Fearless: Mob Boss Book Two (Volume 2)

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2015 by Michelle St. James aka Michelle Zink

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Isabel Robalo

Formatting by Caitlin Greer

ISBN: 978-0-9966056-3-2

1

Angel Bondesan watched her brother, David, in the living room of her apartment. She felt a rush of affection for him, his light brown hair falling into his face, narrow shoulders working while he stuffed clothes into his duffel bag.

They’d spent the last few months going through their father’s things, talking about all the clues they had ignored that might have led to the truth about him. Angel had sobbed on David’s shoulder when she missed Nico so much she felt like a gutted animal, and he’d been just as patient about listening to her rail out loud when she could muster her rage against Nico.

David had his own unfinished business with their father. Would he have eventually accepted David’s sexual orientation? Did he love his son at the end?

People will tell you who they are if you listen.

It was something their father used to say, but now he was dead, and none of their questions about him would ever be answered.

David had insisted on spending spring break with her, and they’d passed the time taking long walks by the river that wound through town, talking and laughing, getting stoned, watching movies, and eating ice cream.

“Are you sure you have to go?” she asked.

“Classes start up again tomorrow.” He turned to look at her, his forehead creased with worry. “But if you need me here, you know I’ll stay, Ange.”

The nickname caused a lump of sadness to rise in her throat, and she had to fight the urge to beg him to stay. He was her little brother. It wasn’t his job to take care of her.

She smiled. “No way. I’ll just miss you, that’s all.”

“Come stay with me anytime,” he said. “Brad’s a douche, but he won’t mind, mostly because he’ll spend the whole weekend hitting on you.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Ew.”

It was more than the fact that David’s college roommate was an idiot. After the weeks she spent with Nico before Thanksgiving, every guy she met seemed like an ineffectual little boy. It didn’t matter if they were thirty or if they were college guys like Brad, she felt nothing but a kind of benevolent pity for them. She’d only dated one man since she’d come home, a thirty-year-old music producer working on an album in one of the Hudson Valley’s many small studios. But there hadn’t been even a flicker of the heat she’d felt with Nico. She tried to tell herself that was a good thing. What she’d had with Nico was unhealthy, dangerous. It had killed her father, and it had almost destroyed her.

It was an unconvincing argument, even to herself. It was hard to settle for an unlit match when you’d had a wildfire.

“Well, the offer stands,” David said, zipping up his duffel.

“Thanks.”

He checked his phone. “You ready? The bus will be here soon.”

She nodded, crossing the room and grabbing her keys. “Let’s go.”

They left the apartment and made their way down the narrow flight of stairs. The air was still wet from winter, slowly warming under the weak April sun. The streets were already teeming with students returning from break, and Angel felt an unkind hatred for them as she and David nudged their way around the crowds converging on the narrow sidewalks. She’d chosen to stay here before Nico’s men had kidnapped her, but now it felt like purgatory. She was no longer the naive girl who believed her father was simply a wealthy real estate developer. Now she knew the truth; Carlo Rossi had been head of the Boston division of the Syndicate, a worldwide network of organized crime.

And he’d killed Nico’s parents in cold blood.

It was hard to come back to the place where she’d once been so innocent. Hard to face her own denial and the loss of the person she’d once been. But the truth is, she didn’t have anywhere else to go. She and David had inherited all of their father’s property, including the apartments in Boston and New York City, but those places were too close to her father’s work—and her father’s work was too close to Nico Vitale.

Nico…

She pushed him out of her mind and turned her attention to the crowd gathering outside the bus station. “I hope you can get a seat,” she said.

“I’ll be fine,” David said.

“You have your ticket?” she asked.

He pulled it from his bag. “Got it, Mom.”

She smiled. “Very funny.”

He looked at her for a long moment. “You sure you’re okay, Ange?”

She nodded. “Yep.”

He tipped his head. “Liar.”

She leaned in to hug him so he wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes. She was fine as long as nobody called her on her bullshit, as long as she didn’t have to think about whether she was fine. But whenever someone got too close, she recoiled. Talking about her feelings meant talking about Nico, and that was like probing an open wound. Better to leave it alone. Maybe it wouldn’t get better that way, but it wouldn’t get worse either.

David squeezed her hard. She breathed in the scent of him; security and comfort and the aftershave he’d worn since he was sixteen.

He pulled back to look at her. “Promise you’ll call if you need me.”

