The Woman at the Docks: A Mafia Romance Read online

  With a beautiful woman.

  Chapter Two

  Romy

  That was too close.

  What I did had inherent risks. I knew that. I accepted that. I weighed the pros and cons, the possible outcomes, and I decided what I was doing was worth whatever might come my way.

  There were worse consequences, worse outcomes.

  Besides, for a supposed mafia stronghold, the security had been surprisingly lax.

  Or so I thought.

  But the first three nights, I'd been able to walk around relatively freely, having learned the general routes of the security guards who did their rounds. And, luckily for me, if one happened to go a rogue route from their usual, they were preceded by their clomping footsteps and the almost constant smell of cigar smoke.

  It was child's play avoiding them.

  As for the cameras, I didn't give them much thought. I never planned to be around long. The intel I'd gotten had said the container I was after should have docked already, been unloaded, placed in a pile.

  I should have been able to find it, crack it open, and retrieve what I needed out of it, then gotten back out before it mattered if they saw me on camera, before it could have led to some nasty interrogations. Or worse. This was the mob we were talking about, after all.

  And I was nobody but a stranger invading their turf.

  I'd done some research on the plane ride back from Venezuela, figuring it was smart to know what you were getting into if you were going to be doing something illegal, something as dangerous as encroaching on organized crime territory.

  The docks, as they were commonly referred to, even if the official name for the place was the Central Jersey Port, had been owned and operated by the New Jersey Cosa Nostra for thirty-nine years, having been purchased at an impressive bid by Antony Grassi.

  There wasn't much to be found around about the Grassi family, unlike their connections to the Five Families—the New York City—mafia, they'd managed to stay relatively out of the papers, out of the prison system. So there wasn't much to report. Though there had been some chatter about missing persons who'd had mob ties. Anyone who knew anything about the mafia knew that there were no such things as 'missing persons,' just bodies that had yet to be found.

  Being on their docks without permission could easily warrant an execution-style murder then a body tossed into the ocean.

  Cement boots, as the saying went.

  I wasn't afraid of dying.

  I was afraid of dying before doing what I needed to get done.

  That was why I wasn't deterred.

  Even though my heart was threatening to break out of the confines of my chest as I drove down the highway away from the docks, trying to put some distance between the man who'd been right on my heels and me.

  I'd been running marathons since I was fifteen. It said something that he—a man who had some weight on me—could keep up when I was going at full tilt. That said, that weight was clearly all muscle, judging by the way that suit hung on him.

  It was a nice suit, too. Black, perfectly tailored, a pristinely pressed white shirt underneath, cufflinks at his wrists. When his arms were swinging, I caught sight of a platinum wristband. One I knew cost more than some people made in a year.

  I knew a boss when I saw one.

  Though, this man was too young to be Antony Grassi.

  Apparently, he had a son.

  One who looked like he was carved by one of the masters with his wide forehead, stern brows, sharp cheekbones, and cutting jaw.

  Wrap that up with some tanned skin, chocolatey brown eyes that were framed by thick lashes that matched his dark brown, nearly black hair?

  Then you had some idea about what this man looked like.

  Even running, sweating, trying to chase me down so he could possibly murder me, his image was burned in my mind in the seconds before I shot out of the parking lot.

  I took a few deep breaths, trying to bring some calm to my system, climbing out of my tiny little hatchback rental behind the hotel, wedging it behind the waste and recycling dumpsters. I knew it wouldn't be a problem, because when I caught the front desk clerk sneaking out for a smoke and asked, he'd told me, "I don't get paid enough to give a shit."

  So that was where I left it.

  Out of sight.

  So that even if this Grassi guy had his lackeys doing a sweep of the town, he would never find me.

  The hotel wasn't much to speak of. A tan stone building with an ostentatious overhang as if anyone staying here actually had a car service to drop them off.

  It wasn't a hellhole. But if you were going to come this way, most people would stay at one of the fancy hotels closer to the shore. And this hotel acted like it understood its clientele were simply businessmen and women or visiting family members who would rather saw off a limb than sleep on the pull-out couch of their relative's living room, metal bars poking into their backs, some toilet running down the hall, everything smelling strange and un-homey.

  At least hotels had that sterile scent of bleach and industrial cleaners, real mattresses, and someone to call and bitch to if something wasn't working in your room.

  I chose it because it was the hotel with the best view of the port if you got a room high enough and in the back. Which I'd done.

  "Home sweet home," I grumbled as I opened the door, being sure to put the chain on, then pulling off my belt, wrapping it around the pressure closer above the door, pulling it tight. Paranoid? Maybe. But if someone was going to attempt to get in this room, they'd have a hell of a time with it. And I would have a chance to throw a fit or call the police before they got to me.

  The inside was about what you expected of a budget hotel with its ugly brown and tan patterned carpets, its white nightstands with cheap lamps flanking the queen-sized bed that was covered in a dark brown comforter and four sad, deflated pillows.

  But the tan tile bathroom was clean.

  The TV worked, though I only used it for background noise, trying to quiet my swirling thoughts.

