Vassago's Reckoning Read online

So much for his comments earlier about her appearance. He was just like any other man. Once he got past her looks, it was all business. Then again, she was the intruder here, not the other way around. “Do you remember Vince Falcone?”

  “Yeah…” He gave her a look that wasn’t unexpected, but still made her second-guess her decision to come here.

  “That’s who I was engaged to.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? Marie, what the hell? His great-grandfather practically ran your family out of town!”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “There was a turf war. Are you nuts? I can see why your family hated the idea of you marrying him.”

  She stood and walked over to the windows before turning to face him. “God. You sound just like my parents.”

  “Maybe you should have listened to them?”

  “I’m thirty years old, Jimmy. I think I can make up my own mind about who I marry.”

  “Apparently not, if you said ‘yes’ to Vince Falcone.”

  “This has nothing to do with his great-grandfather or mine.”

  “Oh, really? You think your family just forgot what his did to them?”

  “It has to do with one of my friends from school.”

  “Which one?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Why the fuck not?”

  “Because she’s hiding from Vince, okay? She was his next target.”

  Jimmy stared at her with disbelief in his gorgeous brown eyes. “Fuck me sideways, Marie. Did you hide someone from your fiancé?”

  “My ex-fiancé.”

  “Is that why you broke off the engagement?”

  “I didn’t break off the engagement. He did.”

  “Because you hid his next target.”

  “No, because he suspects I had something to do with it, and because he no longer trusted me after those suspicions took hold.”

  “What happened to make them take hold?” Now he was mocking her, but what had she expected? That he’d listen to this story and not react?

  “Sofia and I were spotted by one of his associates.”

  “You just told me her name.”

  “Her first name only.”

  “I know who you mean, Marie. We know the same people.”

  “Well, keep it to yourself!”

  “God dammit! We got enough fucking trouble here right now without hiding someone from yet another fucking Mob boss!”

  Shit. He hadn’t heard the worst part yet. “I know that. I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “Does Digger know this story?”

  “No.” She held up both hands. “I swear it. I told him I needed to get out of Brooklyn for a while because of the break up. He believed me.”

  Jimmy shook his head and stood, slamming his hand against the back of the sofa. “Son of a bitch. Where is she hiding?”

  “I am not telling you that.”

  “Why is she hiding, then? What did she do?”

  “I hadn’t seen her in years. We ran into each other in the city. It was a coincidence.”

  “Go on.”

  “You know, I don’t really care for the tone you’re using. I’m not a damn child.”

  “I don’t care if you like my tone or not. Do you understand what we’re dealing with here? This isn’t a fucking pit stop for runaway witnesses! Tell me what’s going on or I’ll drive you back to Brooklyn myself, right now.”

  He meant it, too. There was anger along with absolute conviction in his eyes. She wouldn’t be able to charm her way out of this, and she sure as shit couldn’t go back home. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

  She had two choices. Tell him the whole story and hope like hell he let her stay until she figured out what to do next, or leave this place now and find another city in which to hide.

  Chapter Three

  Thunderbolt, my ass. Fucking holy hell. The woman of his dreams walks in and she’s mixed up in some shit with another fucking Mob boss. How in the hell did this happen? And now, of all the fucking times, yet?

  Not that there was ever a good time for shit like this.

  “I ran into her by accident. She looked like hell and was clearly scared shitless, so I took her to this little out-of-the-way place I know on the Upper West Side and we had coffee. I didn’t think anyone paid any attention to us, but one of Vince’s associates spotted us there.”

  “Yeah. Duh. He was probably following her.”

  “I didn’t know that at the time, Jimmy.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “That she and Lenny, her boyfriend, had been running drugs but had money troubles of their own. They hadn’t paid their boss his share of the cut in months, and he was done with it. When Lenny was killed, Sofia knew he was after her, too.”

  “Who killed Lenny? Was it Vince?”

  “I don’t know for certain, but I believe it was, yes. We never talked about his jobs in that kind of detail. But some of the things Sofia told me matched up to a job I knew he had pulled a few days before I ran into Sofia.”

  “Does he know you know all this?”

  “Hang on. Let me tell you this in order. I got her fake IDs and gave her some money. She’s far away, in a place where I don’t think she’ll be found as long as she doesn’t do anything stupid.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Right. ‘Cause she never did anything stupid in the first place, like stiff a fucking Mob boss!”

  “She was a good friend back in school, okay? You telling me you wouldn’t help one of your MC Brothers in the same way?”

  “That’s entirely different.”

  “Not to me it isn’t.”

  “This still isn’t adding up. Why, having grown up like you did and understanding the rules and the risks, would you go to such extremes to hide a woman you hadn’t seen in years?”

  “Because my fiancé was going to kill her?”

  “You knew what he did when you agreed to marry him.”

  “Yeah, but being face-to-face with someone I used to be good friends with in school kind of drove it home, Jimmy. I’d never actually known anyone he took out. It was different. Horrible, actually. I kept picturing it, and I made a split-second decision to help her.”

  “Do you regret doing so now?”

  “Yeah. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t make the same decision again.”

