SWNOVELS Sold to the Italian Mafia Boss: Chapter 12
I find Ari in the underground bunker, right where I told her to meet me. It’s been days since she and I talked last. Days since Kate and I talked last. I needed time to do research, to run numbers, and to consult with the older and more reliable members of the organization, men who once worked for my father. It’s taken hours and days of debate and consideration and of weighing eventualities. But I knew, that night I fucked her again.
Ari is right. I don’t love Kate—I can’t. How could I? I barely know the woman, after all. But…there is something between us. We fucked the night I forced her to marry me. The way she holds herself around me, the way she speaks to me—it’s not with the air of an enemy seeking vengeance or a captive looking to escape. Some part of Kate cares for me, too. And it’s far more dangerous than either of us lying or playacting. That would be simple. Understandable. I would know where she stands, and she would know where I stand.
Instead, something treacherous and genuine has begun to bloom between us. That is a clouding of judgment. A conflict of interest. A huge, lethal fucking distraction. Kate is meant to be a bargaining chip. But if I begin to value her truly, for what and who she is, she becomes far, far more. And the more I care for her, the less valuable she is to the organization.
So what? You’re married now. Make her your real wife. Make her your family. Have children with her, create a life. It could never be separate from the business, mine or hers. But it could be inside of it; it could be safe. Our relationship could gain respect over the years and concession. It could one day be so real that people forget it was forced, a negotiation. We could be a great love born of passion and circumstance.
We could. All of it could happen.
In a world where I don’t have to kill Kate’s father.
“You look gloomy,” says Ariana, dragging her finger down the oily barrel of an AK. It’s one of the dozens at this end of the bunker, arrayed on a shelf constructed just for this purpose. She looks in distaste at her fingers as though the brand-new rifles are covered in dust. “Why the long face, boss? Did your girlfriend finally break up with you?”
I don’t bother wasting time. “We’re going to Rome.”
She looks at me sharply, all mockery and performance falling away like a mask, leaving her face blank and open. “What? What are you talking about?”
“Petrov. You said there’s a gala in Rome where he’ll make his offer. We’re going.”
Ariana smiles, her dark eyes sparking. “Well, well, well. Look who’s coming around.”
I don’t have any interest in playing games with Ari. I don’t trust her, not after the shit she pulled in Russia. And worse—I don’t trust myself. I let that happen. Like Kate let Arthur Black steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from her over the years. Blind trust is a weakness. No, trust at all is a weakness. It will always be exploited, and you’ll be left the loser.
But though I don’t trust Ariana as far as I can throw her, I recognize that Petrov could potentially be a good connection. He’s a scoundrel, a man whose reputation has disabled him as much as it’s ever helped him. If he’s grasping for me, he’s grasping, period. A vulnerable man is easy to exploit and easier to buy. His loyalty will come cheaply, and I only need for long enough to return to Ireland, invade Liam McNamara’s compound, and kill the man.
I have men, good men. But not enough. And the Russians have always had a way of slipping over borders. They have untraceable transportation, bank accounts, contacts, and safe houses. They have the resources I need, and those resources are being offered. All for a chance to call themselves an ally of the Romano syndicate.
I’ve spent the last few days clearing every man on Petrov’s payroll, including the patriarch himself. And they’ve come out clean enough. As clean, that is, as organized international criminals can be.
Ari watches me thoughtfully through my silence, her eyes bright and eager. She looks like she’s just woken up well-rested and is ready to take this mission by the horns. “Luca,” she says, crossing to me, smiling faintly. “Let’s go to Rome. Let’s take Petrov for all he’s worth. And then—let me do it.”
I narrow my eyes. “Do what?”
“Let me go to Ireland. Let me kill Liam McNamara.” She’s smiling fully now, almost grinning. She looks wild, vital, jackal-like. This is the Ari I hired all those years ago, a girl too clever and dangerous for her own good, a girl nobody would take a chance on. A girl no one was stupid enough to take a chance on…It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her like this. “I went behind your back. For you, obviously—but that doesn’t change the fact that I did go behind your back. Let me prove my loyalty to you. Let me make an example of him.”
