Taken - A Gangster Stepbrother Romance (4 page)

              Emma gripped the leather seat, her knuckles white and her palms sweaty. She looked down at her feet. Doug and Ethel Grant. Her wonderful adoptive parents. They had rescued her from a nightmare of jumping homes and various foster guardians. How she had longed to be their actual daughter, to share their same blood and to know she truly belonged to them.

              Doug and Ethel Grant. Her…grandparents?

              And all because Gabe Del Marco had provided and funded it to be possible.

Gabe Del Marco.

Her stepfather.

With an electric bolt of realization, Emma sat up as if zapped. She gaped as she stared at the cool and powerful man before her. She stared at his large hands as they calmly rested on his knee.

Antonio Del Marco was not only the head of the most notorious and brutal crime syndicate in the country.

He was also her stepbrother.

Chapter Five

              “This…This can’t be right,” Emma said slowly, trying to remember to breathe so she didn’t faint. “This isn’t right.”

              Antonio kept his eyes pinned on her, watching her sway. He reminded Emma of a panther just before he pounced. “It is right. I can show you your birth certificate, your mother’s and my father’s marriage certificate, and even your grandparents’ birth and marriage certificate, if you’d like.”

              Emma’s head spun. This was insane. She was just an orphan. A nobody! Spots flashed around the edges of her vision.

              “Put your head between your knees, if you’re going to faint,” Antonio said calmly.

              It was his voice of unconcerned coolness that snapped Emma back. She sat up and glared at the man who had literally turned her world upside down. In one day, he had completely destroyed everything she knew about herself.

              “So why now?” she demanded, her voice stronger. “Why are you telling me this all now?”

              Antonio nodded, clearly glad to be getting back on track. “The Cavalli Family and the Del Marco Clan have been at war for a long time. And even as our businesses change into something more representable, we have had a lot of blood lost between us. But Frank Cavalli, head of the Family, has reached out to me.” Antonio paused. “He wants to create an alliance.”

              Although she was still reeling from all the recent revelations, it wasn’t lost on Emma how huge an alliance like that would be. It could mean less gang wars, less violence, less battles over territories.

              “This is something that I would like very much to happen. It’ll help bring the Del Marco Clan forward into the future and away from the old days of our past.” Antonio leaned back a little in his seat. “But old organizations such as ours are all still quite traditional and can only see an agreement as truly solidified through old rituals.”

              Rituals? “What the hell are you talking about?” Emma asked, feeling reckless and brave. It didn’t matter if this was Antonio Del Marco, head of the Del Marco Clan. In one fell swoop, she had learned about her long lost mother and her death all in the same conversation.

              Antonio’s lips twitched, his eyes gleaming like steel. “Marriage,” he said simply. “We like to see big alliances consummated with marriages between the two families.”

              Emma stared at him. “You’re going to marry someone,” she said.

              “Well, the Cavalli Family has three children, all sons,” Antonio explained. “They want marriage but not just any kind. They
are
traditional, as I said.” His lips twitched again.

              How can the man even think of being amused when he had shaken her entire past like an etch-a-sketch? Emma quietly began to fume.

              “So what?” Emma said before realization smacked her across the face. “You want
me
to marry someone?”

              “Not just someone,” Antonio corrected. “David Cavalli, second son and heir to the Cavalli Family.”

              Emma stood up. “I want to go back home.”

              Antonio stared at her from his seat, not a bit unperturbed by her sudden rise. “No,” he said simply.

              Emma glared at him, biting back a frustrated scream. “You said after you told me your story, I could go home!”

              “No,” Antonio said again in that irritatingly calm voice. “I said that we could talk. And we’re not finished talking.”

              “Well I am!” Emma cried out. “You think you can just call me up after twenty years and drop this kind of bomb on me and then expect me to marry some stranger? Some
mob
stranger who you’re saying is responsible for my mother’s
death!
You think I’ll do it all because you just tell me to? Who do you think you are? Who the fuck do you think you are!”

              Antonio slowly rose from his seat. Emma felt her pulse speed up as the man stood at his full towering height. He was immense. Not just in size but in presence. He filled up the entire room till Emma felt like she was being squeezed by his aura of lethal power.

