Lawless: Mob Boss Book Three (5 page)

N
ico left late
the next night to meet Sara at the dock. It had been a busy two days of calls and plans, most of them made by Nico behind the closed door of his office while Angel kept David company. David wasn’t crazy about the idea of staying with someone he didn’t know, but he'd finally admitted it was the only possible option given Angel’s refusal to leave him alone. She understood. It’s not like she liked leaving him. What if she was remembering Sara wrong? What if Sara wasn’t as gentle or calm or intelligent as Angel recollected during the dark days in LA prior to David’s rescue?

But any doubts she had disappeared the minute Sara stepped into the house. Her hair was the color of an old penny, wet from the light rain that had started after dinner. Her clothes were rumpled, and she looked tired — probably from the long day of travel -- but still, her face broke into a smile as soon as she saw Angel.

They embraced fiercely, and Angel realized she hadn't seen Sara since Nico’s funeral. Angel had been a wreck, her memories of that time muffled under a thick blanket of pain she didn’t dare remove. But Sara had been there. She remembered that. Sara had been there, and she’d been kind and tender in her support of Angel.

“Thank you so much for coming,” Angel said when they final pulled apart.

Sara shook her head. “No thanks necessary. I’m just…” She cut an incredulous glance at Nico that left no doubt she’d been in the dark about Nico’s fake death. “I’m just so glad he's alive.”

Angel smiled. “Me, too.”

Sara turned her attention to David, standing quietly near the couch. “You must be David.” She crossed the room to shake his hand without so much as glancing at his bandage. “I hope you like checkers, because I’m fucking lousy at chess.”

David cracked a faint smile. “I can do checkers.”

Sara returned his smile. “Awesome.”

“You must be hungry,” Nico said. “Why don’t you let Angel get you a drink while I heat you up some food? We have leftover clam sauce, my mother’s recipe.”

The words caused a flash of memory; the first night she’d been alone with Nico in his New York apartment, the food she’d assumed he’d ordered, the lick of desire between her legs when he’d dropped his mouth to her neck while she’d tried to rinse her plate in the sink.

So not take out after all. How was it that he could still surprise her?

“Sounds wonderful,” Sara said.

“What can I get you to drink?” Angel asked.

“I’d love a glass of wine if you have it,” she said. “Help me settle down a bit before bed.”

Nico went to the kitchen to heat up the food while Angel poured them glasses of wine — all except for David who wasn’t supposed to drink while he was on his meds.

“How have you been?” Angel asked, settling onto the couch next to Sara.

“I’ve been good,” Sara said. She took a drink of the wine, nodded appreciatively.

“Not with the family anymore?”

Sara shook her head, stared down at the ruby liquid in her glass. “After LA…” She glanced at David. “After what happened to David, and then Nico and the others… I just don’t think it’s for me.” She laughed drily. “Guess I should have stayed with the Feds where I could hide behind my computer.”

Angel took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “You don’t have to apologize for your humanity.”

Sara nodded.

“So what are you doing now?” Angel asked. “Or is it top secret?”

Sara shook her head. “Nothing that exciting, I’m afraid. I’m in corporate security, working freelance for a multinational company that needs extra security."

“That sounds interesting,” Angel said.

Sara laughed. “It’s not. But I’m starting to think interesting is overrated.”

Angel smiled. “I’m starting to agree with you.”

Nico handed Sara a plate of steaming pasta. “Can I get you anything else?”

“This is great, thanks,” she said, setting down her wine glass so she could dig into the food. She took a bite, closed her eyes and groaned. “Oh, my god… this is amazing.”

“I’ll give your compliments to the chef,” Nico said.

Angel hooked her thumb at him. “He’s the chef.”

“Well, he can keep the job as far as I’m concerned,” Sara said, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear and going in for another bite. “What about you?” she asked Angel. “How’s the corporate world treating you?”

Angel chose her words carefully. “It’s not exactly fun,” she admitted. “But it’s giving me a platform to accomplish some important things. Although… I'm not sure about any of that now.”

Sara’s expression turned serious. “I heard about Boston. I’m sorry. That must have been scary after everything you and David have already been through.”

Angel took a drink of her wine. “It was.”

