brimstone on my tongue. A Romano is a name I’ve heard my whole life, almost as much as I’ve heard my own. Spoken with almost as much fear. “My father owes him a debt.”
“I’m aware.”
“And I want to see it paid.”
He chuckles, following the cold, amused sound with more silence. This time I wait, too, listening to the rain as it thickens and drums on the rooftops as it comes down in skeins, fluttering through the distant streetlights. Finally, Giorgio says, “And how do you think you’re going to go about that, Ms. McNamara?”
I steel my spine. “I can pay for it.”
“How?”
“How do you think? With money. Collateral. My…” I hesitate, reaching for the edge of the bus stop frame to steady myself. I think of my father. I put more steel in my voice. “My father is stubborn. An old-fashioned gangster.”
“And you?”
“I like to keep things a little more flexible. A little more…modern.” And I’m no idiot, either. I might make my living as a day trader, but I’m still my father’s daughter. He never wanted me in his world of organized crime, of old blood feuds and forced marriages, of debts and deaths and silencers screwed on the ends of Glocks. Too bad. Too late. “I can handle his work.”
Giorgio doesn’t reply, and now I’m getting uneasy, skin crawling, pulse twitching. I feel the rain in my blood and in my bones, and I feel the February cold creeping up through the soles of my shoes. This is so fucking stupid.
“You’re alone,” says Giorgio, and I think he means it as a question, but that’s not how he says it.
“Yes,” I reply, uneasy.
“You left your car. Took a cab?”
“…yes.”
“I know.”
I go rigid, clenching my teeth hard. I’ve been in a lot of dangerous situations throughout my life. I’ve had guns against my head. I’ve had tape around my wrists and ankles. I’ve had debts leveraged over me before. Once when I was a little girl, I was taken to a cottage in the country. I was held there for five days while some Italian brute chain-smoked and kept my dad on the line, bartering with my blood, with my flesh. I remember sitting by the window watching cartoons with my captor, eating cereal, and drinking surprisingly decent tea. The hills outside were spring green, and the breeze was warm, and when my father negotiated for my release, he bought it with a bullet in my captor’s head. I still remember the warm sprinkle of blood across my face, how when it dried, it looked like freckles.
You’re good, girl? Those were Dad’s words. You look to be just fine. Got your father’s steel in your spine, you do.
I remember that steel now. “I know that you know,” I say sharply to Giorgio. “I know that you didn’t defect from Luca’s payroll. I know you led me out here because there’s a GPS dead-spot, and I know you’ve been following me for the last four blocks.”
There’s a high twang of tension in the silence that follows. I don’t know if I’ve actually surprised him or caught him off-guard, but I don’t care. That’s only part of the performance.
“Here’s what you should know,” I continue, more mildly. “I’m armed. And you and your little muscle wouldn’t be the first men I’ve shot for their stupidity.”
Giorgio chuckles—and the line goes dead.
My heart plummets. I know I’m in their sights. I don’t know what comes next, but I know that whatever it is, it’s unlikely I’ll be in control of it. I knew what I was risking, getting in touch with Giorgio. I knew what I was risking by stepping up to pay my father’s debt. I know that tonight might end with me dead, face-down in the gutter, with a message of five or ten bullets in the back of my skull.
It’s better than living in fear. Better than watching my father lose both his life, slowly, to cancer—and his empire, his dignity, his pride.
I want to run. Everything in me says to. My will to live burns hard, hot, a torch in my chest. But I don’t let it reach my feet. I don’t let the fear motivate me. Instead, I reach once again for that steel I inherited from my father. I turn and sit on the bench, listening to the rain. I breathe. Whatever happens, I can handle it. Whatever comes, I can take it. However this ends, it will end with me fighting. Fighting like hell.
Headlights spring to life at the end of the black city road. My heart lurches into my throat. My hands tighten on my knees, and I resist the urge to reach for the Glock inside my coat. Instead, I just gently bring my elbow to my side and, with it, the pistol, grateful for the cold weight of it against my ribs. I have killed before, and I wasn’t lying about that. It’d be stupid to do it here, but I would. Stupid and counterproductive. But I’m my father’s daughter, after all, and I’ll do whatever the hell I have to.
