Sweet Release (A Bad Boy Mafia Romance) (17 page)

Ella

It happened so fast.

I tried to give Tony a clean shot at Pembry, and it looked like he got one in right before Mike tackled Pembry against the wall. Two shots fired, one after the other, and I saw blood on Mike’s arm, and then soaking into his shirt near his waist.

And then there was another shot and I saw Annemarie, grim faced and sweating, her pistol pointed to where Pembry collapsed.

Her head fell back, Mike staggered sideways, and went down just before I could get to him. I put my hands over the wound in his side, but it looked far enough out that it couldn’t have it an organ, I hoped. “Shit, Mike,” I muttered, tears streaming down my cheeks. “Are you okay?” It was a stupid question. Of course he wasn’t okay.

“Just a flea bite,” Mike said. He grinned, and then winced and groaned, and looked down at where I was keeping pressure on two sides of a wound that went all the way through.

“The police are on the way,” I said.

“Yeah, I know,” Mike grunted. “Where’s Tony?”

I looked up and around the room and saw Tony on his knees next to Annemarie. They were talking, but it was hard to hear—my ears were still ringing. Annemarie opened her shirt, and knocked on something under it. Ballistic vest. Lady came prepared. Tony gave her a hand to help her up but she made a pained face and with strangely gentle care, Tony lowered her upper body back to the ground. Probably a cracked rub from the impact.

Mike was watching them as well, and chuckled. “Oh man, that’d be just great.”

The police arrived, and an ambulance followed. The interviews took too long, but no one seemed particularly surprised at the outcome. Pembry had thrown a tantrum very publicly when he was suspended, even turning over a desk while he stormed out of the precinct. There were apologies on behalf of the department but I didn’t need them. I didn’t need anything right now except to see Mike safe and better.

Both of Mike’s wounds were clean—no bones, no organs, no tendons. He could still look forward to a career in fighting, although I wondered if he’d had maybe enough violence for the time being. They let me right with him in the Ambulance. Another took Annemarie and, somewhat surprisingly, Tony went with her. They weren’t going to let him, but there was a bit of a shouting match and finally Annemarie told them to let him on.

“Did Annemarie call you?” I asked Mike as the EMTs patched him up and checked vitals on the trip to the ER.

He shook his head. “I came to your place to talk. Saw your phone. Tony had some of his”—he glanced at the EMT—“buddies track Pembry down. How did Annemarie get there?”

“She called Pembry’s phone,” I said. “Pembry tried to… well, anyway I got a few hits in, and his phone must have fallen out. I wasn’t sure who it was, though.”

Mike sighed. “I told her to leave it alone.”

“Uh… thanks?” I snorted. What the fuck?

“Tony was gonna take care of it all. Now… I don’t know. It got a lot more complicated. I’m glad she was there, though.”

“Yeah,” I said, “she probably saved your life.”

Mike shrugged. “I coulda taken him.”

“I know. I saw that knee work. Good stuff.” I pursed my lips. “But… you didn’t really get inside his guard. You should have dropped your center a little more, used your elbows to leverage his arms out of the way. Then you’d have had a clear shot at his upper ribs.”

Mike stared at me, then smiled, and rolled his eyes. “Yeah. I’ll do that next time.”

We laughed together, and got some concerned looks from the EMTs, but I didn’t particularly care.

“Thanks for coming for me,” I said quietly, my hand squeezing his.

“I always will,” Mike said. “I shoulda said it before, when we”—another furtive glance at the EMT—“uh, you know… But I didn’t think you’d believe me.”

“I probably wouldn’t have.” I smiled. “Technically I shouldn’t believe you now, you know. Trauma makes people say things they don’t mean.”

“This ain’t trauma,” Mike said, pulling my hand a little to wave at his fucking gun-shot wound. “Just flesh wound. I’m clear headed.”

“Are you, now?” I chuckled. “I think they just put some kind of pain killer in the IV. You might not be entirely lucid.”

“Well before I do lose my mind, then, I should tell you.” He pulled me in, and I leaned to accommodate him so that he could kiss me. It was long, and soft, and slow, deeper than before, I thought. Suitable for an audience, although the EMT kindly looked away to study a chart.

When Mike let me go, he stared up at me from the gurney. “I love you, Ella. And I’m never gonna let something like this happen to you again. I promise.”

I watched his face a moment, studied the sharp lines of his jaw, the grim set of it, the fire still behind his eyes. I believed him. He’d burn the world down to get to me. It cracked something inside me, and then stitched it back up and left it warm and light. I kissed him again. “I love you too, Mike.” I sighed, glowing with this almost alien feeling, and all the fear and excitement that made it vibrate in my chest. “Thank you.”

