Negotiation: A Mafia Romance Read online

  She was still adamant about using her own money though, and she had fully funded today’s shopping trip. Dante had offered her a credit card she had refused to accept, and then he had demanded she keep it on her in case of emergencies. He had strongly encouraged her to use it for whatever her heart desired, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so. The terms under which the relationship had begun were bad enough. She had no intention of doing anything to reinforce the original role of her being his mistress or remind him she’d sold herself to him to satisfy Shawn’s debt.

  They seemed to have agreed without words to start over in a more normal way and try to set aside the agreement that had bound them in the beginning. No way was she going to jeopardize that by using his resources, or appearing greedy, or interested only in his money.

  She had cash, so she didn’t have to wait for the bill as she walked away from the street side café. She would be back at Dante’s house in a few minutes, having chosen to walk and stretch her legs, though the driver had seemed disapproving of her decision to do so when he had dropped her off at the café to take her packages back to Dante’s house.

  It was nice to stroll along without someone else’s presence, and she realized she hadn’t truly been alone outside of Dante’s house since she had moved in with him. There was always someone there, either Dante or his driver, and it was lovely to have a bit of peace and privacy, even from Dante for a brief moment. Conversely, she also missed him at the same time.

  As she strolled, she decided she would have to face the consequences of whatever happened and ask Dante for help if she couldn’t get hold of Shawn by the time she got home. It had been more than a week now since he had fallen out of touch, and there was no telling what kind of mischief he was into this time.

  He’d already shown himself incapable of making good decisions time and again, and she reluctantly admitted to herself that Dante was probably right when he had told her weeks ago that allowing her brother to go somewhere alone simply enabled him to get into a new scrape. She’d thought she was doing the right thing, but now, as she listened to his phone go straight to voicemail, as it had done for the past several days, before the annoying tinny voice of the operator told her the mailbox was full when she tried to leave a message, she conceded he was right.

  She was only a couple of blocks from home when a car jumped the sidewalk and grazed her. The vehicle barely struck her, but it was enough to send her flying to the ground and leave her shaken. She looked up, expecting to see whomever had hit her rushing from the vehicle.

  She didn’t grasp that it hadn’t been an accident until the driver stepped out from behind the tinted glass of the SUV and strode toward her slowly, but deliberately. As he towered over her where she lay on the ground, she abruptly recognized him as the man who had stolen the dance from her at the foundation charity event, the one who’d initiated the show of jealousy from Dante that had seemed to be the catalyst for moving their relationship forward.

  “You,” she whispered, wincing as her body throbbed with agony. He had barely tapped her with the vehicle, but she was probably going to have bruises on the side where the SUV had struck her, and also on the hip where she had landed so painfully. “What do you want?”

  “I wanted a meeting, but that didn’t happen, and so I’ll settle for you.”

  His words were somewhat confusing, but as he bent and lifted her to throw her over his shoulder, and she found she was in too much pain to really offer more than a token resistance, the conversation that had taken place between Dante and Larenz a few weeks ago came to mind, and she was certain this person had a connection to Rasa Bagdonas, the girl who had lured her idiot brother into ripping off Dante in the first place.

  She opened her mouth to scream, and he seemed unconcerned. Apparently, so did all the urbanites walking the area. A few stopped and stared for a moment before hastily averting their eyes and moving on. She was appalled by their behavior, but not shocked by it.

  He dumped her into the back of the SUV, slamming the door behind him before she could even gather her thoughts enough to think about trying to slide out or block his attempts, let alone encourage her body to actually perform the motions as pain flared in her anew when she collided with the supple leather seat.