But even as she said it, she didn’t know if it was true. Had she been sacred? At the time, a kind of cold fury had settled over her, all of her intellectual resources focused on getting David out alive. Had she changed so much that she couldn’t even feel fear anymore? Had she become so distanced from her old self that emotion had been replaced by calculation?

They talked a little about the island, about the logistics of getting groceries delivered from Ed and his wife, about the generator that turned on automatically if the power went out and the short wave radio they could use to contact Ed if the phones went down. The conversation made Angel nervous. Was she really about to do this? To leave her brother with someone she hardly knew? To endanger her own safety again by going after Raneiro Donati?

But she didn’t have a choice. David would never be safe as long as Raneiro and those who followed him were out there. They had plenty of money stashed in offshore accounts, the proceeds of the very large trust left to them by their father. David would be okay no matter what, and whatever happened to her, he would be better off with Raneiro out of the picture.

She’d gone through a second glass of wine by the time Sara finished her food. Nico cleaned up in the kitchen while Angel took Sara upstairs to one of the guest rooms.

“Wow,” Sara said… “This is gorgeous.”

Like all of the bedrooms in the house, it faced the private beach, a set of French doors leading to a balcony that jutted out over the rocky shoreline.

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this,” Angel said. “David is…" She took a deep breath. “He’s fragile right now. On medication for PTSD and depression. I couldn’t leave him alone.”

Sara gave her a quick hug. “I understand. I’ll keep a close eye on him, I promise.”

“You just have to watch his meds,” Angel said. “Make sure he’s taking the right amount. And he needs company, even when it seems like he wants to be left alone.” She felt guilty as she said it. She hadn’t been a great example in Boston, that’s for sure. “I’ll go over all of it tomorrow before Nico and I leave.”

“I’m sure David and I will be fast friends,” Sara said.

“And you were able to get the time off work?” Angel asked.

“I work remotely most of the time anyway,” she said. “And I’ll be sure to route any of my activity through more than one foreign IP.”

“Great.” Angel had no worries about Sara on that account. She was one of the best hackers the FBI had ever recruited. “There are towels and stuff in the bathroom. Just make yourself at home.”

“Thank you,” Sara smiled. “I just wish we had more time to visit before you and Nico leave.”

“We’ll catch up on the back end,” Angel said. She was surprised to find she really wanted to do it. She’d been too isolated for too long, and Sara was one of the few people who understood the world she’d become part of.

“I’m going to hold you to that,” Sara said.

“I’m counting on it.” Angel was almost to the door when she remembered something. “I’ve been wondering…”

Were she and Sara close enough that she could ask? She wasn’t sure.

Sara smiled. “About Luca and me?”

Angel nodded. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“There’s not much to tell,” she said, looking down at her hands. “It never really went anywhere.”

“Because of you or because of him?” Angel asked.

“Both?” It was a question and a statement. “I don’t know, Angel. Luca’s so… closed off, you know?”

She did know. She counted Luca as one of her closest friends, and yet she knew very little about him beyond his difficult childhood and the fact that Nico had stepped in to offer him a chance at something better.

“He had a rough start,” Angel said.

“I figured as much,” Sara said. “But I’m just at a place in my life where I want to be with someone who’s capable of being with me, you know?”

Angel smiled. “You deserve that.”

“Thanks,” Sara said. “My mom always says everything turns out the way it’s supposed to. I’m hoping she’s right.”

“That makes two of us,” Angel said.

T
hey woke
up early the next day and gathered their things. Angel was glad she hadn’t had the heart to throw out any of Nico’s clothes when she thought he was dead; they both had enough to work with from the dresser drawers of the Maine house, and they were packed and ready to go by ten am.

Nico took Sara around the house, showing her the boiler and fuse box, the security system, and everything else she would need to know to run things in their absence. Angel found David on the beach, sitting on one of the big rocks that looked out across the water.

The sun was high in a cloudless sky as she picked her way across the sand, but the wind blowing in off the water was chilly. It wouldn’t be long before winter arrived, and she couldn’t help wondering where they would all be when it did; would they be alive and well here or somewhere else? Would they have struck a deal with Raneiro that would allow them to live in peace? Or would their numbers be smaller, culled by the vicious men who worked on behalf of Raneiro Donati and the Syndicate?

