Revenge (9 page)

“Did you ever have business with the
‘Ndrangheta? Did they do your dirty work?”

He held her eyes. “Why are you asking me
this?”

Her heartbeat accelerated. “That’s a yes,
then.”

“Answer my question, and I will answer
yours.”

She broke their eye contact and cleared her
throat. “I suspect….” She stopped and started over. “You were
married to Carlo’s daughter. So you know him well.”

“I do.”

“Is he….” Her voice failed her. “Is Carlo, is
my husband, are they….” She looked up at him, hoping he’d finish
her question. He didn’t.
Shit.
She was going to have to say
it. “Are they part of the ‘Ndrangheta?” Her voice had fallen to a
whisper.

He held her eyes for a second. “Yes.”

She froze, a chill hand sliding its fingers
down her spine. Her chest squeezed by bands of iron, she could
scarcely draw a breath. Vince was a mobster.
What the hell am I
going to do
?

“Are you all right?”

She looked up at Enrico. She’d forgotten
about him for a moment.
Jesus.
He could be a mobster too!
Jumping to her feet, she backed away from her desk. She couldn’t
leave the room without walking past him. What if he tried to stop
her?

Enrico gave her a puzzled look. “Kate, please
sit down. Please
calm
down. You are looking at me like I am
a Mafioso too.”

“Aren’t you?”

Enrico laughed, perhaps a bit too loudly, and
shook his head, trying not to betray his alarm.
Dio mio
,
this woman.
He sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “No,
of course not.” When he saw she wasn’t laughing, he motioned for
her to sit down, and she slowly took her chair. He drew in a deep
breath. He hated lying to her, but what alternative was there?

“I made a bad decision many years ago, and it
has haunted me ever since.” He shifted in his seat. “Shortly after
I married his daughter, Antonella, Carlo approached me about a
business deal. I said yes, even though I knew it was not entirely
legal.” He took another breath, noting her rapt attention. “I was
young and greedy. I did not think I needed to consult my father.”
He let a faint smile cross his face. “I was foolish.”

When he paused and didn’t immediately
continue, Kate asked, “What was the deal?”

“I would own a series of legitimate
businesses and allow Andretti to funnel some of his money through
them.”

“Money laundering, you mean.”

He nodded. “After a time, I realized I was
taking a substantial risk for only a small profit. So I tried to
back out. Of course, Carlo told me that was impossible.” He smiled
again, picturing what Carlo would have actually said in such a
case. “So I thought I would force his hand. I started to skim off
the top. When he caught me, I said that since he could not trust
me, he ought to drop me as a partner.”

Kate looked at him, her mouth open. “Weren’t
you afraid he’d have you killed?”

“I was nineteen. And naïve. I thought he
would never harm me because I was his son-in-law. He loved
Antonella more than anything. And she loved me. He would never
devastate her by killing me.”

“So what happened?”

“He obviously did not kill me.”

“But?”

Should he tell her what Carlo had done to his
family? No; it was too horrific. “He tried to have my father
killed. He was badly wounded; he almost did not survive.”

Kate’s jaw dropped. “My God.”

Enrico nodded, letting his bitterness toward
Carlo show. “So I gave up my foolish notions about getting him to
leave me alone.” He paused. “As you have probably heard, Antonella
died. Since then, I have been trying to extricate myself. Carlo, of
course, is not pleased with my efforts.”

She stared at the papers on her desk. “Not
pleased,” she murmured, then she looked up at him. “That’s why
Vince hates you?”

“Carlo wants my head. To set an example.” He
watched her, waiting for her to say more, wondering what he’d just
done.
Dio
. He was in it now. Even if she didn’t take up with
him, if she left her husband because of what he’d said….
Madonna
. He was screwed either way.

She stared at him, her pale skin even whiter,
the bruise on her cheek standing out even more. Her voice rose in
panic, and the sound made him want to comfort her. “I’m leaving
Vince, but how can I ever keep myself safe from him?”

Enrico leaned forward, the words leaving his
mouth before he could stop them. “You could stay with me for a
while. I could help you get out of the country.” A thrill ran
through him, and his heart sped up.
This was it. The declaration
of war.
This was madness, suicide. But he couldn’t turn his
back on Kate, not when he was the only person who could help
her.

She held his gaze for a moment, then shook
her head. “I can’t do that.” Her eyes left his. “I barely know
you.”

“You can trust me. I can keep you safe.”

“With a price on your head? No thanks. I’d be
safer on my own.”

“Do you actually think a man like Vincenzo
Andretti would let you walk away from him?” He looked at her cheek,
then into her eyes. “That bruise is but a hint of his true
nature.”

“You could be as much a bully as he is.”

“I would never hit a woman.” He paused,
watching her closely. “Please trust me.”

Kate laughed, but it was bitter. “‘Trust me’
is what men always say right before they fuck you over.”

The balls on this woman
! He almost
laughed.

She sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Please
forgive my language. I’m not myself right now.”

“If ever an occasion called for cursing, this
is it.” He waited for her to respond, then he said, “Let me help
you.”

Despair settled over her features. “I
can’t.”

Pushing her wouldn’t work. Perhaps if she had
time to reconsider. “As you wish.” He reached inside his jacket,
retrieved a business card, and wrote on the back. “This is my
private mobile number. Call me if you need help.” He set the card
on her desk, then walked out.