  A glance at the door revealed there was no handle on the inside, and when she turned her head to look at the other way, she was startled to see a petite brunette seated beside her. She wasn’t certain of the woman’s identity, but she tentatively identified her as Rasa. Any tentativeness fled a moment later when the other woman lifted a hand holding a dirty white cloth and slammed it over her face. The hand was missing the pinky and ring fingers, confirming the other woman’s identity even as Lily fought to hold her breath, and then fought against breathing in the sharp stink of the chemical lacing the rag. Inevitably, she had to draw in a deep breath and giddiness swept through her, quickly followed by unconsciousness when she was unable to pry the hand holding the cloth clamped over her face off in time to avoid continuing to breathe in the fumes from the soaked cloth.

  Chapter Seven

  She was late. Dante paced around the foyer, pausing every few steps to look at the door in hopes that she would magically appear and step inside. The driver had told him he left her at the café three hours ago, and she still wasn’t home. She’d had plenty of time to have a snack and walk home. Hell, she’d had plenty of time to have a seven-course meal and crawl home on her belly at this rate. Something was definitely wrong, especially since she wasn’t answering her phone. It simply rang and rang.

  As he waited for his brothers to join him, having put out the call for their assistance a few minutes before, he decided to try her number again. He had pressed the speed dial so often that his thumb seemed to have the muscle memory required to make the call without his brain’s input. The phone rang in his ear, but this time, someone answered on the third ring.

  “Hello,” said a sweetly feminine voice, but with a definite bite of anger.

  “Who is this? Why do you have Lily Thompson’s phone?”

  “Lily and I are having quite a good time.” She gave a girlish giggle, but it seemed faintly psychotic. “We’re just waiting for you to arrive, Dante. I’m going to hand the phone to my cousin. He can give you all the details.”

  There was a brief silence, and then the sounds of screaming shattered it before a rough male voice invaded his ear. “Come to the Marina, Sloop Eight. We have business to attend to, Moretti. If you don’t come alone, we’ll gut your girl before you can ever hope to reach the boat.”

  The line went dead without the person identifying himself, but judging from the faint accent, Dante was certain it was Darius Bagdonas. He was also positive the female voice had belonged to Rasa. She hadn’t been attempting to sound so lighthearted the day he had captured her red-handed with his shipment, but he was sure it was her. She’d spent most of her time cursing and screaming that day, but there was still similarities in the voices, and he was certain Lily was in the possession of two pissed-off Lithuanians.

  His blood ran cold at the idea.

  He raced from the house, scooping up the keys to his sports car on his way out. He had to get to Lily as quickly as possible, because there was no telling what the Lithuanians were doing to her.

  “Eeny, meeny, miney, moe…” The psychotic girl trailed off as she lightly touched each of Lily’s fingers while chanting the familiar childhood rhyme.

  Lily tried to remain stoic, knowing what was coming. The girl had already cut off her thumb, and it had caused excruciating pain, the likes of which she had never experienced before and had hoped to never feel again, but was certain that hope would be denied.

  As Rasa’s rhyme ended with her pinky, and she braced herself to feel the slash of the sharp knife through her skin again, hacking through the bone, she prayed the other woman would be content to even the score and would stop with two fingers. Somehow, she doubted that.

  The tall, dark-haired man stood nearby, wat
ching impassively. After hanging up the phone with Dante a few moments ago, he had casually dropped it to the floor of the yacht and stomped it ruthlessly. He didn’t seem to care that he had severed his only connection to Dante and was clearly confident he would come for her. Lily was confident herself, but she was also worried for him and tried to distract herself with fear for Dante from the burning pain in her finger a moment later as Rasa hacked through bone and tissue to sever her pinky.

  She screamed when the girl cauterized the wound a moment later with the side of the knife blade, which she had heated with a lighter right before removing her finger. At least she wouldn’t bleed to death, but she wasn’t certain that was necessarily a good thing under the circumstances. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “Because you mean something to Moretti, and he owes Rasa for taking her fingers.”

  Through the haze of tears, she tried to focus on Darius as his feet scraped against the wooden deck when he moved closer to them. “She stole from him. You’re lucky he didn’t kill her as compensation.”

