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I slide into my chair behind the desk and let the images load. My eyes stay glued to the large screen as my finger clicks the mouse, scanning each captured picture of the most notorious crime family in history each placing a black rose on the casket of their gunned-down cousins. To many people, unless you know the history, the story and symbolism, this gesture would look as innocent as it did.
But, for a reporter who’s spent the last year digging into anything and everything about this family, it is a story worthy of front pages on every rag in the United States and abroad. The history and symbolism itself excite me, and my fingers fly over the keyboard, layering the article with pieces of old-world lure, tradition, question, and fact.
When I finish, I look back at the piece and take a sip of my wine. My father may not have taught me many things worth remembering, but he taught me one thing. Never trust anyone. No matter who they are, how much you think they love you, because you’re the only one that you can trust.
I swallow down thoughts of the man who I idolized as a child, at least until I was old enough to realize that his promises to the crime family meant more than his to me.
My fingers hit the save button as I scan the words before me one last time. It may be a dirty rough draft, but I feel good about the piece. It’s solid, true, and maybe when Lorenzo reads this it will bring mister high and mighty down just a notch or two.
Chapter5
Lorenzo
Salvatore raiseshis glass to the cousins we have lost. “Our loved ones will be remembered and avenged. Salute,” he says from the head of the table that was set up for the private family meal after the ceremony.
We all raise our glasses in unison and respect. “Salute.” I glance down at my cell and read the message twice, glancing at my cousin at the other end of the table, whose face looks as grim as Renzo’s, Matteo’s, and mine must look, but mine for a much different reason as I reread the message on my phone.
“You’re sure?” I text.
Positive.
I take another draw of my wine, thoughtfully contemplating the many options to deal with the nosy reporter who can’t seem to let well enough alone. Harmless enough at first, but no longer can we have her running around writing stories that have a little too much truth in them to be on the front page of every entertainment mag floating around the globe.
Especially this fucking one, and pictures too? I watched her hands the entire time she was there. Not one time did those pretty little fingers snap a picture, not once. No phone, no camera, but yet our inside guy says she has pics up the wazoo of all of us, including Salvatore, Dominic, and myself.
I spend a few moments with our family, some of whom will be taking one of our private jets back to Italy as soon as they leave here tonight, and some who will stay and mingle with the others at the resort for a few days before heading home, and yet others who, like me, have now dedicated their lives to taking over and expanding in the city that never sleeps.
Renzo and Matteo walk toward me. “You want me to take care of the problem, boss?” Matteo asks.
The answer should be yes. Get the fucking story, all the pics, and bury her somewhere no one will ever think to find her. That’s what the answer should be. “I’ll take care of it myself,” I tell my cousins, stalking toward the private elevator that will take me to the lower level.
I walk through the reception area as the doors open, pass the doormen without saying a word, and go out to the sidewalk before texting my driver. It gives me a little time to think and to fucking calm down before he brings the long black caddy around to the front entrance.
When he pulls up to the curb, one of our soldiers closes the door after I get into the back seat. “Where to, boss?” my driver asks.
He glances into the rearview mirror as he waits for my reply. I give him the address, reading it from a previous message and contemplating the nosy reporter’s fate as he pulls into the congestion of the strip on a late Sunday night.
The lights are on when we arrive at her house. “Stay here. I won’t be long.” I walk up to the door and knock.
She opens the door in leggings and a tight little t-shirt with no bra, emphasizing her perfectly shaped breasts and pointy nipples. “What do you want?” she asks.
I smirk because damn, she doesn’t play coy or beat around the bush, and she is more than hot. “We need to talk. Invite me in.”
Her eyes narrow. “Come in,” she says, stepping aside so I can come inside and close the door. I follow her to the dining room table in the spacious kitchen area. She gestures to one of the chairs around a square white table. “Would you like a drink? I was just pouring myself a glass of prosecco,” she says. “I have a bottle of scotch or red if you prefer that.”
A glass of scotch sounds good right about now, but it makes me wonder why she keeps a bottle of that around. The research done on her didn’t mention her drinking anything but wines and champagne when she’s out. I can hardly picture her being a scotch drinker in private. “A scotch then.”
She nods, finishes pouring her drink, and then reaches into the cupboard for a glass on the tips of her toes. Her nails are painted a coral color that reminds me of the beach. Her t-shirt lifts, exposing the creamy flesh of her stomach, flat and smooth and so fucking hot. She pours my drink and brings them to the table, putting mine in front of me with a little thud before sliding into the chair across from me. “So, what do I owe this unexpected visit to? Did you not threaten me enough at the gravesite?” she asks.
I swirl my drink. “You took pictures today that we don’t want published or written about. It seems we need to come to a mutual understanding, both for the good of my family and your own protection.”
She smiles and doesn’t acknowledge or deny what I already know she’s done. “Really? I’m pretty sure that I can protect myself. Even from devils like you,” she says, taking a sip from the tall stemmed glass, her bangs falling over her crystalline blue eyes. I take a drink of the aged scotch. Not bad at all. The woman knows her scotch, or someone does, yet the dossier I received on her didn’t mention a man in the picture. “I’m not the enemy, Isabella.”
Her eyes grow hard, and her cupid-shaped mouth purses. “How do you know my name?”
I swirl the amber liquid in my glass. Isabella is a loose end, a loose cannon, and is relentless in her pursuit of information that could put my family in jeopardy. One or many of us are already under the scrutiny of those in law enforcement who aren’t already accepting a state paycheck and one of ours on the side.
The problem should be eliminated. Everything in our protocols say the very same thing—there are no rules for beautiful red-haired creatures with blue eyes that cause your heart to pound every time you’re near. But yet here we are, having drinks, contemplating a negotiation, instead of putting a bullet in her head even after what I’ve learned. “I know a lot more about you than your name, Isabella Arden Pellegrini. What would your papà think if he knew you were giving away secrets about the families?”
