“I’m going to be in the Mafia, like you.” Matteo beamed as Luca opened the front door to Il Tavolino. He hadn’t stopped talking since Luca told him he was going to let him sleep over tonight to make up for last Saturday. Luca blamed Gabrielle. She had cracked the walls he’d put up around his heart and made him believe he was capable of feeling. Now all sorts of emotions were pouring out. Uncomfortable emotions, including guilt.
Matteo might not be his biological son, but in every way that mattered, and in the eyes of everyone who knew them, Luca was his dad. He needed to start showing the boy some love because he didn’t want him to end up bitter and angry like Gina.
“I’m going to wear suits and carry guns and ride in fancy cars and people are going to give me respect and call me Don Rizzoli.”
“I own a restaurant,” Luca said evenly, struggling to walk the fine line between truth and lies. “Don’t tell people otherwise. I know it’s more exciting to think that because we’re Italian, we’re part of the Mafia, but not every Italian is a Mafioso.”
“But you are,” Matteo said excitedly. “And Paolo wants to be a Mafia man, too. He told me he wants you to be proud of him.”
Luca threw a questioning glance over his shoulder at Paolo. They’d picked him up after lunch to help with the search for Little Ricky and he’d been almost hyper where Luca had expected him to be contrite. He wasn’t sure if the kid was overcompensating because he was worried he’d screwed up or just happy to see them after the week Luca had given him to cool off.
Not that he cared right now. It had now been three days since anyone had seen Little Ricky. His crew had checked hospitals, jails, bars, and restaurants, as well as friends and family. His car was still parked behind the restaurant, his apartment was untouched, and no one had called to ask for ransom. Little Ricky had never failed to bring in a payment, and Luca had discounted the possibility that he had gone on the lam. He was a good soldier and one of the most loyal members of Luca’s crew. That left two options: he was a rat and had gone into witness protection or he’d been whacked.
Luca sent Paolo to his office, and led Matteo to the kitchen. The restaurant opened mid-afternoon on Fridays, giving him just enough time to have a talk with Paolo and make a final inspection before the customers arrived.
“We don’t talk about family matters outside the family,” he warned his son.
“Omertà,” Matteo said in perfectly accented Italian. “I know about it. Nonna says it means silence. We have to keep everything secret. I’m good at keeping secrets, Papa. I didn’t tell anyone Nonna lets me watch The Godfather with her. It’s her favorite movie. She likes the part when the man pets the cat.”
Luca made a mental note to have a word with his mother about appropriate movies for six-year-olds and settled Matteo on a seat beside Mike. “Say hi to Cousin Louis. You’re gonna have lunch with him while I’m busy talking to Paolo. Make sure he doesn’t eat everything in the kitchen.”
“How come you call Cousin Louis ‘Mike’, and I have to call him ‘Louis’?”
“Because that’s how it is.” He didn’t want Matteo knowing the wiseguys by their nicknames. Matteo didn’t have Rizzoli blood, and although Luca would be a father to him, he didn’t want Matteo involved in his world. He was a civilian, and he needed to lead a civilian life.
“Is it because Mike is his Mafia nickname?” Matteo asked, demonstrating that he was far more aware of what was going on than Luca had suspected. “Like Virgil ‘The Turk’ Sollozzo in The Godfather?”
Christ. His mother had a lot to answer for. “Mikey Muscles is his nickname,” Luca said, scrambling for an explanation that didn’t reveal too much. “He got it ’cause he never misses a day at the gym. Lots of guys go by nicknames, especially if they don’t like their real name. Cousin Frankie’s real name is Rocco, but when he moved to Vegas he wanted a new name, and he got stuck with Frankie Blue Eyes because the guys found out he likes to sing Frank Sinatra songs.”
“What if I want a new name?”
Luca frowned. It was traditional for a made man to name his first son after his grandfather. As a result, he had followed tradition and named his son Matteo. Gina hated the name, and in the end, she had her revenge. No true first-born son of Rizzoli blood would bear his grandfather’s name. “What’s wrong with Matteo?”
“I like it, I guess,” Matteo said. “But it’s not cool like Mikey Muscles.”
Mike grinned and bumped fists with Matteo before they headed to the refrigerator to get down to the business of eating. Luca checked his phone as he headed to his office. Still no message from Gabrielle. He had texted her a few times since the Red 27 incident but she hadn’t texted back, and he hadn’t pursued her for a response. The altercation in the alley had highlighted a fundamental difference between them—one that he needed to think his way through if they were to be together.
Assuming she wanted to be together. Maybe she felt their differences were irreconcilable and this was her way of brushing him off.
“What’s up, boss?”
