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“Maybe you’re right, but my gut tells me Nicco leveraged her into coming here,” Mason responded calmly.
“Nicco is the more levelheaded of the three Russo brothers. He knows her a lot fucking better than we do. He trusted her to come here and lie to us for whatever reason. Do you think that if it came down to making a choice between you, who she has known for five minutes, or the mafia she was raised in, that she would pick you?”
Hearing that pissed me off. I strolled straight into his office without knocking and surprised them both by saying, “I’d pick Mason over the mafia any day. In case you haven’t noticed, most daughters are trying their level best to get as far away from the criminal enterprise we grew up in as possible. Why do you think Sophia left? I’m no different. My father loved being Don Diavonte’s right-hand man. Me? I just want out from under the old man’s thumb.”
Storm gestured to the empty chair in front of his desk. “That’s just great. One good fuck with Mason and you’re willing to finally throw some honesty our way.”
Mason spoke up, clearly trying to break the tension. “Well, I do have a fucking magnificent cock. So, it’s not all that surprising that sex with me would make an honest woman of our sexy new friend.”
I smothered back a smile, loving Mason’s weird sense of humor. He was a smooth talker. Dropping down into the chair, I crossed my legs and stared at Storm. “You’re right about coming here under false pretenses. Don Diavonte sent me to spy on you.”
Storm jumped up from his chair and rounded the desk to hover over me. “I fucking knew it. Everyone says I’m the most suspicious bastard in the world, but somehow, I’m always right in the end. I should have never allowed you in our clubhouse.”
I gazed up at the big guy who was looking more unhinged by the second. Before I could respond to his rant and tell him that we were on the same side, Mason was out of his seat and pushing Storm back away from me. “What the hell is wrong with you, boss? When a woman turns on her former boss, it’s time to open our ears, not scream at her. Let’s just listen to what she has to say.”
“If I don’t fucking like what I hear, she’s getting a dirt nap.”
Mason gave him one final shove. “No, she’s not. You’ve never so much as hit a woman in your entire life. I doubt you’re going to kill one. If you did, Zoe would take the kids and run.”
Mentioning his wife and kids must have been a huge reality check for Storm because he immediately got control of himself. “Fine. You’re right about me not being the kind of man to hurt a woman. If I don’t like what I hear, I’m confiscating all her belongings and we’re escorting her back to LA.”
Mason turned away and rolled his eyes. “Sure, boss, whatever you say.”
Chapter 13
Mason
The minute Storm flung himself back into his rolling chair, Aprilia started explaining. “Nothing about the situation changes. We’re all on the same page in terms of overall goals. I talked to Nicco this morning and gave him the information you wanted him to have. He was adamant that we be careful and stressed twice that we should watch our backs. Repeating things twice was one of our codes for danger is near.”
Storm grabbed his phone and called Hacker. “We have a credible report of a possible pending attack. Let Grit know to step up security and release the drones. I want aerial surveillance of the clubhouse and all our businesses.”
I was proud that Aprilia started the conversation with the most important piece of information.
Storm put his phone down on his desk and sighed. “Continue. I’m all ears.”
She responded quickly. “Mason was right about Nicco and I not being engaged. Like I told you earlier, my father died several months ago, and Don Diavonte took it upon himself to arrange a marriage for me with his bookkeeper.”
“The guy who’s currently stalking you, right?”
She nodded. “What I didn’t tell you, was that Nicco did everything he could to make sure that didn’t happen. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t close with the Russo brothers. We grew up together. Sophia had a pretty isolated existence when she was young. Her family never let her hang out with other kids, just Eleanora and me because we were mafia kids.
“That sounds about right,” Storm grumbled.
“If you don’t think too hard about it, growing up interacting with other mafia kids can seem like having a normal life. We all knew it wasn’t, but there wasn’t anything we could do about it except dream of the day we could grow up and figure a way out. For girls, it’s easier if their family shelters them from knowing about the family business because when they’re all grown up they don’t have any beans to spill. For the boys, it’s different. They almost never got out of the family business because their fathers and uncles groomed them from an early age to build their whole identity around being a mobster. Mafia values of strong family ties, grifting, and never stepping a toe out of line are instilled in them at an early age.”
While she wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t know about the mafia, her story tore at my heart, particularly imagining her stuck in this situation as a little girl. “It must have been hard to be so constrained as a child, especially for someone with such a free spirit like yourself.”
She nodded, becoming visibly upset. “I was less restricted than most of the other mafia daughters. They were manipulated and left in the dark about everything to do with the business. My father was the opposite. He was convinced that the best way to keep me safe was to tell me everything. I knew who was doing what, which mobsters loved to hurt people and who the protectors were. Although I never saw anything go down firsthand, I was pretty aware of everything. I knew who to trust and who to avoid, and it saved me immeasurable pain.”
“So what’s with this engagement? Storm asked.
“Nicco came to me and told me about Don Diavonte’s plan to marry me off to his bookkeeper, Chester. He thought if we were engaged then maybe Don Diavonte would consider the problem of me being all alone in the world solved. You know about the Russo brothers’ plan to challenge the leadership? Well, Nicco also didn’t trust Chester to give me up or our don not to change his mind and give me to his bookkeeper if Nicco displeased him in some way, so he thought I’d be safer out of the way here, while they took care of business.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “So, you’re engaged to Nicco after all?”
She shot me a conflicted look. “No. His proposal was presented as a ruse to get me out of the arranged marriage. At one point he said he’d love for me to consider making the engagement real, but I turned him down on the spot. We’ve never had romantic feelings for each other. Marrying Nicco would have felt like marrying my brother.”
“Ah, he had a soft spot for you and that’s why he’s sticking his neck out.”