“I promise. You?”

He nodded. “I promise.”

“And don’t let that asshole, Jacob, fuck with your head,” she said. “You deserve better.”

David had only come out a few months before their father’s death, and he was still figuring out how to navigate the dating landscape at college. It had been a relief to listen to his guy problems instead of rehashing her own.

Not that she had any problems in that department. She and Nico were done. Because there was no way you could love the man who killed your father, even if your father had been a bad guy. Even if he’d been a criminal who had held a gun to your head.

She and Nico were done because that’s the only thing they could be.

She and David turned as a bus pulled into the parking lot spewing black smoke.

“That looks good for the environment,” David said.

Angel laughed in spite of herself. “When you’re a famous writer, you can buy yourself a Prius.”

“Deal.” The bus pulled to a stop at the curb, and a few people got off before the crowd started climbing the stairs to board. He looked down at her. “I guess this it.”

She forced herself to smile. “I guess so.”

He wrapped her up in another hug. “I love you. Everything’s going to be okay, I promise.”

She didn’t know if it was true. Didn’t know if it could be true. But it was nice to have someone say it.

“I know,” she said, giving him a final squeeze before she stepped back. “Now go on. Get a window seat.”

He nodded. “See you in a few weeks.”

“Margaritas and tacos,” she said.

“Don’t forget cabana boys,” he added.

She grinned. “Can’t wait.”

They’d wanted to take a trip together over the summer, and while David had suggested Europe, Angel couldn’t imagine going back to Italy or England without Nico. They could have gone somewhere else—Europe was big enough—but Mexico seemed like a safer bet. There she wouldn’t have to remember Nico kissing her in the shadow of the Colosseum, wouldn’t have to remember their final night together in London.

“I’ll text you when I get in,” David said, stepping on the bus.

She nodded, waving to hide the lump in her throat. She was being dumb. She’d lived alone for years before Nico had her kidnapped. But she and David had spent the last few months cleaning up their father’s affairs, and she hadn’t had much time to be alone with her thoughts. The magnitude of the trust left to them, the investments and charitable contributions and property, was overwhelming.

Then there were the businesses—both legal and illegal—to untangle. Angel had left most of that to Frank Morra, her father’s Consigliere, but she knew that Raneiro Donati was putting pressure on him to get a permanent power structure in place.

And you did not mess with Raneiro Donati.

The problem was that there had been no Underboss in place at the time of her father’s death. He’d been arrogant right up until the end, sure he’d be around to run his empire for a long time to come. Angela and David still didn’t know what to do about it. How did you dissolve an illegal enterprise as big as the one run by Carlo Rossi without implicating every involved —from the soldiers who did his killing to the secretaries who had no idea they were covering for one of the country’s most notorious mob bosses? She and David had managed to issue an edict against several heinous income streams—human trafficking, high-interest loans to those who couldn’t afford to repay them, the bullying of store owners to pay for protection—but Angel had no doubt there was plenty left to clean up. They would have to figure it out—and soon—but for now she presumed the remaining illegal business interests were still running under the auspices of the legitimate real estate company owned by her father before his death.

Owned by her and David now.

How would they untangle the illegal business interests from the legitimate ones?

She watched the bus pull away and waved until she lost sight of David’s face. Then she started walking back into town for her shift at the record store. It was as good a place as any to distract herself from the mess that was her life.

2

Nico shuffled on the balls of his feet, moving quickly around the sparring ring at the center of the renovated gym. He was alone, the room dark around the spotlight inside the ropes, and he moved into a series of sweeps and knee jabs designed to disarm an enemy.

It had gotten harder to find sparring partners in the months since he’d started practicing Eskrima, a form of martial art that was so deadly it had been outlawed when the Spanish invaded the Philippines. He should have stopped sparring with his men long before he sent one of his soldiers to the hospital with a concussion. He had seen the looks on their faces when they worked together, knew his obsession was becoming dangerous. Then he’d gotten caught up in the moment, transported back to the dingy living room in London when Carlo Rossi had put the gun to Angel’s head. A red wash of rage had blanketed his mind, and the next thing he knew, he was staring down at Paul, unconscious on the floor of the ring after a wicked elbow jab Nico had landed to the back of his head.

Nico had been horrified. Holding his own with the men was one thing; making them victims of his obsession was another.

