Page 10

Chapter 9

I watched through the window as the two men embraced. It looked like a goodbye type of hug. But why would they be saying goodbye? Weren’t agents supposed to travel in pairs?

Unless…

The door to the car swung open, and Rodrigo extended his hand for me. Taking it, I stepped out of the vehicle. With his hands braced on my shoulders, his eyes commanded my attention.

“Evie, it was a pleasure getting to meet you.”

My stomach clenched. “You’re not coming with us?”

“No, I’ve got to… take care of some things, but Damiano will keep an eye on you.”

For some reason, it made me sad that we were parting ways, which was bizarre because I’d only met the man last night. But he’d been nothing but kind to me. Hell, he’d bought me underwear. If that didn’t forge a bond between two people, I wasn’t sure what did.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

“Damiano will explain everything to you. Can you do something for me?”

I nodded, and he gave me a sad little smile. “Take care of my boy for me. Down deep beneath all that he is, he’s got a good heart. Just remember that and show him some grace, okay?”

“O-okay,” I stammered, still not sure what the heck was going on. Especially when I saw that Damiano was heading into the hangar. Panic—a sense I was becoming way too familiar with—set in. “Why is he going in there? We’re not taking the bomb chopper, are we?”

Rodrigo chuckled and placed a hand between my shoulder blades, guiding me to the side of the hangar. “Nope, you’re just switching vehicles.”

My eyeballs almost popped out of my head when I saw where he was leading me. A sky-blue Cadillac sedan almost blinded me with its glittery exterior. The alloy wheels were huge and shiny, and a chrome grill took up the entire front of the car. A figurine of a naked woman dangled from the rearview mirror.

“Let me guess,” I deadpanned. “That’s Flava Flav’s car.”

“Well, it was.”

“Was?” A sigh huffed from my lungs. “Damiano got shooty again, didn’t he?”

Rodrigo chuckled. “I like you, Evie. You’re refreshing as hell.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve got it,” Damiano grumbled, walking by with his hands full of bags.

The older man winked at me. “Get in the car, and I’ll help him.”

As the guys walked back inside, I opened the Caddy’s car door and almost passed out from the stench of way too much Axe Body Spray. It floated out like some kind of fog I was convinced would either burn off my skin or give me hallucinations if I didn’t let it air out a bit.

“Jesus, Flav. Subtlety was not your strong suit.”

A minute later, they had the car loaded and Damiano and I were climbing inside. He coughed, rolling down the windows after cranking it. Then he yanked the naked woman figure from the mirror and tossed it in the back before searching for something in the GPS device.

“Where are we going?”

“We’re dropping this car off at Guido’s house.” His eyes swung from side to side as he drove across the tarmac.

“Why?”

“So no one knows he didn’t leave here.”

“Why does that matter?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

I widened my eyes incredulously. “Well, excuse me. I’ve been drugged, kidnapped, sold, hit, stuck in the back of a truck for hours, hit again, forced to wear a hooker dress, rescued, seen corpses, taken to a safe house, almost blown up in a helicopter, and now I’m riding in a pimpmobile. Pardon the hell out of me if I have questions.”

My voice had risen almost to a yell by the end, and as my chest heaved with frustration, Damiano turned the car onto a surface street and sighed. “You’re right. It’s a long story, so let’s talk after we switch cars. The house is only a few minutes away.”

I acquiesced and stayed silent until we arrived at the ramshackle house with a charcoal-gray Ford Explorer parked in front. Damiano parked the pimp car, used a key from the keyring to get inside the house, and came back a few minutes later with another set of car keys.

I looked around, but no one was paying us any attention. This seemed to be the kind of neighborhood where no one asked questions.

After transferring everything to the SUV, we got in and headed out. I lasted all of two minutes before asking, “Is Rodrigo your dad or your uncle or something?”

Damiano’s lips pressed together. “I wish he was my father, but no, we’re not related.”

“You’re not an FBI agent, are you?”

“No.”

“CIA?”

“No.”

Pressing my fingertips into my eyeballs, I puffed out a long exhale. “Are you some kind of vigilante?”