Step seven: get abducted, realize how fucking short life is, take a leap, and let yourself fall in love. Done and done.

* * *

Mike’s surgery barely counted as such. I was worried about how we would pay for it, and already thinking of it as something ‘we’ would have to deal with. But Mike assured me there wouldn’t be a problem. That was when I remembered that we hadn’t actually talked about the great big mobster elephant in the room.

I was willing to wait until later, but Mike seemed to think it needed discussing now. And when he told me why, I understood.

“It wasn’t Tony’s own guys that helped us out,” Mike explained. “It was Luchese’s boys. Luchese did me a favor.”

“If I remember my Godfather correctly,” I mused, “that means that you now owe him a favor.”

Mike nodded. He seemed resigned about it. “Favors from the Family come with strings. Always. The Don wants me to work for him, doing what Tony does. Enforcement. If that’s what he wants as payment…” He sighed, closed his eyes, and clenched his jaw a moment.

“You don’t have to, though,” I said. “Not if you don’t want to, right? What will he do?”

Mike opened his eyes again and shook his head sharply. “You don’t just tell Luchese ‘no’ after he does a favor like that. Whatever he wants me to do… I have to do it. That’s just how it works.”

I sat slowly from where I’d been hovering at the edge of his bed. It was serious shit. All the same stuff as before, the various dangers of Mob politics as I imagined them, at least, but much deeper in. Not just a relative to the Mafia, but an actual card-carrying member. Did that make me a member? In the movies and on Television, the Mob wives always seemed to get off without too much trouble.

But it was more than that now. I worried about Mike, personally; bodily. I worried about him having to give up his dream of fighting on an MMA circuit. I worried about what happened when some inter-family Mafia war broke out, if that sort of thing actually happened. “Are there any other options?” I asked.

Mike shrugged. “Don’t know. Tony says he’ll talk to the Don but… I don’t know. Luchese is old, and tired. Maybe not all there. His favorite son died a while back, so there’s no one to take over the Family when he dies, except for the slower, dumber one, which is bad news. That’s why he wants me on. Tony might be able to convince him I wouldn’t make a difference.” He sighed again, more heavily. “If you don’t think you can handle all that… I uh… I’ll understand.”

There didn’t seem to be enough time to process it all. Some part of me was still hyped up on the ghost of adrenaline past, feeling the sands of my hourglass slipping rapidly through my fingers. Fuck the ‘days’ of our lives; I was conscious of the minutes now.

And I didn’t want to waste them. Not anymore. “Whatever happens,” I said, “I’ll stick by you, if you stick by me. Partners. Right?”

Mike grinned, and nodded once. “Yeah. Partners. I fucking love you so goddamn much right now, Baby.” He glanced at the door, and then back at me, mischief on his face. “Bet we got about twenty minutes before anybody comes to check on me again.”

I laughed as Mike pulled his blanket down, and tugged his hospital robe aside, and waggled his half-hard cock at me.

But I was off that chair and on the bed, pants down, just as fast as I could manage it. No wasted minutes; not anymore.

Ella

The next month flew by, but we took advantage of every minute we could carve out of it. Mike recovered barely in time to train hard for a week before the open call to the Junior MMA Northeastern Circuit. It was a gruelling week, for both of us, but Jarome and I pushed Mike to his limits, and past them, and it paid off.

“You’re looking at the newest contender in the NEC,” Mike announced when the news came down. The whole gym celebrated together.

And they weren’t the only ones. Mike and I got an invitation to another celebration. We were going to have dinner with Tony. At Don Carlo Luchese’s upstate home, with the Don himself and his lieutenants.

The word ‘nervous’ doesn’t quite cover how I felt about that, but I was determined to make a good impression and stick with Mike, no matter what happened. ‘The Don’ as Tony usually called him, had been quiet on the subject of how exactly Mike would be expected to repay his favor. Mike seemed to think the timing made perfect sense. “Leverage,” he explained. “Now I’m in the NEC, he can threaten to take it away, have me dropped. That’s how all this shit works; connections and favors and black mail.” He got angry fast. “For all I fucking know, Luchese got me in. If he did, he’ll tell me. Then I’m a fucking puppet.”

“Calm down,” I said, and stroked his cheek, my hand trailing down his neck and his chest until I slid my arms around his waist and hugged him. “Whatever it is, we’ll deal.”

Mike only grunted.

I had assumed that it would be a formal dinner of some kind. What I had not expected was for a shiny black limousine to come to the apartment to pick me up the day before—not the two of us, just me—and take me to buy a dress. There was a dark haired, fully Italian woman, accent and all, with a Karmen-esque beauty mark on her upper lip, who informed me that she was something like my personal shopper.