Now he practiced only with his coach or when he was alone, reliving the scene with Angel’s father over and over again, imagining an outcome in which he’d managed to disarm Carlo, even seriously injure him, rather than putting a bullet through his brain. Maybe then Angel would have forgiven him. Maybe they would even be together now.

“Boss?”

The voice caught him off guard, and he spun on his feet, ready to fight as he faced the door. He dropped his arms when he saw who was standing there.

“Luca.” He hadn’t been aware that he was breathing hard, but he was aware of it now as he spoke. “Is everything okay?”

Luca nodded. “Just here for the briefing.”

“Is it that time already?” Nico asked. How long had he been in the gym?

“Ten past eight,” Luca said.

Nico ducked under the ropes and grabbed his towel off one of the hooks. He wiped his face, then draped it over his bare shoulders as he crossed the floor of the gym.

“Is Vincent here?”

Luca nodded.

“Let me clean up,” Nico said. “I’ll meet you both in my office in ten minutes.”

Luca held the door as Nico moved past, and Nico wondered if he was imagining the concern in his Underboss’s eyes. It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t give credence to Luca’s worry by addressing it. He was fine. Well, maybe not fine. He missed Angel. Missed her so fucking much that he felt like a sinkhole had opened up inside of him. Everything that mattered had been sucked into it, and he was still standing on the edge, peering downward, thinking maybe he should just jump in and get it over with.

He shook his head. That was weakness talking. His business—and his men— needed him, now more than ever.

He hustled up the stairs to his office suite and turned the shower on cold. Stripping off his shorts and tank top, he stepped under the spray, forcing himself to stand there until he was shivering. It was the only thing he seemed to feel, and he waited until his skin turned numb to climb out and towel off.

He walked into the adjoining bedroom and slipped on a clean pair of trousers and a short sleeve T-shirt. He avoided his apartment now, preferring the smaller, more intimate suite of rooms at his headquarters in Brooklyn. Here he could almost fool himself into thinking he was something other than alone, could almost feel part of the business he’d rebuilt in the wake of his parent’s execution style murder at the hands of Angel’s father.

Angel…

He had a flash of her, standing on the beach with her golden hair blowing around her face, her eyes as green and fathomless as the sea stretching out in in front of them. The memory hit him like a punch to the gut, and he was torn between wanting to hold onto it and wanting to banish it forever.

He chose the latter—or tried to anyway. It’s not like she had given him a choice, and while he’d be lying if he said he didn’t hope she would change her mind, banking on it would be foolish.

And he’d done enough foolish things because of his feelings for Angel Rossi.

He finished getting dressed and pulled a revolver from the top drawer of his desk. He still preferred to avoid the use of weapons, but he couldn’t afford to stand on principle in such uncertain times. He was getting ready to close the drawer when his gaze settled on the rosary inside the drawer.

There had been a time when the meditative nature of the beads had soothed him, when his visits to empty churches all over the city had allowed him to feel closer to his parents. Now those things only made him bitter. What was the point in comfort if it only allowed you to pretend everything would be okay when it was all going to shit anyway?

He closed the drawer with a slam and made his way downstairs to the second floor conference room. Headquarters was quiet this time of night, with only the rhythmic hum of the machines in the cyber lab and the soft murmurs of the few people who stayed overnight to keep an eye on things. There were others in and around the building—more so in light of recent events—but they were all out of sight.

“Luca, Vincent,” Nico said, sweeping into the conference room.

“Hi, boss,” Vincent said.

He was a large man, and Nico had been embarrassed when he realized Vincent’s blank face hid a keen intellect. Nico prided himself on seeing below the surface of things, and it bothered him that he had unfairly judged one of his soldiers. He’d rectified the situation immediately, moving Vincent into Luca’s position when he made Luca his Underboss. That had been a forgone conclusion. Luca had stuck with him through the fiasco with Angel, had watched Nico’s back when everything went to hell in the London flat.

But Vincent had been a surprise. He’d taken a bullet wound to the head—just a graze, but still—during the altercation with Carlo’s men when they tried to rescue Angel. Since then he’d proven himself an asset in the management of sensitive issues that forced Nico to walk the moral line that was part of his next generation mob family.

Nico took a seat at the head of the table, Luca on his right and Vincent on his left.

“Tell me,” he said.

Luca cut a glance at Vincent before returning his eyes to Nico. “Three more hijacked shipments, four men missing, possible breach of one of the databases.”