  “Shawn stole from them,” said Rasa with a hard look in her eyes. “He made me the patsy, but I had nothing to do with it.”

  Lily snorted her contempt. “Yeah, right. My brother, the genius mastermind behind all criminal activity.”

  Rasa slammed the knife down into the table, and unfortunately straight through the back of Lily’s hand in the process, pinning her to the wood. Amid Lily’s screams, she leaned closer, her rage evident. “That’s what he wants you to believe. He’s not naïve or foolish. We were barely involved. Shawn used me as a scapegoat so he could get away while Dante focused his anger on me. Your brother intended to steal that shipment and sell it right from the start. He only screwed up by not lining up a buyer soon enough and not protecting it well enough. Dante got it back, but Shawn got away. Thinking I was involved, he took my fingers as compensation. If I hadn’t had the goods to return to him, he would have killed me.”

  She still couldn’t reconcile what she knew of Shawn with the version this girl was presenting, and she shook her head. “Shawn’s not dumb, but he’s not smart enough to do what you’re talking about.”

  Rasa snorted. “Take off your blinders, foolish girl. If I hadn’t made the mistake of starting to date Shawn, you would have been his patsy instead of me. As it was, he convinced you to trade yourself to Moretti and allow him a chance to escape. You’re a fool if you believe differently. Shawn’s a sociopath, and he cares nothing for you or anyone else.”

  Rasa’s expression was so sincere that it was difficult to doubt the girl at least believed her own words, even if Lily couldn’t imagine how they could be true. A sharp sting of betrayal swept through her when she remembered how enthusiastic Shawn had been about her plan to offer herself, her 401k, and the proceeds of Grandma’s jewelry to buy his freedom. He’d never once tried to dissuade her.

  In an attempt to distract herself from thoughts she didn’t want to think, she asked, “If that’s true, how do you know any of it?”

  “Your brother likes to brag in bed. He told me all about how he was setting up his first job for Moretti so he could make off with the money, and he figured you would divert Moretti from him long enough for him to get away. He made it sound like a lot more than a hundred Gs, and when he offered me the opportunity to be his partner, I decided to go for it. I was tired of living the criminal life, and the picture he sold me of going somewhere far away, somewhere safe and tranquil, appealed to me. I was too stupid to realize he was setting me up so that he had a backup plan in case Dante caught him before we fled. He wanted it to seem like I had convinced him to steal the money, and I had seduced him. When I tried to tell your boyfriend the truth, Moretti refused to listen.”

  Darius held up her hand, his anger visible even through the red haze of agony surrounding Lily. “Instead, he cut off her fingers and told her she was lucky he was going by the old code. He refused to listen and sent her away, and neither he nor his brothers would meet with us to address our demand for justice and compensation. Now, he’ll meet with us if you mean anything to him.”

  “What do you want from Dante?” she managed to ask as her entire body shuddered. Her hand was on fire, and her hip burned from its collision with the SUV earlier. She hurt everywhere, and she just wanted this agony to end, but she couldn’t suppress the fear of not knowing what they had planned for Dante.

  “I want him to die,” said Rasa.

  Darius frowned at her. “But you know that’s impractical. If we go to war with the Cosa Nostra, they’ll wipe us out. This is simply to get compensation for the injustice shown to you.”

  “Haven’t you done enough? Haven’t you gotten your revenge? You’ve taken my fingers, and you’ve hurt me. Why doesn’t that satisfy you yet, Rasa?” Her breath felt raspy, and she couldn’t seem to keep from panting. She suspected it was a shock or panic, or perhaps a combination of the two, rather than true respiratory distress, but it only fueled her panic, which made it even more difficult to breathe.

  “I’d like to see Shawn suffer most, but I’ll settle for watching his sister, and Moretti’s whore, pay for what they’ve done to me. My cousin wants to find a solution that doesn’t lead to a turf war, but I don’t believe such a solution as possible. This can only end with death—yours first, and then Moretti’s, even if it leads to mine and Darius’s later.”