It stank of bribery, and made me extremely uncomfortable. Up until the part where we started shopping. If you’ve ever gone through a period of life where you did not buy a single unnecessary piece of clothing for more than a couple of years, and especially if you’ve had to dress exclusively in workout clothes and worn in old jeans and tee shirts, then you might understand why I caved in the end.

It was just one dress, and a pair of shoes. The dress had a shawl with it, and a matching handbag which I had nothing to put in because I was used to thinking of a handbag as something a person could grab and potentially lock your arms up with. It was a deep, vibrant violet, the sort of color that paints the sky on a lazy, cloudy beach sunset, all silk and velvet and hugging tightness. For once, I wore heels, and I hated them, but I had to admit they did make my ass look fantastic.

When we were done, and I was deposited back in front of our apartment, Elena—the Italian woman who had both helped me pick out the dress and then paid a staggering amount of money for the outfit—kissed me on both cheeks and bid me a good afternoon.

I kept the dress a secret until Mike and I were preparing for the dinner.

As beautiful as it was, I was still self-conscious when I emerged from the bedroom for the big reveal.

Mike stared.

I sighed. “I know, I know; I’m really not a dress-up kind of—”

“Don’t fucking talk,” Mike breathed. He stared some more while I shifted uncomfortably in the heels. But a moment later he let out a breath he’d been holding, and shook his head, disbelieving. “Baby, you’re so fucking beautiful. If I wasn’t worried I’d tear that dress up, we’d be on the bed right now.”

I blushed, and smiled. “Shut up,” I said. “I can’t move in this thing.” But I giggled as he pulled me close and kissed me.

Mike looked amazing in a suit. Tony had taken him to pick it up; it was plain, black and white, but fitted to him by the tailor and he filled it out nicely. I had to agree—these clothes weren’t going to last long after we got home.

Another car took us upstate, and we arrived at Luchese’s humble little mansion at a quarter past five, nerves raw. My first Mob dinner. I wondered if there would be open discussion of hit lists and illicit trade deals. What exactly did a Mafia do?

To my utter surprise, I was not the only newcomer. We were greeted at the door by Tony, along with a black woman in a red dress that set of her pile of red curls and made her curvy form look like something that a sculptor might come up with to depict some kind of fertility goddess. Annemarie, it seemed, was here on Tony’s arm.

“Totally called it,” Mike muttered when they were out of earshot for a moment.

Dinner was incredible, and not at all what I expected. Around a long, wide table we gathered with a dozen men and women all dressed like they were going to the red carpet after this, headed by none other than Don Carlo Luchese himself.

He was an old, old Italian man with snowy white hair that was slicked back over his lined forehead, dark-skinned and rugged looking even in his tux. His knuckles were knobby and bent, but he stood straight and had a kind of strength and grace about him when he entered the room to sit. He spoke slowly, his accent thick and rich, and rather than the dour, grim leader of a bona fide organized crime syndicate, his dark eyes sparkled with friendly good humor.

Introductions were made, dinner was served, and no business was discussed at the table. This, I learned, was a long standing Family tradition. Instead, it wasn’t much different than being at any other family reunion. People talked about their kids, about their spouses, about vacation plans. They told funny stories, praised the food that Luchese’s sister and nephew had cooked for us (they sat next to him at the head of the table). For a while, I forgot they were Mobsters.

It wasn’t until the last plate was cleared, and people retired to other rooms, that I got my first face to face with the Don. Tony and Annemarie were with us, and we were led to a lavish sitting room, where the Don lit a sweet smelling cigar and offered us tumblers of brandy and bourbon. Mike accepted an eye-roll and a curt nod from Annemarie before he took a drink.

“Salud,” The Don said, raising his glass to us all when we were finally seated. “To new friends and family. May we never be far from one another’s hearts.” Each word was carefully formed, heavy with that gorgeous accent. I could have listened to Luchese read the newspaper for the rest of the evening and hung on every word.

But there was a tension in the room, just underneath the congenial atmosphere. It was quiet here, a small fire in the hearth crackling almost ominously. We were here to discuss something; that much was clear.

We returned the toast, and sipped our respective drinks while Luchese mulled over whatever he was about to say.

Ultimately, he looked at me. “I have known Michael since he was a twinkle in his Papa’s eye, you know.” He winked at Michael. “His Mamma knew he would be a fighter. He would kick her, and punch her, sometimes all day and all night, before he was born.” He pantomimed boxing, and chuckled. “She would be so proud.”

“Thank you, Don Luchese,” Mike said.