His lips twitched slightly. “I guess you could call me that.”

I did one of those closed-mouth quiet screams as Damiano took the onramp onto Interstate-10, heading east. “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to say more than a few words at a time. Perhaps you could spill what you know without me having to drag it out of you.”

A muscle clenched and released a few times in his jaw. “You’re right.” He drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel before glancing over at me. “Have you ever heard the name Luca Cappitani?”

My eyes drifted up to stare at the top of the windshield as I tried to place the name. My mind brought up the picture of a man with a receding hairline, jowls, and a protruding belly. “Isn’t that some Mafia dude in New York?”

A vein throbbed in his temple. “Yes, he’s the one who tried to buy you.”

My stomach roiled with nausea, and I croaked out, “Why would he do that?”

Damiano shot his chocolate-brown eyes in my direction again. “Why do you think?” His teeth worked over his bottom lip, back and forth a few times before he spoke again. “He doesn’t treat his woman well, Evie. He keeps them drugged and…”

“And what?”

“He uses them whenever he wants. He has a medicine cabinet full of Viagra if you’re not catching my drift.” Shit. “When he’s done with them, he passes them on to one of the men under him in the organization. Or worse.”

Worse?

I covered my mouth with my hand. “And how do you know all this?” The words were muffled, but I knew he could hear them because his knuckles turned white on the steering wheel.

“Because I was sent to pick you up for him.” There was a long pause before he said, “Because Luca is my father.”

I’d experienced the most horrific fear imaginable over the past few days, and I thought the worst was over. But I was dead wrong. It slammed back into me with a vengeance as I realized what he’d just said.

“Are you taking me to him?” I asked, a tear slipping down my right cheek. Swiping it away angrily, I turned my face fully toward the man who was maneuvering through traffic, a stoic expression on his face.

“I am not,” he replied through gritted teeth.

“Are you in the Mafia too?”

“I was but not anymore.”

“Since when?” I asked, pretty sure I already knew the answer.

“Since I saw the woman I was supposed to be picking up on that video. A little wildcat with fire in her blue eyes and a big fuck you written on her face.” Damiano slowed and then stopped the car as traffic stalled on the freeway, swiveling his head to meet my unrelenting gaze. “Till I saw you, Evie.”

I was completely lost for words. My mind couldn’t process all this new information. Damiano is a Mafia man who saved me from the even worse Mafia man, and now he’s not in the Mafia anymore.

“I don’t understand what that means,” I told him, my voice shakier than I wanted it to be.

“That makes two of us,” he muttered. “I can’t explain it, Evie. I saw that video, and you were vulnerable but so fucking strong at the same time. Luca said he was going to have fun breaking you, and I almost killed him on the spot.” His right hand left the steering wheel and reached toward me before he pulled it back and let it fall into his lap, but his eyes remained on mine. “I couldn’t bear to think of him breaking your spirit.”

“Wow. Okay. That’s… a lot.” I smoothed my index finger absently over the cut in my lip. “What happens now?”

A car horn beeped, and Damiano pulled his head around to find that traffic had started moving again. Placing both hands on the wheel, he drove without speaking for about a mile before I repeated myself.

“Damiano, what happens now?”

He sucked in a breath through his nose. “We have to go into hiding.” The air pushed from his nostrils so forcefully, they flared. “If he finds us, we’re both dead.”

“My family can hide us,” I said quickly, not thinking too much about the fact that I’d used the word us instead of me . That should go over well. Hey, Dad and Mother. This is Damiano. He’s a stone-cold killer, and he’ll be staying with us while his psycho father looks for us. “They have money and—”

I cut myself off at the sharp shake of his head. “We have to go deeper than that. And besides, if you arrive back at your family’s house, law enforcement will know, and then Luca will inevitably find out. He has spies everywhere, including in the Feds and local police.”

“So we’re going into the Witness Protection Program?”

The shake of his head made my heart sink even further. “Have you ever wondered why my father is a notorious gangster and yet he’s never spent a day in jail?”

