Revenge (3 page)

“Carlo is a dead man,” Enrico muttered to
himself as he strode through the crowd in the hotel lobby hours
later, his empty stomach knotted, drawn up tight under his chest.
His eyes swept the area, noting the details of his surroundings,
the placement of people and weapons—at least those he knew about.
His guards were good; in fact, Ruggero was one of the best. But no
one was perfect.

“What did you say, Don Lucchesi?” Antonio
asked as he matched Enrico’s pace.

“Andretti is dead.”

“So you’ve decided then?” asked Ruggero, on
his right.

Enrico heard the anticipation in Ruggero’s
voice and wondered again if there wasn’t a touch of the sociopath
to him. Enrico hated killing, though it was sometimes necessary.
But Ruggero seemed perfectly suited to his line of work.

“Don’t get excited yet. I decided the moment
I saw what was in the box. Now all that remains is the when.”

“Soon, I hope,” Ruggero said.

Enrico gave him a tight smile. “Soon enough.”
If only Antonella hadn’t made him promise not to harm her father,
he’d have given the order long ago. He owed his mother and Primo
and Mario justice. But he’d promised his wife that he’d keep the
peace between their families, that he’d honor the truce that had
been sealed by their marriage. Those twenty-six years of peace were
over now—undone by her death. At least Andretti seemed to think
so.

Perhaps Enrico had been naïve to think that
Carlo would honor his daughter’s memory by keeping the peace she’d
helped broker. He should have known better. A vulture would never
be anything but a vulture. Andretti had never had a scrap of honor
and never would. The man was a bottom feeder, a scum, a leech on
society—

Enrico’s attention was caught by a large,
heavyset man in a sharply tailored suit standing to the left of the
lobby doors. Massimo Veltroni, Carlo’s man. Veltroni’s black eyes
snapped to his, the intent in them clear. A chill ran through
Enrico, that sick anticipation rising again, his skin prickling
with awareness. Damn it—he’d been stupid, stupid, stupid. And now
it was going to cost them dearly.
Per favore
,
Dio
,
spare Antonio. He’s too young.

He tapped both guards on the shoulders and
they followed his gaze, closing ranks in front of Enrico,
automatically shielding their
capo
from danger.

Enrico’s hand fell down to grip the Glock 9mm
in his jacket pocket. As
capo
, he rarely carried a weapon,
but Ruggero had insisted after seeing the dead falcon. Now he
appreciated his guard’s caution.

He couldn’t tear his eyes off Veltroni. The
image of a cobra looking to strike came to Enrico’s mind. The man
reached into his suit jacket, a tight smile on his face.

Enrico tensed, and Antonio and Ruggero pulled
their weapons, Ruggero’s movements so fluid and practiced they made
Antonio look like a clumsy amateur. Which he almost was. Antonio
had his gun out and ready mere seconds after Ruggero did. But
seconds counted. Seconds meant the difference between alive and
dead. Enrico heard women shriek at the sight of the guns, and then
the scuffle of feet as people scrambled to get away from them. But
he didn’t look behind him; eyes on the threat, always. That was the
rule. Distractions meant death.

When Veltroni saw the guns, he broke into
laughter, a genuinely mirthful smile creasing his features this
time. Enrico was puzzled. There was nothing funny about the
situation. Not in the slightest.

Veltroni slowly withdrew his empty hand from
his coat, his fingers in the shape of a gun. He pointed at Enrico
and pretended to take a shot, even blowing off smoke from the end
of his thick forefinger. Reaching up, he tipped the brim of his
fedora to Enrico. Then he turned and ambled out the door.

“Fuck,” Antonio said, his voice hushed.

Fuck was right. They’d almost walked into a
trap, and Enrico’s pride had led them there.

Antonio and Ruggero put up their guns and
Enrico released his grip on the Glock. Glancing around them, they
hurried outside to the car waiting to take them to the private
airstrip.

This day had started off bad, and it was
quickly going straight to hell.

Kate Andretti snuck out of bed, careful not
to disturb her sleeping husband. She looked down at him, his wavy,
sandy brown hair scrunched up by the pillow, his tanned face slack
and innocent as he snored. She hated sneaking off to take her birth
control pills, but Vince couldn’t understand why she didn’t want to
get pregnant now. There was no sense bringing a child into a
marriage that was less than stable.

But she had hope. Three months ago, Vince had
told her about a job at the Lucchesi Home for Children. Even though
the work was glorified data entry, she’d taken it. She was happy
computerizing the orphanage’s records and helping out with the
kids.

And she was happy that Vince had actually
listened to her when she’d said she needed to work, that she needed
to make friends. Maybe he’d finally understood—at least in part—her
reasons for waiting. But still she hid the pills from him. Just in
case.

Easing the bathroom door shut behind her,
Kate crouched down and pulled a box of tampons out from under the
sink. Vince would never think to look in that box. For a big tough
guy from New Jersey, he was bizarrely squeamish about her “woman
things.” Fishing around the bottom of the box, her fingers
connected with the packet of pills.

Every day, she pulled that box out. Every day
she hated the necessity of doing so. Vince was under a lot of
stress—he’d been working long days and sometimes nights in his
uncle’s business—but that didn’t give him a free pass to yell at
her. He’d always begged forgiveness later, so she’d let it go. To a
degree. But something told her to stay cautious. To wait.

She stared at the pill packet in her hand.
How had she’d gotten to this point? Lying to her husband. Lying to
herself. Hiding things and hoping their marriage would survive
somehow.

This sucks. It just does. I want to trust
him
,
I want him to trust me.

But what about the spots on his jacket
last night
,
the reek of gunpowder all over him
?