  What she’d said about him protecting his Brothers was true. He’d never allow anyone to kill them if he had a chance to help them get away. But he still felt like a piece of the story was missing. And fuck it all to hell and back. Why in the hell had she chosen this place to hide?

  “How did Vince find out what you had done?”

  “He didn’t. If he had, I’d be dead. Like I said, Sofia and I were spotted by one of his associates, and then two days later Sofia disappeared. Vince knows I went to the bank, and he knows I visited the guy who made the fake IDs.”

  “How does he know this?”

  “I guess I was being trailed. I didn’t know that, either.”

  “When did he start trailing you?”

  “Apparently before he asked me to marry him. Fucking asshole.”

  “And after all that, you still wanted to marry the guy? You didn’t break off the engagement?”

  She turned to face the windows. “I didn’t have a chance to. He broke it off when he confronted me about Sofia.”

  “So he does know.”

  “Well, he probably does by now. But at the time, I lied to him. I told him it was a coincidence I went to the bank that day. I explained the fake IDs by telling him one of my customers was asking about where to get them, and I wanted to give her name to the guy in case she showed up there.”

  “But he didn’t believe you.”

  “He said I had been spotted with Sofia and now she was gone. I asked him what had he wanted with her, and he got all nasty and said what the hell did I think he wanted with her?”

  “He knew that you had known her in school?”

  “Yes. And th
en I asked him how long he’d been having me followed, and he said did I think he’d marry someone and not having them watched? We got into a big argument about it, and he said he couldn’t trust me anymore, and broke off the engagement.”

  Christ. She must have been fucking terrified. “Where did you go?”

  “My parents’ house. But only for a few hours. I told them we’d broken up, and that I needed to get out of the city for a while. Then I went to a friend’s house in Jersey.”

  “How do you know he didn’t have you followed there?”

  “I took four trains and went in the middle of the night. I wasn’t trailed.”

  Vassago couldn’t help it. He rolled his eyes at her.

  “Jimmy, I do know how to tell if I’m being followed, once I actually watch for it. And if he had followed me there, I never would have been able to get out of Jersey with Digger. Vince thought I was still with my parents when Digger and I left. I’m certain of it.”

  “You realize you’re also likely in trouble with the man who paid Vince to kill Sofia.”

  “Yes, I do know that, but Digger had told me days earlier he was planning this trip, so I asked to come along. I didn’t know what else to do. I only knew I had to get out of there so I could think!”

  When Rai, Tannin’s old lady, had first come here, she’d been running from a Mob boss, too. But Rai hadn’t grown up in the business. She hadn’t known how things worked. Marie had, and she knew exactly what would have happened had she simply gone about her business.

  But fuck. This was the worst possible timing. And he sure as shit hadn’t expected this reaction on seeing her again. He was so fucked here it wasn’t even funny.

  “Who is this Mob boss?” But as soon as she turned to face him again, he already knew the answer.

  “Don’t be upset with me.”

  “Oh shit. Marie, for fuck’s sake. How could you do this to us?”

  “I didn’t do it to you or to Digger. I didn’t hear the whole story of what’s going on here until we were on the road. What was I supposed to do? Tell him to turn around and take me back?”

  “Yes. That’s exactly what you should have done.”

  “You know if I’d done that he would have insisted on knowing why.”

  “Yeah, I would have, too.”

  “And do you really believe Digger would have taken me back, knowing who was looking for me?”

  Vassago ran his hands through his hair. She was right. Digger wouldn’t have done that. Not to a family friend like Marie. She was one of their own. He’d have kept going and brought her here, the same way Vassago would hide one of his Brothers.

  “Did you know anything was going on with di Stefano and Donny?”

  “No. I knew none of this was going on. Where would I have heard it from? Certainly not from Vince. He never discussed business with me in any detail.”

  Vassago sat down again, but she stayed where she was by the windows. It was so fucking hard to look at her because he wanted to choke her and fuck her at the same time. “This is un-fucking-believable.”

  “Look, I will leave if you want me to. I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

  “Yeah? And where will you go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe you shoulda got yourself some fake IDs?”

  “There wasn’t time. And once I knew Vince was having me watched, I also knew if I went back to the same person I used for Sofia’s fake IDs, it would be over.”

  “I’m surprised you got out of there at all. How did no one see you leave with Digger?”

  “I told you. He didn’t know where I went after I left my parents’ house. I have a lot of friends, and he doesn’t know all of them.”

  “So how the hell did you end up driving here with Digger?”

  “I told him to pick me up at my friend’s house. They weren’t watching him, only me. He told me he was leaving around midnight and driving here through the night. That seemed ideal to me.”

  “And he never suspected anything?”

  “If he did, I don’t know it.”

  “You must be exhausted.”

  “I slept a little, but yeah. I’m tired.”

  He’d need to get the story from Digger before he passed judgment on her actions. That also meant his fucking raging hormones would have to wait a while. How fucked up was this? He’d known her his entire life, but the Thunderbolt hadn’t hit until now, and under these ridiculous circumstances. What the hell was he supposed to do now?