              All trace of humor and detached coolness was gone now. His expression darkened. His face, certainly handsome under most circumstances, looked positively dangerous at the moment. Silver hooded eyes turned a charcoal gray as he slowly approached her.

              “I am Antonio Del Marco,” he said in a quiet voice that demanded she listen to him with every fiber of her being. “I am the head of one of the most brutal mafias in west coast history and now you know that I also happen to be your older stepbrother.” Antonio took another step, closing the small distance between the two of them. Emma tried her best not to flinch as he neared.

              “So yes, I do expect you to do as I say and marry someone, even a ‘mob stranger,’ just because I say so.” He stood only mere inches away from her. Looking down he pierced her with his fiery gaze. “Because you are now Emma Del Marco, daughter of the Del Marco Clan, and that means you fall under my rule, my command.”

              Without thinking, Emma swung her hand back and aimed for his face. He caught her wrist with ease, his large hand wrapping completely around her arm and holding her captive. Ignoring her pulls to get away, he leaned down and added, “So as my younger sister and a member of the Del Marco Clan, I suggest you recognize the responsibilities you have to your family and learn to accept your position.”

              Emma felt tears prickling her eyes but damn him if she’d cry in front of him. “I want. To go. Home,” she said slowly, making sure to not let her voice shake.

              Antonio yanked her arm so that she fell against his chest. “Sweetheart, you
are
home.”

              Emma felt her breath coming fast, as if she had just run a marathon. “You want me to marry into the family that is responsible for my mother’s murder.” She looked at him as if he had taken complete leave of his senses.

              Antonio’s grip felt like a steel shackle against her wrist. “That is how business is conducted in these families.”

              “Not
my
family,” Emma countered.

              “This
is
your family,” Antonio said evenly.

              Emma jerked back and this time he let her. Releasing her, he walked swiftly towards the door. “But I will let you go back to your room. You need time to process everything that has been said.” Opening the door, he murmured something to a guard standing outside. Another nameless burly man in black stepped in.

              Antonio motioned Emma to come towards the door. Feeling numb, she did. With a hand on her lower back, he pushed her out of the office with the guard, clearly there to make sure she didn’t do something foolish like run away.

              “And do be smart,” he whispered into her ear at the door. “Take this time to really accept the truth of your life, Emma. Because no matter what, it is real and the marriage will happen. The only thing that you have control over if whether you will choose to be happy or not.”

              And with that, Emma was led out of the office and back out into the spacious hallway. She followed the guard back up the stairs, barely hearing the heavy office door thud behind her. With every step she took, she left behind everything she had thought she had known about herself.

Chapter Six

              Standing alone in the large bedroom she had woken up in, Emma felt like screaming.

              She felt like crying.

              She felt like cursing.

              But mostly, she felt alone.

              Although she had just found out how much family she actually had had in her life, Emma felt incredibly alone. No one had told her any of this. Whatever reasons the Del Marcos or even the Grants had to hold the information back from her, Emma had lived a good portion of her life in foster care dreaming,
aching,
for a mother. For a family.

              Emma stood in the middle of the luxurious room, looking around the expensive furnishings. But no matter how much she had ached for family, she wasn’t sure she could accept being a part of the Del Marco family.

              She remembered her children at the counseling center. Clenching her fists, she resolved to herself that she would not let herself sink into the Del Marco filth. No matter what Antonio said, she refused to acknowledge him as her stepbrother and she refused to be his stepsister.

              And she most certainly would
not
be married off to some stranger just so the Del Marcos could increase their profit margins.

              Feeling rage boiling through her, Emma walked over to the far side of the room, wanting something to distract her and help her cool off. A large frosted glass sliding door stood next to the vanity. Sliding it back, Emma gasped.

              It was the biggest closet she had ever seen. It was the size of her entire studio apartment. Perhaps even bigger! And it was completely full.

              Emma hesitantly walked in and stared at the racks of clothes that were neatly hung. Different colored dresses, blouses, skirts—everything she could possibly need in terms of clothing was here. With ginger fingers, she looked inside a dress.