I consider her. Not the proposal, which is absurd—but her. Do I trust her? After all these years? Should I? Probably not. Indeed, I probably shouldn’t trust anyone. Not Kate. Not Gio. Not Dome or any of the men who walk my halls with rifles in hand that they use to protect me but could turn on me at any moment.
What kind of world is this? If my father were here, what would he tell me to do? What instinct would he want me to follow? I glance at the racks of rifles and run my hand over the blunt cold muzzle of one. My father is not here. My father is dead, thanks in no small part to Liam McNamara. I can’t ask what he would do.
That’s why I can never forgive Kate’s father. That’s why I have to kill him.
“Liam McNamara,” I say icily, shifting my gaze back to Ari’s, “is mine.”
She watches me for a long moment, then nods. “Rome?” She asks, and that light sparks in her face again, dangerous and warning as a muzzle flash.
I smile. “Rome.”
***
I don’t bother saying goodbye to Kate—what good will it do? I haven’t slept with her since the night we fucked in the dining room. I haven’t even spoken with her. There was something between us that night, a current that ran far deeper than an arranged marriage. There was affection. And that must die. Distance is my first attack.
Still, as I’m driving away from the villa, I can’t help but feel a strain in my heart. I watch it shrink in the rear-view mirror. What if something happens? What if there’s another invasion? I’m spread thin enough as it is, especially now, bringing men with me to Rome. And enemies got in once—what’s to stop them from doing it again? You’ve brought in reinforcements, I remind myself as bluntly, as unemotionally, as I can. You obtained a massive cache of weapons. You doubled security. She will be fine.
And why should I care, anyway? She’s an investment, sure. A good one. But good investments are replaceable, aren’t they?
Is Kate?
I swallow my apprehension. I have no room for it. Tonight, I meet Pyotr Petrov, an infamous Russian gangster and long-time enemy of my late father. Tonight, I make a move that could make or break my organization. Help turn it into an empire or run it into the ground.
But no pressure. I drum my fingers on the wheel, watching the wipers slash wet, sleety snow off the windshield. No pressure at all. I try to remember myself: I am steel, cold as ice. Unfeeling. All of this, my life, my world—is just business. Nothing more. Then why do I wish I was back there, now, with Kate? Why do I wish she was sleeping beside me, knowing she’s safe in my arms?
Because I would be worse than an idiot to fall in love with Kate McNamara.
I would be dead.
***
The meeting takes place not in the museum itself but in an adjacent storage building on the moors. The streets are lit up, aglow after dark, and crowded with revelers. I leave my car in the garage and enter with a contingent of security guards, Ariana at my side.
“I know you’re going to want to put him in his place,” she says, walking in step with me and speaking low so that only I can hear her. “But resist the temptation. He already knows he’s vying for your allegiance. Don’t make him work harder than necessary.”
“Or, what? He walks away? Let him walk away. I have no time or room for a man with an ego.”
Her eyes spark. “Because you’re too busy carrying your own?”
I catch her elbow as we reach the entrance of the building, pulling her close and speaking low into her ear. “If you fuck this up, if you fucked this up—I will kill you.”
She stiffens in my grip, and I ignore the reflexive feeling of guilt that rises up in me. “You really know how to make a girl feel valued, Luca.”
“I have valued you for years, and you betrayed my trust. I’m giving you a chance to repair it.” I tighten my grip, hearing the wind on the water, hearing the forlorn cries of gulls caught on updrafts. I have been to Rome a thousand times, but tonight, it feels like a dark cousin of its daytime self, sinister, cloaked. I don’t like it, and it’s putting me more on edge than I’d like to admit. “You should be throwing yourself on my mercy. You should be grateful I’m even humoring this negotiation.”