“Four of our own?” Nico asked.

“And six more from other East Coast families,” Luca said. He hesitated. “One of them from the Rossi family.”

Nico tried to hide his alarm. He’d assumed the attacks on the Vitale family were isolated, aimed at him in the wake of Carlo’s death. But that would mean they were perpetrated by someone in the Rossi family. That theory went out the window if they were losing people, too. He wondered if Angel knew. Word was Frank Morra was running things, and somehow Nico didn’t see Frank keeping Angel and her brother apprised of the situation. Then again, Angel probably wanted nothing to do with it all anyway.

“Any sign of Dante?” he asked, revisiting an early theory.

“Not since the sighting in Brazil,” Luca said.

Nico drummed his fingers on the conference table. His mother would have said Dante was like a bad penny, turning up everywhere. But the London police had placed guards by the door of Dante’s hospital room, and Nico had been sure he would be sent away for a long time. He’d been enraged when Dante escaped, and he’d spent the next month milking every source he had for information. He’d even assigned someone to keep an eye on Angel, just in case the bastard tried to fuck with her. Nothing had happened, and a few weeks later, they’d gotten word that Dante was in Brazil. They hadn’t heard a word about him since, and Nico forced himself to open his mind to other possibilities.

“What do you make of it?” he asked Vincent.

“It can only be one of two things,” Vincent said. “Either the men are being taken as some kind of message, or…”

“Or?” Nico prompted.

“They’re leaving voluntarily.”

It was possible. Not everyone had been a fan of his twenty-first century vision of the business. Maybe the turf war with Carlo had pushed them over the edge. Carmine, his Consigliere and most trusted advisor, had warned him there might be dissent in the ranks. Raneiro, too.

Raneiro Donati. What would he make of this? As Nico’s mentor and head of the Syndicate, the international organization that ruled over every organized crime family on the planet, Raneiro would have to know what was going on. But Nico had avoided asking him for help, knowing his patience had run thin in the wake of what happened in London. Nico hesitated to involve him again in business that should have been well under Nico’s control.

And it would be. Nico would do whatever was necessary to see it done.

“Have you talked to the families of the missing men?” Nico asked Vincent.

“Claim to have no knowledge of their whereabouts.”

“All of them?” Nico asked.

“All of them,” Vincent said.

“Do you believe them?”

“I do.”

Nico filed that away for later consideration and turned to Luca. “Tell me about the data breach.”

“Sara Falco says there are signs that someone was trying to break through one of the firewalls.”

“Trying?”

Luca shrugged. “She said it didn’t look like anyone had gotten in, but I thought I should mention it.”

“Because you think it’s all connected,” Nico said.

Luca sighed. “I think it’s possible.”

“How good is Sara?” Nico asked.

“Very good,” Luca said. “She was in the Bureau’s cyber training unit when we got her.”

Nico shuffled the pieces inside his head. “I’ll meet with Frank tomorrow. See if I can get a read on what’s going on inside the Rossi family. In the meantime, I want a detailed report from Sara on the possible implications of the data breach and all the ways we can get in front of it.”

“What about the hijacked shipments?” Vincent asked. “The men are worried.”

“I pay them to transcend emotions like worry.” He heard the steel in his voice and took a deep breath. He demanded total loyalty, total strength in his men, but alienating them wouldn’t accomplish anything. “Tell them it’s under control. No violence unless their lives depend on it.”

“We’re losing money—” Luca started.

“I don’t care about the money,” Nico cut him off. “Let’s try to keep things from escalating until we can figure this out.”

Luca nodded.

“Is there anything else?” Nico asked.

He suddenly wanted nothing more than to retire to his bedroom upstairs. To close his eyes and let the dreams of Angel come. It was the only time of day he could think about her without feeling weak. No man was in control of his dreams.

Luca shook his head and was rising to stand when a shrill ring sounded from his pocket. He removed his phone, looked at the display, and scowled.

“What is it, Morelli?”

Luca’s face turned two shades paler, and a pit of dread opened up in Nico’s stomach. His first thought was Angel. Could something have happened to her?

“What? Where?” Luca cut his gaze to Nico while he listened to whoever was on the other end of the phone. “Thanks for letting us know,” he finally said. And then, “No, he’s right here. I’ll tell him.”

He disconnected the call and turned to Nico. “It’s Carmine. He’s dead.”