  Vassago had no clue, but it was time to end this conversation and talk to Digger. “Come on. Let’s get your bags and find a room for you.”

  There was an empty one close to his, but he put her on the third floor instead. No way would he be able to keep his hands or his dick off her if she was right down the hall. A man only had so much willpower.

  “Come down for dinner when you’re ready. I’ll let everyone know to expect you, but I won’t say why you’re here. I have to talk to Digger, and then to Gorgon.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve caused a lot of trouble.”

  “Yeah, you have. But you’re here now, and you’re like family to me, so I’ll figure this out.”

  “Thank you, Jimmy.” She went to hug him, but he stepped away. His cock was ready to burst as it was. If he touched her again right now, it was all over. He couldn’t let his desire to fuck her into next week cloud his judgment. Not yet. Not until he spoke with Digger and got his version of this story.

  “I’ll see you downstairs, Marie.”

  Sweat broke out along his hairline by the time he found Digger in his room. When Vassago told him the story Marie had just relayed, Digger punched a hole in the drywall in his room.

  “Son of a fucking bitch! Goddamn it to fucking hell! I swear to you I knew none of this. Absolutely none of it. If I had, I’d never have brought her here. That fucking bitch!”

  “Hold on, okay?”

  “Hey, man, sorry about the wall. I’ll fix it.”

  “Forget the damn drywall. Look, I’m just as upset about this as you are, but she’s here now. We have to deal with it.”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted her. I just fucking knew it. But she was so damn convincing! She was too eager to leave in the middle of the night.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “That Vince had broken off the engagement.”

  “You didn’t ask why?”

  “Yeah, ‘course I fucking did! She told me he was tired of her family being upset about them getting married, and had decided there was no way they could start a life with that kind of negativity surrounding them from the start. She fucking lied to me, Vassago.”

  “Yeah. Of course she did. She realized she’d fucked up and had to get away. But was that part really a lie? You said her family hated him.”

  “Well yeah, they fucking hated him. The history between the two didn’t disappear when she said ‘yes’. But that wasn’t the reason he broke it off. That part was a lie. She didn’t tell me what she’d done, and now she’s involved all of you in this shit.”

  “She didn’t know what was going on with di Stefano and Donny until you were on the road. That much is true, right?”

  “Yeah. It’s true. And now it explains her reaction when I told her. She looked like the fires of hell were behind us.”

  “They are.”

  Digger ran a hand over his face. “What the fuck are we gonna do now?”

  “We can’t let our plan fail. That’s what. ‘Cause when we take out di Stefano, it solves our problems and Marie’s.”

  “Well isn’t that fucking convenient for her?”

  “Look, I don’t know why things went down like they did, but she’s here now. We can hide her. No problem with that. But you and I have a job to do. Let’s concentrate on that.”

  “Yeah. Fine. Sure. Christ. Women. They’re only good for one goddamn thing.”

  Vassago grinned. “Cooking.”

  Digger’s expression at first grew c
onfused, and then he laughed. “Sure. Okay. Let’s go with that one.” He cut his gaze toward the hole in the wall. “I’ll fix that after dinner.”

  “Don’t worry about it. After dinner, we need to have a long and very ugly talk with Gorgon.”

  Chapter Four

  There were so many people in the room, all of them asking questions at once. She was too overwhelmed to speak, so was grateful when Jimmy made introductions.

  “Marie’s family has done work for Donny and his family for generations. When I was in Brooklyn, I spent a lot of time with them, so Marie is like family to me and Donny. She’s here for a long overdue visit.”

  He had made up that cover story. It wasn’t a lie, but it certainly wasn’t the entire truth. What was she supposed to do? Call him out on it, in front of everyone? If she revealed anything even close to the truth, she’d receive transient sympathy for the break-up from the women, maybe. But the men would likely run her ass out of there. And eventually, the women would hate her for lying to them when the whole truth was revealed.

  But as soon as he said it was okay to do, she had to admit the truth to them. She had to tell them she’d lied to Digger in order to come here. Hearing Jimmy tell them she was like family to Donny had a profound effect on their expressions and words of welcome. Clearly, these people thought the world of him, respected him, and would do anything for him.

  What would happen to her when Donny found out what she’d done?

  Fuck. This hadn’t been a good plan by any stretch of the imagination. She had fucked up big time. Everyone in this building was in danger, and it was her doing. The sooner she got away from here, the better.

  She and Digger hadn’t stopped to eat on the drive here, so she was starving. After she’d eaten her fill, she thanked the women she’d been told had made the meal, and used the excuse of being exhausted to retreat back to her room. Digger shot her looks that made her skin crawl. She’d never seen him so angry. Jimmy wouldn’t even make eye contact with her. Should she try to get them alone so she could make her apologies? She was so unsure of how to proceed. This was Jimmy’s turf, not hers.

  Once she was finally alone, Marie let the tears come. She cried until her head ached. Even after she took a long shower, she still cried. Why in the hell hadn’t she simply walked away from Sofia the moment she realized that she was Vince’s next target? What the hell had compelled her to help the woman?