I release her roughly without waiting for an answer. In a perverse way, it feels good to treat her so poorly. It feels good not to want to feel better, not to feel obligated to behave like a better man. That better man is weak; he’s the reason I’m here now. He’s the reason I couldn’t marry Kate away, though it clearly would have benefitted me to do so. That man must die, especially if he plans to kill Liam McNamara.
Inside, we’re taken below ground by a gilt elevator. The storage building itself is stunning and glamorous, with a green brass dome and ornate carvings along every eave. Inside, everything is sleek, meticulous, and modern. When we arrive at the bottom floor, a wide clean expanse with white walls, floors, and ceiling, Pyotr Petrov is already waiting.
He beams when he sees me. I bristle. He’s a behemoth of a man, well over six feet tall and thicker around the middle than he was as a young man. What muscle he has is obscured, and despite his age, he wears a fine Italian suit and has wax in his mustache.
“Luca,” he booms when he sees me, throwing out big, ringed magnanimous hands. “And what a pleasure it is to see you in the flesh!”
I don’t shake his hand, and I don’t miss the way the sight registers, a dark spark in his smiling eyes. “Petrov. I had hoped never to encounter you in my neck of the woods.”
“Oh, but I love Rome,” he booms, his accent thick, blunting every word. “And I love Italy. The people—so free; the mafia—so…present.”
There are no chairs. There’s no table, no drinks to be poured. This isn’t that kind of meeting. “I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
Ari, at my side and slightly behind me, clears her throat. When I look at her, I find her standing stiff, with hands clasped before her. She gives me a warning look. And I feel something, then: a shift. The slightest, subtlest thing, like a tumbler turning in a lock. Call it instinct; call me a fool for even setting foot in here. But I feel in that instant the way my control of the situation slips, and the power shifts places.
“I never did like your father,” says Petrov, and I look at him sharply. His jovial smile has soured, and his rheumy eyes have gone dark, pupils blown out to black. “And in another world, one where you treat me with the respect that I deserve—this goes differently.”
I keep my face schooled and my breathing calm. But my hackles are up, my skin crawling. I’m surrounded by my men. And while I held out some hope, I could wring men and allies out of this situation—I’m not a complete fool.
Ari. She’s still at my side. She hasn’t said a word. I don’t need to look at her to know the exact expression on her face. I’ve known her long enough now. And, after all, this was all a test. She’s a rat. I knew it. Maybe I’ve known for a long time. I gave her a long leash, and still, she strained. She got cocky. But I know without looking that her face is a mask, cool but slightly quizzical, as though she doesn’t quite know what’s going on.
While I am suddenly certain that she does. And she always has. She walked me into a trap. Some part of me is stung. The naïve, hopeful part. The good, weak man. But the rest of me knew. That’s why I didn’t tell Ari about my plans for this trip. She doesn’t know that I have the bulk of my security just outside, that they’ll be in here in three minutes unless I give the signal for them to hang back. She doesn’t know that all of the men with me have been instructed to shoot to kill. Petrov. His men.
And her.
But for this moment, I need to stall. “What goes differently?” I ask Petrov, cocking my head. I slide my hands into my pockets, playing the part of cool, relaxed, and unafraid. All the while, I’m relishing the weight of my pistol against my ribs, knowing just how quickly I can draw, how quickly I can aim and fire. “The meeting hasn’t even started yet, Petrov. You really think it’s going south so quickly?”
“Don’t play coy with me. You never meant to make a deal.”
“I did.” I mean it. And Petrov must catch the sincerity in my expression because he looks in question—so tellingly—to Ari. Like they’re partners in crime. Like she gave him bad or old information. And I remember that Petrov has never been a good or clever gangster. There’s a reason he’s banging down doors, searching for allies and contacts. He’s not good at this. But I am. “Liam McNamara has one of the most secure compounds in Europe. I can get in myself. I can. I will, likely.” I shrug, pacing idly as though this information is barely pertinent. “But I thought I’d give you a shot. You’re underestimated. You’ve never been the biggest dog, but you’ve never stopped trying to be. I respect that.”