She was being morbid. They’d come through too much together. She couldn’t afford to believe in anything but an outcome in which they were all safe and sound. She didn’t know what it would mean for them, but she had stashed the trust from their father safely offshore. She and David would have plenty of money to live comfortably if she made it out alive.

“Hey,” she said, when she finally reached David.

He didn’t look at her. “Hey.”

“You okay?” she asked.

“What do you want me to say?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Do you want me to tell you the truth? Or do you want me to tell you what you want to hear so you can leave without feeling guilty?”

The words stung. Had she given David reason to think she didn’t want the truth from him?

“I want the truth, David. I always want the truth from you.”

He turned to look at her. “Then no, I’m not okay.”

“What’s wrong?”

His laugh was short and brittle. “What’s wrong?”

She sighed. “I mean, I know this isn’t ideal, but I thought we’d reached a workable solution.”

“A workable solution? Do you hear yourself, Ange?” he asked softly. He continued without waiting for her to answer. “Are you really so shut down that you don’t see this for what it is?”

She shook her head, looked out over the water. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about you taking off with Nico to face a vicious murderer. One who wants to kill you. I’m talking about you leaving me here with someone I don’t know while you risk your life, when you’re basically the only thing I have left to live for.”

“Don’t say that,” she hissed.

“Look at me, Ange.” She did, because he was her brother, and even though the pain in his eyes tore her apart, she couldn’t not look at him when he needed to be seen. “It’s true. I need you. You’re all I have left. And you’re acting like this is some kind of… vacation or something. Like there isn’t a possibility you won’t be back.”

“I’ll be back,” she said quietly.

“You don’t know that.”

She took his hand, looked into his eyes, the same eyes she’d been looking into since she was four years old. “I’ll be back, David. I’m doing this for us.”

“Do you really believe that?” he asked.

She pulled her hand away, hurt by his implication. “Don’t you?”

“I think there’s more to it than that.”

“Like what?”

“I think this is a continuation of what you were doing in Boston. I think you’re angry. Angrier than you want to admit. And I think you want revenge at any cost.”

She stood, paced a few feet away, looked back at him as the familiar rage rose inside her. “And what’s so wrong with that?” she asked. “Don’t we deserve a little justice?”

He shook his head. “It’s not about that.”

She held out her palms. “Then what’s it about?”

“It’s about
living,
Ange. Isn’t that what you’ve been telling me I need to do?”

A hand seemed to squeeze her lungs, and she dragged in a breath, the truth of his words warring with the story she’d been telling herself. He didn’t understand. He’d been able to hide in a drug-induced stupor. She’d had to get up every morning, keep moving. She knew all about what it took to live. And the way she’d been living — without Nico, face-to-face with the Syndicate’s despicable income streams, in fear of her safety and David’s — well, it fucking sucked.

“Don’t you think I want to live?” she asked him. “I want to live as much as anybody. But what I’ve been doing isn’t living, and I can’t keep doing it.
We
can’t keep doing it. Especially now. They’ve given us no choice, David.”

“You could let Nico go,” he said. “Let him and Luca handle it.”

“I can’t do that,” she said. “This is my fight, too.”

She didn’t say the other thing; that she couldn’t be without Nico again. That being without him wasn’t living. That letting him go after Raneiro in the name of her safety while she stayed safe on the island was something she couldn’t live with. She didn’t know if David would understand the depth of her feelings for Nico, the way his heart had intertwined with hers so completely that she was sure it would stop beating if he were ripped from her again. Maybe going with him was no guarantee of his safety, but she was going to stay by his side from here on out. Whatever the future held for them — life, death — they would face it together.

David’s shoulders sagged in resignation. “Then do what you have to do, Ange.”

She walked back to where he stood. “I’ll be back. And then we’ll start over, I promise.”

He stood, wrapping her in his arms. When had he gotten taller than her?

“I love you, Ange. And I need you. Just don’t forget it,” he said.

“Never.” She squeezed him tighter.

She closed her eyes as memories flashed in her mind; David’s scared face the first day of Kindergarten when she’d walked him to his classroom. David holding the flashlight under her covers so she could read to him in the dark. David wiping her tears when she thought Nico was gone forever.

“Love you, loser,” she said.

He choked out a laugh. She tried to memorize the sound of it. Tried to banish the feeling that she wouldn’t be back to hear it again.