  And, most importantly, there were the glass sliding doors and the small balcony with a wrought iron railing of questionable strength.

  Shucking off my pants, rummaging around for a tie to wrap up my long hair to get it off my sweaty neck, I grabbed the desk chair, dragging it back over toward the window where I'd left it before housekeeping had come in and moved it.

  I grabbed the set of binoculars I'd bought at some hole in the wall feed store on the way through town, pulled open the doors, and sat down.

  Objectively, I should have been sleeping. I'd maybe gotten two hours a night since I had taken a plane down to Venezuela a few days before. My mind refused to rest, though. Constantly whirling with what-ifs and regrets until I felt motion sick, nauseated, reaching for the pack of peppermints from my bag.

  This should have been all over by now.

  And the stress was eating a hole in my stomach lining.

  The worst part was I had to go back. Even knowing they were onto me, even fully aware that security would likely be ramped up.

  I had to go back.

  There was no way around that.

  It was all the more reason I should have been sleeping, making sure my mind and body were as sharp as they would need to be to get on those docks once again with the mob looking for me.

  Life had certainly taken quite the turn over the past week or so.

  I'd just been living my life in California, sleeping in my shoebox of an apartment, driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic day in and day out to get to a job that, while fulfilling, made it difficult to ever plan on getting ahead in life. My biggest problem had been having to drag my laundry across town because the laundry room in my apartment complex was always out of order.

  And now I had been to and back from my homeland, was holed up in a hotel in Jersey, and being actively chased down by the mafia.

  The me I had been a week ago would have snort-laughed over the very idea, then gone back to drinking the dri
p coffee I made at home that I was trying to convince myself tasted as good as the fancy lattes that simply weren't in my budget for the rest of the month.

  Reaching up, I scrubbed a hand over sandpaper-dry eyes, suddenly wishing I had been interested in martial arts in my teens instead of cross country running. Or that I had any idea how to get a gun around these parts.

  Back home, I knew what neighborhoods to turn into to ask, that was for sure. Here? Not so much. And I figured it was a bad idea to walk up to a stranger and ask for a gun if they weren't in that particular business.

  Pissing off more criminals sounded like a bad idea at this point.

  Not that I thought I'd be any good with a gun even if I got my hands on one. I knew how one worked, of course. They weren't exactly rocket science. But I wasn't sure how good I'd be at pointing it at someone and pulling the trigger.

  Besides, what were the chances that, if it came to a face-to-face, I would be able to pull and point a gun faster than a man who'd likely had his first machine gun when he was in elementary school?

  I just had to be even more careful, quicker.

  And to be quicker, I needed to make sure I didn't miss a single ship as it came in.

  I got up, grabbing my notebook out of my purse, flicking on the TV, and grabbing the room temperature energy drink I'd picked up earlier, knowing I was going to need a kick of caffeine, and not being nearly bold enough to use the ancient coffee pot that came with the hotel room. And, well, going downstairs to get a coffee from the dispenser would mean putting on pants. When given a choice, not putting on pants was always the better option.

  Especially in this heat.

  I situated myself back on the seat with my setup, going over my notes, checking some off, underlining others, making a map of the containers, of where I knew the cameras were, trying to come up with a new course of action to evade the likely doubled security for the next evening.

  Eventually, despite the caffeine, sleep claimed me, albeit fleetingly.

  A car alarm going off made me shoot forward in my chair, heart hammering in my chest, everything around me feeling hazy and foreign for an alarmingly long moment before I remembered where I was, why I was here.

  "Shit," I snapped, whipping my head over my shoulder, checking out the time.

  Five-fifty a.m.

  I could have already missed a ship or two.

  "Damnit," I grumbled, reaching for the binoculars on my lap, trying to force my still-tired eyes to focus.

  Foreign ships.

  But none from South America.

  That meant I had just enough time for a quick shower, change, and a trip down to the first floor to grab some continental breakfast when it opened after six.

  Armed with a coffee, juice, a bagel, and a single serving box of Honey Nut Cheerios to eat as a snack later, I made my way back to the room, doing an impressive balancing act to get the keycard in, if I did say so myself.

  All for nothing, of course.

  Because one foot inside with the door slamming behind me, I dropped everything, coffee splashing all across the ugly carpet.

  Because there, sitting in my office chair like he owned the joint, was the man from the night before.

  Mr. Grassi, the son.

  "Seems like an appropriate place for a meal like that," he said, his voice smooth, deep, sure of himself. "Don't," he demanded, tapping his leg, drawing my gaze to the gun situated there. "Just relax, Romina," he added, and my name slipped a little too nicely off his tongue.

  "Romy," I corrected, knee-jerk.

  "Romy," he repeated. "Luca Grassi," he told me, cold gaze unnerving.

  "Mr. Grassi," I said, hearing the quiver in my voice, knowing of all the possible ways this could go much, much worse.

  "Do you know who I am?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you know what I do?"

  "Yes."

  "And yet you thought you could trespass on my business."

  "Maybe I was meeting a guy."