Ariana is looking at me hard. Calculating. The gears turning in her head. She knows I’m onto her. Or is my acting fooling her? She doesn’t think much of me. I wouldn’t be surprised if she thought I was actually dumb enough to come here without backup.
“What I don’t respect,” I say, not looking away from Ari. “Is foul play.”
Her eyes flash. But she doesn’t move, not a muscle. She’s frozen in place. Practically paralyzed. Now she knows, I think, with grim pleasure. Now I’m telling her.
“We’re criminals,” I say, still studying her, unblinking. “It’s just bad form to renege on an agreement in our world, don’t you think? We’re already the lowest of the low. We have to have some kind of honor.”
Ariana’s eyes dance, and she smiles a faint, cruel, knife-like little smile. “Honor among thieves, hm?”
I smile back. “Something like that.”
But the time is up. The three minutes have lapsed, and I’ve made my point. At that instant, the elevator door dings, almost comically—and out pour a troop of my men, rifles up. They move like a TV SWAT team, fast-paced and poised, muzzles aimed. The security I brought with me rushes forward, and Petrov’s men, a half-circle gathered lazily around him, leap into action.
Ari and I move at the same time. I whip out my pistol and level it, catching her a split second before she can get her hands on hers. She raises her hands, palms out in surrender. Still smiling, snake-like. Cool as ever.
My men are shouting down Pyotr’s. I hear the Russian boss barking orders, his own big ringed hands raised in surrender. They’re outnumbered. It’s over.
So, why the fuck is Ariana smiling like that?
“I warned you,” she says, her dark eyes hooded. “I warned you this would be your end. You should know better than to not take me at my word, Luca. Have I ever steered you wrong?”
“You have always grasped at power,” I say, moving closer. My men have Petrov’s on their knees, hands on their heads. Their shouts ring through the wide-open space, Russian and Italian crashing together, a violent cacophony. It fades from my hearing as I move closer to Ari, my eyes narrowed, my heart going. Something isn’t right here. Something has my skin crawling, but I don’t know what. I can’t put my finger on it. “I have always given you enough to get by on. More than I should have ever trusted you with. More than you ever deserved.”
She slowly raises her hands, clasping them behind her head. Obediently, she kneels, bending to one knee and then to the other. It feels wrong, somehow, to hold her here at gunpoint. She’s dangerous. An enemy at the end of the day, not too unlike Kate. But I have a fondness for her, despite everything. A kind of respect. We’re not our fathers, none of us. We’re not just our parents. We’re not just a legacy.
And yet here all three of us are, continuing to fight in a war we didn’t wage. Fuck it. If I’m going to fight, I think I’m at least going to fucking win.
“You think you’re wiser than everyone around you,” Ari says, her eyes glittering, smiling. Malicious. Evil. My men are filing out of Petrov’s, their voices booming through the storage facility. I don’t budge, and neither does Ariana. “But you’re a fool. You let your ego and empathy cloud your judgment, Luca. You should have shot the girl. You should have sold her to the highest bidder and won yourself an ally. We’d be in Ireland now. We’d have a bullet between Liam McNamara’s eyes. We’d have the respect of all of Europe, and you would have an empire—a real empire,” she adds, more bitterly. “Rather than the ghost of one.”
My men finish herding Petrov’s out the far door, leading them down the stairs with guns divested and their hands on their heads. I have a chapter here in Rome that will deal with them. And Pyotr Petrov will be brought back to the villa in the north country, where I can deal with him personally. And Ari…
Ari. We’re alone now, she and I—suddenly, the door banging shut. In this massive, empty space, we’re very small. I’m aware of every breath I take. I’m aware that I’m leveling my pistol with both hands right between her eyes. I’m aware that her expression is one of grim bemusement—not fear.