What’s up, boss? What the fuck was wrong with Paolo? “Get your fucking feet off my desk and sit up straight. Next time you speak to me, you do it with respect or I’ll tell Mike to take you out back for a couple of lessons.
Luca took a seat across the desk and stared at his now contrite wannabe associate. “We need to talk about what happened last week. Whacking guys is not something most of us enjoy. That’s why we’ve got guys like Frankie. Cosa Nostra takes in guys like him and beats the fucking empathy out of them until there is nothing left but a cold, hard shell. But sometimes we gotta get our hands dirty. When someone messes with what’s yours, you have to make it right, especially if it’s your family or your girl.”
“It won’t happen again, Mr. Rizzoli.”
“Maybe it will; maybe it won’t,” he said, not quite buying the apology given Paolo’s body language—slouched in the chair, arms folded behind his head like they were discussing the weather. “Who knows? Sometimes the body has a fucking mind of its own, but in this family, no matter how bad things get, we don’t run away. From anything. We face our enemies as we face our fears. Head on. Remember that for next time, and think before you act.”
“Will do, boss.”
Something wasn’t right. Usually Paolo turned red whenever he was chastised, and he folded in on himself. He was always desperate to please and became almost inarticulate when he’d done something wrong. The kid in front of him said all the right things, but he was so nonchalant the words didn’t ring true.
He leaned forward, about to press the issue, when Lennie knocked on the door.
“I’m heading out, Mr. Rizzoli, but you got a visitor. A lady. She was here a few weeks ago with her friends. She says her name is Gabrielle.”
Gabrielle.
She must have come to apologize for ignoring his messages. He made a token effort to pretend she was just another of the many women he’d fucked who had come begging for more, that he would easily be able to turn her away with sweet words and murmured apologies, and that nothing could ever come between him and his crime family. But his dick wasn’t listening. And neither was his fucking heart. She owned him, and if anyone was going to be begging for more, it was him.
He sent Paolo to the kitchen, and said good-bye to Lennie, taking the time to slow the pounding of his heart. But the effort was wasted the moment he walked into the restaurant. His blood roared when he spotted her standing near the entrance. She wore skintight jeans tucked into long black high-heeled boots, a tight red tank top and a leather jacket that just skimmed her waist. Her long blonde hair was loose and tumbled over her shoulders in a golden waterfall that sent his mind back to their night in the closet at Red 27 when he’d fisted her hair and …
“I need to talk to you.” She brushed back her hair, and he had a vivid image of that golden loveliness spread across her back as he fucked her over his desk.
“Of course, bella. We can talk in my office.” There. He could do it. Cool, calm, disinterested. The first step in detaching himself if the price of forbidden love proved to be too high and she had come to say farewell.
She closed the distance between them until he could feel the heat of her body, smell the fragrance of her perfume. Sweat beaded on his brow, and he clenched a fist by his side so he didn’t put his arm around her and pull her in for a kiss.
“I just came to let you know that the two guys who shot up my place have been found,” she said bluntly. “They’re dead.”
He had no trouble keeping his face smooth and even. He’d lied to the cops before, and he could do it again. “I’m glad to hear they won’t bother you again.”
Her lips pressed together. “They were Albanian hit men.”
“Interesting.”
“Jeff thinks they were hired by someone else…”
Luca’s eyes narrowed at the word “Jeff” and he didn’t process anything she said after the bastard’s name dropped from her lips. “You were with Jeff?”
“We work together. Well, not on the same team, anymore. He’s still in Narcotics and now I’m in Theft. But we’re both on the same floor.”
Mine.
A tidal wave of anger crashed through him at the thought of Jeff anywhere near Gabrielle. Not only that, Jeff saw her all day every day. Jeff probably thought about all the things he wanted to do to her in bed while they had lunch together. When she walked down the hallway, he would be looking at her beautiful ass, the way her hair swung down her back, her lush curves, and her long legs. And if she turned around, Jeff would look where only Luca’s gaze should fall …
And that was the end of cool, calm, and fucking disinterested. He’d given her space for a week and now Jeff was moving in on his territory. To hell with the rules and the risks. To hell with the Mafia’s ten commandments. He wanted her and he would find a way to make it fucking work where they would have a happily forever ending and no one would wind up dead.
“Do you know anything about how the Albanians wound up on the side of the road?” she asked. “They were wearing Sicilian—”
A thin, high-pitched scream cut her off. Luca’s heart pounded and not just because of the question he wasn’t prepared to answer.
“Matteo!” He ran for the kitchen, and pushed open the swinging door, pulling up short when he saw Matteo standing in front of the walk-in meat freezer, face white, eyes wide. Mike and Paolo were standing behind him in a similar state of shock.