  "A woman like you wouldn't work the docks when she could be getting paid top dollar entertaining rich men with more than enough money to spare."

  That sounded like a compliment. And with a gun on me, I shouldn't have been flattered. Yet, there was no denying I was. Well, as flattered as one could be when being called a prostitute.

  "But I'm not buying you being a working girl. Would you like to feed me more bullshit, or can we get to the bottom of this?"

  "I find myself fascinated by shipping containers," I tossed out, getting a raised brow. "I thrive on adrenaline surges like those you get from being chased by a security team in the middle of the night."

  "Who do you work for?"

  "The state of California."

  "I am going to need a straight answer."

  "That is a straight answer. I work for the state of California. They sign my paychecks."

  "Okay. I'll bite. What do you do for the state of California?"

  "I work as a translator in the court system."

  "Then what are you doing in New Jersey?"

  "Vacation." That was technically the truth. I'd needed to take some stacked-up sick leave and vacation days to fly back home, then to New Jersey. I didn't want to think about what might happen if I ran out of those paid days off. I wasn't exactly in a place where I could be without a job for any stretch of time.

  "You're on vacation, but you stay here?"

  "What can I say? Interpreting doesn't pay that well."

  "You have beaches in California."

  "They're crowded," I said.

  "So are ours."

  I was out of arguments.

  "Look, Romy, you don't strike me as a professional of any sort. Are you in some kind of trouble?"

  "Because women must always be damsels in distress," I shot at him, arms folding over my chest.

  "I know plenty of men who have found themselves in over their head. They end up doing things they never thought they would. If that is the situation, then I can put this away," he said, tapping his gun, "and we can figure something out."

  I didn't know how to answer him.

  Because, yes, I was in distress, as much as it pained me to admit that.

  And, yes, I was in over my head.

  But I also doubted I could trust this man.

  Because if he was involved with what I knew he was involved with, then he had no good nature to appeal to. He certainly wasn't going to help me steal from him, take money out of his pocket.

  No.

  I was on my own in this.

  And men with poker faces like his couldn't be trusted.

  "I appreciate your offer of assistance, Mr. Grassi, but I don't need it. I am going to ask you to leave, or I am going to start screaming."

  To that, his lips curved upward.

  "Do you want to bet that no one would come to save you?" he asked, making me stiffen.

  Maybe I had underestimated the power the mob still had in certain parts of this country.

  Now that I thought about it, it was entirely possible that he had his men stationed around, that they had the ability to keep anyone from stepping in.

  "Stay off my docks, Romy," Luca demanded, unfolding from the chair, moving across the room toward me, stopping near my shoulder. Up close, he seemed even taller than across the room. And there was the lingering scent of some spicy cologne clinging to his suit. It was ridiculous, but I found myself taking a deep breath, breathing it in, approving of it. "This is your first and only warning."

  With his intense gaze on me, with his hulking body seeming to steal all the air from the room—and my lungs—I was finding thoughts and words hard to string together.

  Taking a deep breath, I swallowed hard, barely recognizing my voice—low, airless—when I spoke. "And if I don't?"

  "You don't want to know the answer to that."

  With that, he moved out into the hallway, not even bothering to tuck the gun away.

  I managed to slide the chain and wrap my belt around the bar again
before I completely lost my shit, sliding down the wall, knees curled to chest, trying to remind myself that I could do this, that I would do this. Regardless of the consequences.

  "Get it together," I snapped at myself, disgusted with myself, forcing myself to climb off the floor, clean up the mess I'd made, drink my juice and eat my dry cereal.

  Common sense said I needed to lay low for a couple of days, let security get lax again, allow Luca Grassi to believe his threats had worked, that I had gone back to California.

  The problem was, this was a time-sensitive matter. I couldn't just hide away in this hotel room for a few days.

  I had to be back on the pier that night.

  And I had to try not to get caught.

  Chapter Three

  Luca

  "New York isn't happy," my father told us, moving to sit down at the table at the back of our family restaurant, Famiglia, whiskey in a glass catching the soft overhead light.

  Everything was bouncing with energy around us.

  The bartender's knives tapped the cutting boards as they sliced fruit for the drinks. The hostesses made reservations, answered the phones. The serving staff and bussers rushed around dressed all in black, doing side work, prepping for the shift ahead.

  Their practiced efficiency made my slow, sleep-deprived brain feel lazy and useless as I sat in the high-backed booth, one of several that lined the back of the restaurant, allowing privacy to couples or—in our case—family meetings.

  Matteo was nowhere to be found, which had ceased to surprise me a decade ago. When God was divvying out the work ethic genes, I got all of them, and Matteo had to go without. He handled his niche—albeit very loosely—and left all the heavy lifting to me. And our father, to some extent.

  So this family meeting was my father, me, Leandro, Dario, and my cousin Lucky. He and Matteo were the same age, had been close when they were younger, but where Matteo shirked off his responsibilities, Lucky dove headfirst into the family business, always looking for opportunities to prove himself. He'd once shown up to a meeting three hours out of the hospital with a bullet hole still fresh in his shoulder.