“Don’t act like you give a damn about my empire,” I say icily. “Or my father’s legacy. You exist without loyalty, selling yourself to the highest bidder and scorching the earth when you go. You are nothing. You will never be anything.”
Finally, her smirk slips, and she narrows her dark eyes to slits. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
“I’m looking at what you’re capable of.”
Her expression changes slightly. She tips her head, studying me, considering me. “It could have been us, you know,” she says, and somehow, deep down, I think I always knew that this is where it was going. “You and I could have run this empire. We could have used Kate properly. We could have destroyed the McNamara legacy. You and I…we’re more similar, you know, than you and she are.”
“You don’t know her. And you don’t know me.”
“Don’t I, Luca? All this time, you’ve been watching me, keeping checks and tabs on me. But what do you think I’ve been doing? When you watch me, do you think I look away? Do you think I don’t study you, too?” She smiles again. I begin to dislike this position: I with gun raised, her on her knees, hands clasped behind her head. I begin to dislike that even though she’s looking up at me, I feel the power dynamic shifting. Faster than I can think to repair it. “You’re soft, Luca. That’s good. You should be. That empathy that your father lacked—it might save you. It might save all of this, and I wouldn’t be surprised. But she’s soft, too. No, she’s weak.”
“You don’t know her,” I repeat with more force.
“You’re in love with her. I told you it would be your ruin. It will be. I could have balanced you, Luca. But you always looked down on me rather than at me. Don’t you know it’s just as dangerous?”
I narrow my eyes. “What’s just as dangerous?”
“You overestimate your enemies,” she says. Her eyes flash, and my nerves go frenetic. “But you underestimate them, too.”
She lunges. She’s a blur of dark curls, of Italian silk. She takes me around the waist with all of her weight, springing off both feet. The momentum rocks me. I shift, making the decision, and squeeze off a single shot.
It flies past her as we go slamming to the floor, the bullet pinging off the white tile floor, chipping it. My back hits the ground hard, but I roll, bringing my knee into her stomach. Ari grunts, swinging wildly, slamming her fist into my jaw so hard I see stars. Her hands go for the gun, and I realize she still has hers, too. I manage to wrestle mine back, flipping her onto her back, pinning her with my knees. She lunges, slamming her forehead into my nose.
I hear the wet snap of the bridge breaking. Hot blood flushes from both nostrils instantaneously, splashing onto her face. She doesn’t even seem to notice, her black eyes wild. She draws her pistol. I swing mine back up, but neatly, as though she’s done it a thousand times, she swats it from my hand. It flies across the floor, clattering.
And now I’m on my knees before her, her pistol pressed between my brows. I’m bleeding heavily, and she’s wearing my blood like a mask. We’re both breathing hard.
Ari smiles wickedly, shrugging blood from her face with one shoulder, her pistol never leaving my head. She glances at the glittery silver Rolex on her wrist, a man’s watch she wears with ease and grace. “Ah,” she says. “Just on time.”
“What’s that?”
“They’ll be arriving now.”
My stomach drops. “Who?”
“Pyotr’s men.” Her eyes are stormy. Proud. Cocky, even. “They can use her as a bartering chip if they want. Or they can kill her and send a message. Or, hell—they’ll probably just follow the plan. And use her as bait to get face to face with Liam.”
The blood drains out of my face. Of course. Of course. This was all a ruse; this was all bullshit. They’re taking Kate right now, probably at this very moment. And they can do whatever they want to with her.
Because I won’t be there to protect her.
“You’re lucky I want to see how this plays out,” Ari says with that jackal smile. “You’re lucky I want an audience when I blow your brains out, Luca.”
I open my mouth to reply, but I’m too slow. She swings, clocking me in the temple with her pistol with more force than I could ever have thought her capable of.
And everything goes black.