  Darius cursed in a language Lily didn’t recognize. “I’ve already told you there will be no deaths today, Rasa. I’ve contacted Larenz, and he’ll be arriving shortly. I called him before I ever called Dante. He will act as the mediator for our dispute resolution.”

  A strange wave of giddiness swept over Lily, and she couldn’t help laughing. “Is this the mob or Small Claims Court?” There was a touch of hysteria in her voice.

  “Once upon a time, it was full of strong men who did what was right and necessary, but now they’ve all turned into a bunch of pussies.” Rasa suddenly yanked the knife from her hand, seeming to enjoy Lily’s renewed screams, as though they were the sweetest symphony filling a perfectly designed performance hall that maximized acoustics. “Now, it comes down to us to do what must be done. I will find my own justice.”

  Lily whimpered and closed her eyes when she felt the kiss of the blade against her neck, certain it would be only a matter of milliseconds before the sharp sting changed from a little pain to the worst anguish she had ever experienced, even worse than having her fingers cut off.

  There was a soft popping sound, and it was nothing like the sound of a knife slicing through flesh, and nothing like she’d expected. In her surprise, she opened her eyes, and her mouth formed an O as blood blossomed on Rasa’s shoulder. The knife fell to the wooden floor with a clunk, and the other woman looked down at her arm in shock mixed with outrage before turning to face the direction from where the shot had originated.

  Lily looked past her, unsurprised to see Dante standing on the deck of the boat. She blinked, realizing a second later that it wasn’t Dante. From his posture and stern demeanor, she immediately recognized Larenz instead. She almost laughed that she had once again mixed them up, after being certain she would never do so again. Of course, she was in a lot of pain and had been close to death just a moment before, so she supposed she deserved a free pass for that one. “Where’s Dante?” she asked in a raspy voice.

  “He’s still on the dock with Armo. I convinced him it would be safer for you if he waited behind for a moment, and then I listened to the revelations shared here. My conclusion is Dante might have acted hastily, but there will be no compensation of any sort for you or the girl,” said Larenz as he turned his attention to Darius. “You’ve crossed the line here today. Spouses and children are not to be harmed during conflicts. What you’ve done to Dante’s girlfriend will make it difficult for me to persuade him to call this a wash. He’s going to clamor for your blood, and especially for Rasa’s. I’ll attempt to make him see that vengeance has been served on both sides to no good, but I can�
��t promise he’ll abide by my command to leave this be.”

  Rasa screeched at him as she clutched her shoulder. “He stole my fingers, and you shot me. I demand justice. You owe me, and if you won’t pay with money and respect, you’ll pay with his whore’s blood.”

  Larenz didn’t flinch. “If you make so much as a tiny step toward her, the next time I shoot you won’t be through the arm. You will not be standing next time, and you won’t survive. Do you understand me, girl? Your emotions are running high, and you seem entitled to some of your anger, though you’re overlooking the fact that you had knowledge of Shawn’s plan to rip off the Moretti family, and you mentioned it to no one. You aren’t exactly a blameless party in this, especially in light of how you made an innocent woman suffer. Darius, do you concur with what I say?” He asked the question of the other man without even glancing at him, his gaze never wavering from Rasa.

  “I do,” said Darius decisively, which elicited a gasp from his cousin. “This has gone far enough, Rasa. Your demand for justice has been addressed, and Moretti now knows it wasn’t a plot by the Bagdonas family to steal money from him. Peace should return, and it will. If you countermand my orders, I’ll shoot you myself.”

  Rasa turned to look at her cousin, clearly shocked by his lack of support. After a moment, the girl seemed to crumple, and she nodded her head sullenly. As she drew in on herself, looking frail and pathetic, Lily almost managed a shred of pity for the girl. Almost. If her fingers hadn’t throbbed with agony, she might have been able to summon more than a ghost of the emotion.