“Dad!” Matteo ran to him, flung himself into Luca’s arms. Luca lifted his son, holding the trembling boy against him as he walked over to Mike.
“What’s in the freezer?” he murmured.
“Little Ricky.” Mike’s voice wavered. “He’s been hung upside down, naked, throat slit, letter G carved into his fucking chest. I already called Frankie.”
Bile rose in Luca’s throat when he glanced into the meat freezer, and even he staggered back.
He had considered the possibility that Little Ricky had been targeted for the money he’d picked up at Glamour, but this wasn’t the work of an ordinary thief, and it wasn’t about money. This was personal.
“What’s going on?” Gabrielle asked from the doorway.
“It’s nothing.” He waved her away. “You go to my office. Paolo will take you there. I have something I need to deal with.” He glanced over at Paolo still frozen in place. “Paolo, show Gabrielle to my office. Take Matteo with you and get him a soda and some biscotti, the chocolate kind he likes.” He tried to set Matteo down, but his son clung to him and wouldn’t let go.
“He’s dead.” Matteo’s thin body shuddered in his arms.
When was the last time he’d held his son? Soothed him? Wiped away his tears? Christ. He was a shit dad.
“Papa, there’s a dead man in the freezer.”
Luca didn’t like to lie to Matteo, but there was no way a six-year-old boy could handle that kind of trauma. “What month is it Matteo?”
“October.”
“And what special time is in October? What are you looking forward to where you get to dress up?”
“Halloween.”
Luca nodded. “And what you saw is just a Halloween trick Cousin Louis was testing out for a Halloween party. Do you remember the party Auntie Angela had last year? The one where there were skeletons and ghosts and pretend chopped off arms and legs? This is just like that. It’s made of plastic.”
Matteo gave a relieved shudder. “It was scary, Papa. It looked real. Even Paolo was scared.”
“Cousin Louis is good at the pranks, but he shouldn’t have used Papa’s meat freezer, should he? Now I’ll have to miss taking you to the park because I have to clean up. The health inspectors don’t like it when there is anything other than meat in the freezer.”
“Is Cousin Louis gonna be grounded?”
“No.” Luca hugged Matteo tight. “I’ll make him help me, and I think I’ll tell him not to bring that toy to Auntie Angela’s party. You stay with Paolo and drink your soda, and I’ll call Auntie Angela to come and take you home.”
Finally, Matteo loosened his grip. “I thought I was going to stay with you.”
“We’ll have to do the sleepover another time. This is going to take me a while to sort out.”
“Please, Papa.” Big fat tears rolled down Matteo’s cheeks. “What if I remember it when I’m trying to sleep? What if I’m scared? Please. Please let me stay with you. I packed my bag and everything. I brought all my superheroes and Transformers and books for story time and Nonna bought me new Spiderman pajamas. Please Papa.”
He could almost feel the now-weakened walls cracking around his heart. Matteo had done this before, but Luca had never felt guilt like he felt now. Dammit. Before Gabrielle, he’d never really felt anything, and now his emotions were out of control. “Okay. Okay. You go with Paolo and Gabrielle, and when I’m done I’ll take you to my place.”
He should have known Gabrielle wouldn’t leave with them. She wasn’t a woman who was easily dismissed. And as a cop, she had a nose for crime.
“What’s in there?” She pointed to the meat freezer.
“Nothing you need to see.” He edged in front of the freezer, blocking the door.
“Was that your son?”
Luca nodded. “Matteo. He’s six.”
“He said someone was dead.”
Fuck. She wasn’t going to let up, but he couldn’t let a cop see a dead body in the freezer. She’d call it in and he’d have police swarming all over his restaurant. There would be questions, and eventually someone would put two and two together and get ‘Mafia’ as an answer.
“Kids.” He tried to shrug it off, wary of giving her information that would put her in a conflict situation.
“You’re a terrible liar.” She pushed past him and walked through the door. “If someone is dead, I need to—” She choked off her words and gasped. “Oh my God.”
“Come, bella. You don’t need to see this.” He put a hand on her shoulder, and she slapped him away.
“Don’t tell me what I do and don’t need to see,” she snapped, her voice so raw and thick with emotion he almost didn’t recognize it. She yanked her weapon from beneath her leather jacket and spun to face him.
“We need to clear the restaurant.”
“Gabrielle, come sit down outside. You’re in shock—”
“I’m not in shock.” Her voice tightened. “I know who did this. He might still be in the building.”
Luca and Mike shared a curious glance. “Who do you think did this?” Luca asked.