Maybe he’d just splashed wine or something on
the jacket. And he often went target shooting; she’d gone with him
many times and had proven herself an excellent shot. The first time
she’d pumped a full clip into the two kill zones on a target, Vince
had looked at her with more than a little admiration.

But what if it wasn’t wine
?
What if
it was… blood
?

Dread coiled in her belly. Something wasn’t
right. She’d known it ever since she’d met Vince’s uncle, Carlo
Andretti. Her immediate impression had been favorable; Carlo was
relatively handsome for a man in his sixties, with thick silvery
hair swept back from his hawk-like nose and dark eyes brimming with
intelligence. He’d kept himself trim, his waist showing only the
slightest paunch, despite his love of cigars and fine Scotch. His
grasp of English was nearly impeccable, though his accent was a war
between British and Italian inflections.

Carlo had seemed charming enough until they
were actually introduced. His keen eyes had flicked over her in a
lightning-quick inventory that had made her think he wanted to see
her wearing much less. She’d told herself she was imagining things,
but when Carlo took her hand, his index finger had snaked across
the back of hers, not once, but three times. Then he’d smiled at
her, and she’d barely suppressed a shudder, feeling like a small
and tender animal who’d been sighted, and the wolf was licking its
chops.

That was when she started wondering about
Carlo. Who he really was, what his business really was. Why he
thought he owned her. Why he thought he owned Vince. Why everyone
around him jumped when he spoke.

Supposedly Vince was acting as a liaison with
Carlo’s import/export operations in the United States. More or less
the same job he’d had in New York, except that now he was handling
matters from the Italian side. He’d told Kate it was a promotion of
sorts, a tryout to see if he could handle additional
responsibilities in the organization.

Was any of that true? Something about Carlo
screamed “Mafia.” Was it his swagger, the way he seemed to view
everything around him as his property? Or was it just her dislike
of the man that was coloring her viewpoint?

Vince couldn’t be Mafia too, could he?

The day they’d met, at her cousin Terri’s
party in Jersey, Vince had played airplane and ball with Terri’s
kids for hours. Her heart had melted at the sheer joy on his face,
and then it had turned to absolute mush when he’d asked her out,
after saying that he’d cleared it with Terri, because he thought it
important that her family approve of him.

Could a Mafioso be that tender?

Kate shook the memory away and pushed a pill
through the foil backing on the packet. Taking a swig of water, she
swallowed it. She loved him, her tough guy with the soft heart. But
something had happened to him in Italy, something that had changed
him.

The bathroom door swung open. Vince blinked,
scrubbing a hand through his rumpled hair, his handsome face
creased from the pillow. Then he squinted at her hand. “What’s
that?”

Kate flushed, her heart hammering, and closed
her hand around the packet. “Nothing, honey.”

“Give it.” He held out his hand.

She cursed under her breath.
Why hadn’t
she put the packet away first
? “It’s just some pills.”

“I’m not gonna ask again.”

That tone, too familiar of late, raised her
hackles. “Fine.” She slapped the packet into his open palm. He held
it up to the lights above the mirror so he could read it. After a
moment, his face went dark.

“Birth control? You’re on fucking
birth
control
?” His anger seemed to expand in the small space,
echoing off the marble tiles on the walls and floor.

Kate forced herself not to cringe. “Look, I
told you. We’ve only been here six months. It’s just too soon.”

“So you fucking
lie
? You told me you’d
stopped these.” He tossed the packet in the toilet and flushed it.
“I’ve been fucking you for
nothing
.”

Kate’s jaw dropped open. It was time to whip
out her NYC-girl attitude. Never mind that she’d been raised
upstate. “Piss. Off. What do you mean you’ve been fucking me for
nothing
? Supposedly you love me, right?”

“I been trying to make a baby with you. And
you been lying to me.”

She snorted. “I’m not the only one of us
who’s lying.”

His hazel eyes bore into hers. “What’re you
saying?”

“You reeked of guns when you came home last
night. And what was all over your jacket?”

He hesitated, just the barest millisecond,
but she caught it. “I went shooting with the boys. And I dropped my
fork in some sauce at dinner, got it all over my jacket.”

Funny how when he said it, it sounded like
the lie it was. She was about to call him on it when he grabbed her
by the shoulders and shook her, his eyes darkening. “
You’re
the fucking liar. Who is he?”

What the…
?
Oh
,
he was back
to the pills
. “Calm down, Vince. I just wanted to wait.”

He stared at her, disbelief on his face.
“Fuck!” His fingers dug into her arms. “I
knew
it. You been
acting weird for months. You never want to go to my uncle’s. And
now I know why. You’re fucking him.”

Kate choked. “I’d rather slit my wrists than
fuck your uncle.”

“Then what the fuck is it?”

If he says
“
fuck
”
one more
time
,
I’m going to kill him. If
I
say
“
fuck
”
one more time
,
I’m going to take a vow of
silence
. She had a Masters in social work, from Columbia no
less, for Christ’s sake. Why was she letting him drag her down to
his level? She took a breath, deliberately lowering her voice. “All
you do is yell at me these days. It’s not like when we were first
married. I’m worried about us.”

“What does that have to do with my
uncle?”

She couldn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t like
him. That’s all.”

“Why the fuck not? He puts food on our table.
You damn well better like him.”

She looked at him this time. “Unlike you, I
don’t
have
to like him.”

He flushed red. “You’re not answering the
question. You fucking my uncle?”

“For the last time, no!” She blew out
fiercely, striving for control. She wanted to scream at him, to
slap him until he saw sense.

He shook his head, his eyes turning mean.
“You’re lying; I can see it. I’m gonna kill him. And then I’m gonna
kill you.”