              Perfect size.

              All the clothes were exactly her size.

              In the back, there was a floor length mirror bracketed by enormous shoe racks that held every kind of imaginable shoe possible. And although she knew it would fit, Emma still pulled down a pair of blue pumps and tried them on.

              Perfect match.

              Clearly Antonio Del Marco was a man who did his homework. Just thinking of the man made Emma’s pulse race and her ears steam again.

              Working so intimately with people who had been so tragically affected by the crimes of the Del Marcos, Emma had seen many pictures and read many articles about Antonio. Only when she was alone in her apartment with a glass of wine, could she admit to herself that it was a shame such a gorgeous face was wasted on such a corrupt and evil man.

              But now having met him, his looks only seemed to add to his cold and domineering nature. Pictures couldn’t do his steely silver eyes justice. They watched her every move, her every facial tic, studying her with a quiet competence that made her feel as if she stood naked and exposed. And no article or report had ever quite captured the cut of his stubbled jaw or the broadness of his shoulders, both of which make him a formidable presence to deal with.

              Emma rubbed her wrist where Antonio had grabbed her, midslap. He had held her with an easy strength that spoke volumes of what he could physically do to her.

              Walking out of the dream closet, Emma curled up on the bed.
Your room
, Antonio had called this place. Was he insane? She had a job, classes, an apartment! She couldn’t just disappear like this.

              But she knew that was exactly what he expected. Antonio Del Marco clearly could care less what happened to her life as long as she made
his
easier.

              Years ago, when Antonio had taken over the Del Marco Clan, journalists had written about how Antonio would not have the same ruthlessness Gabe Del Marco had when founding the organization.

              God, how wrong they were.

              It just made her wonder how terrible Gabe Del Marco must’ve been. Before the Del Marco Clan, Los Angeles had been overrun with horrible crime rates from competing gangs. Gabe had put a stop to that by either destroying or adopting the competing gangs.

              Emma pulled her knees to her chest.

              But Gabe Del Marco had fallen in love.

              He had fallen in love…with her mother.

              Without giving her enough time to stop herself, tears rushed down her cheeks in hot torrential flood.

              Her mother. How she had longed to hear any scrap of information or history on the woman who had given birth to her! But she had no memories of the woman. No lingering scent, no warm touch, no soft kisses—she remembered nothing.

              She had always pictured her mother as a kind and fairy-like angel. She was beautiful and compassionate and loving. Even now, Emma refused to think differently of her. But her image was certainly shaken. How could it not be? Her mother had married a notorious crime lord! She had been a mob boss’s wife!

              Emma sniffed. She had been a mobster’s wife…for a few hours.

              Hearing about her mother for the first time in her life had felt like standing under a cold waterfall on a hot summer day. It was chilling yet refreshing, overwhelming yet cool. But then to hear about her death nearly in the same breath….

              Emma could feel the pillow beneath her cheek grow wetter and wetter with her tears. “Mom….” she whispered.

              Instead of enjoying their honeymoon and then coming back to start their new life together in a home they—

              Emma froze. She could feel her heart thumping against her ribs in a fast, bruising rhythm.

              This was the Del Marco home.

              That meant this was where her mother had last lived before being murdered. This was where she had first made a home with Gabe and a young Antonio Del Marco. This was the last place Emma had ever been held in her mother’s embrace.

              Closing her eyes, she imagined her beautiful mother perhaps sitting in this very same room twenty years back, holding a three year old Emma. She imagined her mother laughing and singing and gently running her fingers through Emma’s hair. She tried to conjure up the softness of her mother’s arms, the sweet clean smell of her hair, the lightness of her laugh. Emma tried with every fiber of her being to remember feeling safe and loved. Of being wanted.

              But when she opened her eyes, all she saw were the cold white walls of the room that she now saw as a prison. She heard the quiet emptiness. She remembered the chilly calculating look of Antonio Del Marco’s gray eyes.

              Emma fells asleep crying, feeling loneliness bear down on her like a boulder pressing against her heart.