Merda
!
That didn’t go well. That
didn’t go well at all.
He couldn’t leave her here, but he
couldn’t force her to go with him either.

How the hell was he going to fix this?

He walked down the hall. Antonio and Ruggero
should have been waiting for him outside her office. Why were they
out front? He stopped.
Dio mio. Two lapses from Ruggero in one
day
?
Unheard of. Damn it all to hell.
Now he had to
replace Ruggero as well.
Would this day never improve
?
Having to replace Ruggero was at least an improvement over getting
a death threat. A smile crossed his face; the day was looking up
after all.

He stalked out front and found his guards
standing in a loose group, talking and smoking on the front stairs.
He confronted Ruggero. “Why are you still out here?”

Ruggero gave him a bland look, then motioned
Enrico a few steps away from the others. “I thought you wanted
privacy.”

“Why?”

“The woman. You want her. She said she didn’t
want us around. I thought….” He let a shrug speak for him.

It was that obvious. Had her husband seen it
too? “You thought wrong.”

“If you say so.” Ruggero shrugged again, his
hands clasped behind his back.

Now Ruggero was openly disagreeing with him?
“I do say so.”

A slight smile appeared on Ruggero’s lips.
“You’re a man without a woman. She’s beautiful. I can’t help but
think that like the Lady Macbeth, you protest too much.”

Enrico stared at him open-mouthed. Ruggero
read Shakespeare? He was full of surprises today. “When you’re
right, you’re right.” He paused. “However, that is no excuse for
laxness. When I want privacy, I will let you know.”

Ruggero bowed his head. “I beg your
forgiveness,
signore.
”

Cristo
. He’d just taken out his
frustration on the wrong person. “I need to think. I’ll be over
there.” He pointed to a bench under a large tree.

He took a seat in the shade. How could he
convince her to let him help? He ran through and discarded several
ideas. Damn it, there was nothing he hadn’t already said. Maybe he
just needed to say it again. Rising, he headed for the front
stairs.

Walking back to his car, Kate’s overnight bag
in hand, Vince shook his head, cursing. He’d been feeling bad for
nothing. He
had
been right to hit her. She was cheating on
him, just not with his uncle. Fucking Lucchesi. There was no doubt
about the way Lucchesi had looked at her, the lust in his eyes. And
Katie—God,
Katie
—she’d responded to him. Vince saw the way
she’d touched her hair as she’d walked toward Lucchesi, the extra
lightness in her step, the extra sway in her walk.

He’d barely been able to keep it together
during the meet and greet on the steps. Now he knew why she’d
wanted him out of her office so fast. It wasn’t just the overnight
bag she didn’t want him to see. She’d probably been planning on
fucking Lucchesi on her desk. God only knew how long that had been
going on, right under his nose. He never should’ve encouraged her
to take that damn job—

But that was all part of the plan to get
close to Lucchesi, to find a way to take him out. If he got rid of
Lucchesi, Uncle Carlo would reward him. Very, very well. He’d even
hinted that someday Vince might be in charge of the Andretti
cosca
. There was no love lost between Carlo and Dario, that
was for damn sure. Oil and vinegar, those two.

Dario rubbed him the wrong way too. At least
he always knew where he stood with Carlo. With Dario, it was
anybody’s guess. If Carlo had been his pop, he might have done what
Dario did—kept his big mouth shut in self-defense. But that wasn’t
a major problem for Vince; he and Carlo got each other. They both
wanted to be top dog, and he was willing to put in the work to get
there. He was learning a lot from Carlo; the old guy was a nasty
SOB, but he was smart. And he knew how to inspire cooperation.
Nobody dared cross him.

Except of course, for Lucchesi. And now the
fucker wanted Katie too.

They weren’t going to get away with it. Not
Katie and certainly not Lucchesi.

He parked the red Ferrari a short distance
down the road, out of sight behind some trees, and circled back on
foot.

Maybe he was wrong about her and Lucchesi. He
loved Katie—she was beautiful and smart, and she’d make a great mom
for his kids. Yeah, she had some flaws—she asked too many damn
questions for one. If Carlo knew she was an outsider, he’d kill
them both. Maybe he should have told her, but he wanted her to have
a baby first. Once she had a kid, once she was settled in, once she
saw the money from his promotion and how they could live, she’d be
on board then. He knew it.

But now—God, if she was fucking around on
him…. Could his Katie really be a cheating slut? She was pushing
thirty when they met, and there had to be a good reason why a
beauty like her wasn’t taken. Something he’d missed that other guys
hadn’t. But those days were over. He was getting to the bottom of
this. Today.

He snuck back to the orphanage and entered
through a side door, then crept down the hall to Kate’s office.

Lucchesi was with her, and their voices were
low and intense. Vince’s heart dropped to his toes. It stank of
secrets in there.

He waited, listening, but he couldn’t make
out what they were saying until her voice rose, high and all
panicky, and she said, “I’m leaving Vince, but how can I ever keep
myself safe from him?”

A scalding hot burn filled his chest. He’d
been pissed before, but now he knew what rage felt like. He stalked
away to wait for Lucchesi to leave. The bastard was going to pay
for this.

And so was his wife. No woman would cheat on
him and live to laugh about it.