“Weirdly enough, I’ve never given that much thought,” I shot back.

Damiano ignored my sarcasm. “Fourteen people who were going to testify against my father have gone into WITSEC over the years.” A muscle twitched beneath his eye. “Guess how many survived.”

A sharp pinch formed over my chest and deepened into my heart. From the firm set of his jaw, I knew the answer. “I’m guessing none.”

“Correct. If he can’t find them, he draws them out of hiding by going after their families or loved ones. The only way you and your family will be safe is if… if he thinks you’re dead.”

A cold dread seeped over me, bringing with it an involuntary shudder, and I rubbed my hands up and down my arms. “He’s the one behind the helicopter, isn’t he?” My heart went out to Damiano when he nodded. “But he knew you were going to be on there too. His own son.”

Bitterness curled the corner of his mouth upward and wrapped around his words. “Yeah. He’s a fucking peach of a father, isn’t he?”

I reached out and laid my hand on his forearm. “I’m sorry, Damiano. My mother is a cold-hearted bitch, but I think your father has her beat for the suck-ass parent of the year award.”

“Fuhgeddaboudit,” he drawled, feigning indifference with a shrug of one shoulder. “Rodrigo is taking care of the chopper situation. It will blow up off the coast just like Luca expects it to. That way, he won’t be looking for us as long as there’s no reason for him to suspect we’re still alive.”

“Why the hell does he want me dead so badly?” I fumed.

Damiano turned on his blinker and merged into the center lane as traffic began to thin out and speed up. “He saw a press conference with your family last night, and that’s when he realized who you were. Then the paranoid sonofabitch freaked out because your disappearance is high profile and the extra media attention turned up the heat. He decided the only way to keep anything from being traced back to him was to make sure you were… out of the picture.”

At the mention of my family, my chest swelled with an ache so profound, I was afraid my ribs would crack. “I need to call them and tell them I’m okay. I’m sure they’re worried sick. Can I use your phone?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he hedged.

“Well, I think it’s a great idea,” I argued. “I can’t just let them wonder where the hell I am. I’ll tell them not to say anything to anyone.”

“Not good enough.”

My cheeks flared with red anger. “If I explain it to them…”

“Listen to me, Evie. If you were my sister and you were missing but suddenly called and told me you were fine and not to worry, you know what I’d do? I’d burn up the goddamn world getting to you.”

I stayed silent because that’s exactly what my family would do.

“If they were to tell anyone from the media or the FBI or even a friend, and it got back to my father, you’d be dead before you knew what was happening. In fact, the Feds undoubtedly have your family's phones monitored. Luca is ruthless and powerful, and he will stop at nothing to save his own skin. Including blowing up a helicopter with his own fucking son in it,” he shouted, slamming his fist against his chest. Damiano took a few heaving breaths and then his voice softened marginally. “Wouldn’t your family rather you be safe and they be unaware of it than to know for sure that you’re dead?”

I pressed the heel of my hand against my forehead. “It’s so cruel to leave them wondering though.”

“Then let’s turn it around. If Luca got even an inkling that you were still alive, he’d do everything in his power to find you, including using your family. How would you feel if you turned on the news one day and saw a story about your mother opening a package and finding one of your brothers’ heads in it? How would you feel if you knew you could have prevented that by going underground?”

Gasping, I covered my face with both hands, the unimaginable vision of Monty or Auburn… No. It was too fucking much, and tears leaked from beneath my hands to drip from my jaw.

“Don’t say shit like that,” I wheezed as my chest contracted in on itself. “You’re scaring me.”

A hand brushed down my arm so softly I could have imagined it. “I’m sorry, Evie, but you need to be scared. You need to take this seriously because that’s exactly my father’s M.O.”

I tilted my head against the slightly open window, letting the breeze dry my tears into a fine crust on my face. “I hate you for this, Damiano. I’ll always hate you for this.”

The interior of the vehicle was silent for a long while before I heard, “If that’s what you need to do, Evie, then fine. At least you’ll be alive to remind me how much you hate me every day.”