The car approaches. It’s sleeker than I thought it would be—night-black, deep and glittering—some kind of panther-like Audi, sleek and low-bound, silent even in the draping cold rain. Exhaust plumes, and it’s the back window that glides down. I wait, looking into the dark, waiting for the nose of a pistol, waiting for the muzzle flash, the sudden back pain, the cold, wet concrete seeping against my back through my coat.
Nothing. I wait. Then the driver’s side door swings open. An older man with thick white hair and a mustache, well-dressed and brawny but not muscular, steps out. I stand, and he approaches, dark eyes glancing over me. I wait again, white hissing into the edges of my vision. Fear is just a feeling, fear is just a sensation, and fear has no control over me—
But when his gloved hand rises, I move without thinking, hand flicking beneath my coat, fingers grazing the cool edge of my pistol. He’s a big man and not young—so when his fist moves so fast, I almost think I’m imagining it. But his weight is in it, and he clocks me so hard I see stars, his whole fist slamming me square in the jaw. I stagger back, slamming into the plexiglass wall of the bus stop.
“Wait,” I say, teeth-rattling, pain bursting red inside my skull. “I—”
His hand lands on my throat, silencing me, and he shoves me hard against the plexiglass. A rasp leaves my throat but no words, and I grip his wrist with both of my hands, trying in vain, trying to absolutely no success, to break or just loosen his grip. I can feel my windpipe bending beneath the brunt of his meaty palm. His expression shows nothing. It’s blank, not even cold, as though he’s opening a door or starting his car. White creeps in again at the edges of my vision—every vein in my skull pounds, feeling full enough to burst.
Gun, gun, gun. What the fuck am I doing? I drop one hand, shoving it beneath my coat. I have one shot at this—
I get my fingers on the pistol, yank it free and shove it against the man’s ribs under his fine, Italian silk blazer.
He swats my hand aside. I’ve hit the safety, and I can fire, but to what end? I’d shoot the sidewalk or into a parked car, and I brought my silencer but didn’t screw it on. I’ve barely filtered through the thoughts before the pistol has left my fingers. It goes clattering to the sidewalk, and the driver turns and kicks it neatly, sending it flying into the gutter.
Fuck. He’s got to have a gun on him, too. I just need to guess: waistband? Breast pocket? Beneath the ribs? How quickly could I grab it, arm it, and cock it? How quickly could I squeeze off a shot? My skull feels full to bursting, his hand around my throat crushing every ounce of oxygen out of me. Even if I shot, could I kill him? Who’s in the car? How many?
This was so fucking stupid.
I grab his wrist again, this time sinking my nails into his flesh, every single one. I get them into the meat and drag them back toward him, flaying off potato-peels of his skin, blood welting immediately to the surface.
“Fuck,” he snarls, voice heavy with an Italian accent. “Little Irish bitch—”
He raises his other hand, bracing to bring it down hard. I don’t want to get hit again. My skull is rattled, my thoughts and instincts frayed—but I know I can’t get hit again. That’s when I go down. That’s when I go out. That’s the potential end, and I’m not ready to die. Something sparks off in me, a surge of wild animal energy, and I cock back, slamming my fist with every last ounce of strength I have into the driver’s eye.
He roars, and fear comes ripping up my spine. I feel like I’m coming apart, and I feel like that sound means this man is going to kill me. He wants to kill me; he wants to do it with his hands and watch the light go out of my eyes. But the blow breaks his grip just enough. And I slip from his hand and rush toward the street.
A shadow detaches from the car—what the fuck, when did that get there? It’s a man, extremely tall, broad-shouldered. I can only see half his face in the dark, and it takes my breath away: the dark eye, the trim-bearded jaw, the swept-back rich brown curls, the full, angry mouth. His hand shoots out, and I’m so fucking close to the gun, I see it, aglitter in the gutter, and if I could just kneel enough, if my reach is just long enough—
His hand catches my elbow, tightening, a vice grip. I lunge, reaching desperately for the gutter. My fingers graze the grip of my Glock. Fuck, further, please, just a little bit—
I strain, somehow getting my hand around the grip. My breath is wild, ice cold as I whip around, shove my pistol against the man’s chest—
He’s quick. Easily, his hand glides up my wrist, twisting it back. The nose of the pistol goes straight up, and I squeeze the trigger just a heartbeat too slow. The shot goes high as he disarms me neatly, the pistol—and my last hope—slipping straight through my fingers.
“Kate,” says the man, his voice low, its timbre in my ribs. “You’ve already lost.”