“A drug lord named Garcia. And I know because he killed David exactly the same way. I found David like this except he was hanging from our second story railing over the living room, and there was blood…” Her voice hitched, giving him the first indication that her cold, abrupt tone wasn’t anger, but pain. “So much blood.”
His rage went from a dull roar to a full-blown crescendo, pounding through his veins. “Was that your case? The one they pulled you off? You were after Garcia?”
“Yes.”
Jesus fucking Christ. What kind of fucking police force would send a woman after one of the most vicious, violent, and ruthless drug lords on the West Coast. Stupid fucking police. The only good thing they’d done was pull her off the case.
“Got your message.” Frankie walked into the kitchen. “Paolo let me in. I was only a few blocks away. What’s up?”
Crap. He’d forgotten Mike had called Frankie, which was the right thing to do under normal circumstances. But Frankie was the last person he wanted to see right now. He had been raised in the old-school ways, and once he found out about Gabrielle, there was no way he would let her walk out of here if he wasn’t one hundred percent sure she wouldn’t betray them.
“In the freezer.” Mike directed him. “And … uh … Luca’s girl is here.”
“Why’s she got a piece?”
Mike shrugged. Even if he now knew that Gabrielle was a cop, he would never betray Luca. No one on his crew would. And especially not to Frankie.
Frankie headed to the freezer, and Gabrielle’s hand shot out, blocking his way. “You can’t go in there. It’s a crime scene.”
“You watch too many crime shows, honey.” Frankie took another step, and Gabrielle stepped into his path.
“I said, don’t go in.”
“Luca, get your woman under control.” Frankie’s voice was tight with warning.
“Come, bella.” Luca held out a hand and gestured her forward. “We’ll let Frankie and Mike deal with this.”
“Are you kidding?” Her voice rose in pitch. “Except for the tip about the warehouse, we haven’t had a break in this case for the last two years. There might be evidence in this freezer that leads us straight to Garcia.”
Frankie let out a long, low breath. “Holy shit. Is she a fucking cop?”
“I’m calling 911.” Gabrielle holstered her weapon and pulled out her phone.
Luca held up a warning hand. “If the police come, they’ll start asking questions. Rumors will get out. People will talk. The health inspectors will come by. The restaurant will get a bad reputation and that’s bad for business.”
“She’s not going anywhere,” Frankie said, reaching for his weapon. He would have no issue getting rid of a witness. Once the police came to investigate, they wouldn’t stop until they’d established a connection between Garcia and the dead man in the freezer, and that connection would drag in the crime family Frankie had sworn to protect.
“Christ, Frankie,” Luca spat out. “You don’t need the fucking piece. No one is calling the cops. I’ll take Gabrielle home, and we’ll deal with this situation our way.” And then terror would rain down on Garcia like he’d never seen before. The Mafia did not tolerate the execution of a made man. Garcia was looking at a long, painful, and very public death, and every member of Cosa Nostra would be looking for him.
“You can’t.” Gabrielle’s voice wavered, and Luca could see the tremendous effort she was putting into maintaining her composure in light of the brutal reminder of her husband’s death. “Interfering with a crime scene is a criminal offence. The evidence we need to catch Garcia could be in that freezer. All I’ve wanted for two years is make him pay for what he did to David, and now your friend has died because I failed and Garcia is playing games with me.”
Luca’s protective instincts grabbed him by the throat and he placed a firm hand on Gabrielle’s wrist, forcing her to lower the gun. When he felt her yield, he stepped in front of her, shielding her in case Frankie drew his weapon and keeping her out of sight of the body in the freezer. He cupped his hand around her nape and dropped his forehead to hers. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“It does.” Her body trembled. “Why else would he be here? Garcia is after me. He came to my house. He knows we’re together. He killed your friend the same way he killed David. This is a message for me.”
“I got involved,” Luca said, reluctantly. “This is payback, and it was directed at me.”
Gabrielle stiffened in his arms. “What did you do?”
“Is she gonna be a problem?” Frankie was already behind her, his hand under his jacket where his gun was holstered.
Luca reached for his own weapon. If Frankie pulled on Gabrielle, he didn’t know what he would do. Frankie was a made man. Nico’s key enforcer. His friend. He couldn’t shoot a made man without Nico’s permission, and if he whacked Frankie, Nico would whack him, and Matteo would have no dad. But he couldn’t let him hurt Gabrielle. She was his to protect.
Mine.
The word rang in his mind. Regardless of the risks, and his fierce desire to restore the family honor, his future did not involve him walking away. He let that certainty settle in his soul as he crossed a mental threshold with only the faintest sliver of hope his mother had given him as a guide. A cop and a wiseguy had hooked up before. It could happen again.