“Tony tells me,” Luchese went on, “that you are a fighter, too. That when the late Mr. Pembry took you, you fought. It is good. You and Michael, it is a good match.” He looked at Michael, stern and serious, as he pointed at me with his cigar. “Do not waste time. Women do not wait. They know better. If you love someone, then you marry them.”

My cheeks heated, and I sipped my brandy. It didn’t help, at all. Mike cleared his throat, and sipped his own drink while Luchese chuckled again, his eyes squinting with amusement.

“Yes, Don Luchese,” Mike muttered. He glanced at me as though to apologize. Sorry, Grandpa’s had a bit to drink.

Tony laughed quietly as well, but Luchese pointed at him next, and Tony choked on it. “That goes for both of you. There is no treasure greater in this world, than a good woman; a good wife. E vero; it is true.”

“Yes, Don Luchese,” Tony said, just as mortified as Mike.

The Don sighed, and swirled his brandy, and puffed his cigar. After a moment, he spoke again, to me. “Michael owes me a favor. A debt of honor. We are a Family of honor. Tell me, now; if Michael is to work for me, your family will be well taken care of. Your children will go to good schools, you will never have an empty table. Should he repay his debt to me by working for me?”

I shifted on the hard cushioned seat, some elaborately carved dark wooden antique that had probably only served as an actual seat a dozen or so times in the last century, it felt like. I didn’t like being on the spot, but Luchese didn’t sound angry, or even like he wanted to pressure me. I wondered why he was asking me, though, and not Mike himself.

Still, I answered as honestly as I could. “Mike—Michael—wants to fight. That’s his dream. I don’t care if we have money or not. I want us to be happy, and I think you have to pursue your dreams to be happy.” A heartbeat. “Don Luchese,” I added quickly. It seemed like that was what you were supposed to do.

Don Luchese nodded, and then turned his gaze on Annemarie. “And you, my lovely dark beauty?”

Annemarie looked for a moment like she might take exception to that, but she didn’t say anything for a moment. When she did answer, it was with more confidence than I had. “I appreciate your hospitality, Mr. Luchese, but I can’t be associated with your organization. I work in law enforcement and I’m happy there. I’d like it if Tony could find other work.”

Luchese’s eyebrows crept up, but he only smiled, his head bobbing a few times.

It was surreal. He seemed like a perfectly ordinary, if extravagantly wealthy, old man. But he wasn’t. He was the head of an organized crime syndicate. I had to keep reminding myself of that. At any minute, he might politely apologize for having to have us all killed.

But he didn’t. To my surprised, he finally raised his glass again. “Then, my decision is made. I am old, and tired. I will abide by the judgment of women; they always know better, so my wife tells me.” He gave us a conspiratorial wink. “The Frazetta name will always be welcome in my home, but you are both released from my service.”

Tony seemed almost stricken by this, but he gave the Don a grateful nod, and raised his glass before he put one of his big arms around Annemarie’s shoulder and pulled her close.

Mike, however, seemed like a weight had been physically removed from his shoulders. “Thank you, Don Luchese. I don’t even know what to say. Thank you.”

“You, Michael,” the Done said, serious again, “still owe me a favor.”

That dampened things quickly.

“Anything, Don Luchese,” Mike said stiffly.

The Don nodded appreciatively, and then seemed to mull over what he would ask for. Finally he leveled those grave eyes at Mike again. “You are to provide me with two tickets to all of your matches. I will take nothing less.” The Don’t dire visage broke, and he smiled, the lines of his face spreading out almost to his ears as Mike laughed with him, and agreed to the terms of the deal.

The rest of the night was far less stressful as the Don revealed some of the more embarrassing secrets of Tony and Mike’s childhood. When we left, it was with a standing invitation to return, and the promise to both Annemarie and I that we could, if we so chose, hold our respective, apparently inevitable, weddings in the sprawling gardens behind Luchese’s mansion. Also, if it wasn’t too much trouble, the Don never had grandchildren of his own and he wasn’t going to live forever. Wink wink.

Mike and I laughed about it on the way home, and then again before we fell asleep that night. After all, it was crazy, right? We’d been together officially for just a little over a month. And there was so much going on; Mike was about to start fighting on the circuit, and we might not have a lot of down time. And weddings were over-rated anyway, right? Right. All of that was probably years down the road, at least.

And yet, two days later, I came up to the apartment to find Mike napping after what was probably a grueling day of drilling with Jarome, the laptop we’d bought so he could have real email like an actual person still open beside him, the screen dark. I smiled, and pulled a blanket over him, and took the laptop off the bed to put it away.

When I did, Mike’s finger brushed the touchpad under the keyboard, and the darkened screen lit back up. He’d been on a website, looking at jewelry. No, not just jewelry. Engagement rings.