“No, she won’t be a problem,” he growled. “Stand the fuck down.”
“Women are nothing but fucking trouble,” Frankie muttered, dropping his hand. “With a fucking capital T. And cops—”
“I can give you what you want,” Luca said to Gabrielle, thinking quickly. “You want Garcia. I can make it happen.” She was an intelligent woman, a police detective. She’d started asking questions about him already. But now, Little Ricky was hanging butchered in his meat freezer, and no one was planning to call the cops. He had no doubt she would find her way to the truth about who he was and what he did.
“The way you were going to make sure Clint didn’t hurt Nicole again?”
“Yes.”
She twisted her lips to the side, considering. “Clint only spent twelve hours in jail,” she said finally. “He was fined two hundred dollars and he has to do some community service. No counseling. No anger management. He’s walking around and Nicole still has bruises, not to mention the damage inside that no one can see. I saw it all the time when I worked the beat. We were called to the same houses again and again. It never bothered me before, but it does now.”
“Your system doesn’t always work.” He kept his gaze on Frankie as he spoke. The enforcer had his own methods when it came to protecting the family, and Luca had no doubt he would shoot first and deal with the repercussions later if Gabrielle said anything that caused him concern.
“I thought it did. I thought I could make a difference. But it seems the harder I fight, the faster I fall.” The resignation in her voice and her defeated tone speared through him, ramping up a fear that she didn’t care anymore if she lived or died. But he cared. So much that he didn’t know if he could recover if he lost her. He’d cared about Gina, but this longing for something impossible, a forbidden love, was a tidal wave compared to the tear she’d left behind.
“Not if we work together.”
She studied him for a long time, biting her lower lip. “Do you know what you’re asking me to do? If I give you classified information or if they find out we’re together, I could go to jail. If I cross that line, I can’t go back.”
And he could find himself in Lake Mead wearing a pair of Frankie’s cement shoes for sharing Mafia secrets with her. It was a one-way road for him as well. But he wasn’t about to tell her that. Now that Frankie knew about them, their only way forward was together, and he could buy some time if he could convince Frankie and Nico that they needed her to find Garcia.
“Nor can I.” That night he’d met her in the hospital, he never would have imagined six weeks later they would be together and he would be offering to do the one thing that could destroy his chances of ever restoring the family honor.
Her eyes widened ever so slightly and then she squared her shoulders. “I want Garcia any way I can get him. For your friend, and for my David, and for all the families who have lost someone to the drugs he’s bringing into our city.”
He felt a small stab of disappointment that their relationship, such as it was, didn’t factor into her decision. But her fierce determination to win at all costs just made him want her even more.
“She’s on our side,” he said to Frankie, who had turned away to check out Little Ricky. “She’s spent two years learning everything there is to know about Garcia. She has access to information and resources we can’t get, and she’s willing to help.”
“You really think she wants to help?” Frankie spat out. “You think she’s gonna throw her whole career away over a fucking drug lord? More likely, after we hand her Garcia on a golden platter, she’s going to hand us over to the cops. We’ve been betrayed before. There’s only one fucking solution here, and we both know what it is.”
Gabrielle turned to face Frankie, her hands on her hips. “Six weeks ago, I didn’t know any of you, and I would never have imagined I would be throwing away my career and working on the wrong side of the law to bring Garcia down. My life was black and white. People were good citizens if they obeyed the law and criminals if they didn’t. And then I met someone I care about, someone I trust who made me see things in a different light…”
She cared about him. Luca felt a curious tightening in his chest. She cared, and she wasn’t ashamed to tell Frankie. Even more than before, he wanted to be worthy of her trust, worthy of her affection. He wanted to protect her and watch her fly at the same time.
“I don’t give a damn what you believe,” she continued. “I have more to lose by telling the police about your friend in the meat freezer than I do by keeping my mouth shut. I’m tired of following the rules. I’m tired of keeping quiet. I joined the police so I could make a difference. Now I’m stuck behind a desk, and Garcia is on the loose. I trust Luca, and I’m willing to help him despite the risks. If you don’t believe me, then shoot me. Either way it will end my pain.”
“It’s not just you I’m gonna—”
“No.” Luca cut Frankie off, interposing himself between Gabrielle and Frankie. “It’s not your call,” he warned. “It’s up to Nico. Gabrielle can wait in my office while we deal with Little Ricky, and then she’ll stay with me until Nico makes a decision.”
“What decision? Gabrielle looked from Luca to Frankie and back to Luca.
“Whether he lives,” Frankie said, turning away. “Or whether he fucking dies.”