The Woman at the Docks: A Mafia Romance Read online

  Tall and fit, he notoriously dressed all in black. That choice, paired with his jet hair and inky-dark eyes, gave him a menacing appearance. If you saw him darkening your door, you knew you'd fucked up.

  "Is New York ever happy?" Lucky asked, leaning back, unconcerned with the news.

  That was fair.

  New York was forever on our ass, despite our family making more than any single one of the Five Families, or even a few of them grouped together, each year.

  More.

  They always wanted more.

  We always did too. But we had to do it smart. There was too much at risk. Too many people wanted what we had. One misstep would have us all with bullets in the backs of our heads, bodies thrown off the docks.

  If New York wanted the docks back when we were gone, they'd have to go to war for them.

  Which was why we needed them to leave us to our own devices.

  "What do they want?" I asked, watching as my father pinned me with dark eyes, his shoulders shrugging.

  "They want to make a deal with the Russians."

  Of course they did.

  Because that kind of money was hard to turn down.

  But a deal with the Russians meant risking our good standing with the local arms trade, an outlaw biker club called the Henchmen, who'd been running guns in our town since my father was young.

  "This shit again," Lucky hissed, shaking his head. "How the fuck many times do we have to lay this out for them?"

  "Watch it," my father demanded, voice firm.

  Antony Grassi might have been the boss in Navesink Bank.

  But every boss had a boss.

  My father was old-school when it came to the code, though. You didn't talk shit about the capo dei capi.

  Lucky, having seen his father murdered right before his eyes by the current boss when he was just eleven, well, he was a bit more new-school about it.

  He'd never say it, but he was looking forward to the day when someone else got sick of Arturo Costa and his reign of terror, and his son stepped into his place.

  "Are we expecting a visit?" I asked my father.

  "Lorenzo will be around sometime in the near future. He is off on a job, but when he is on his way back to the city, he will be stopping here."

  Lorenzo, Costa's eldest son, the underboss everyone knew would make a better boss, was no less ruthless than his father. If anything, he had more blood on his hands. But he was also more reasonable. If we had to have a drop-in, it was better if it was Lorenzo instead of Arturo.

  "Which means we need to get our house in order," my father told us, eyes pinning me.

  Because he knew I had a mess on my hands, that we had an unwanted mouse skittering around in our attic.

  "I heard she was beautiful," Lucky said, giving me a sly smile. If there was anyone who liked women more than Matteo did, it was Lucky. And, given that women would always be into well-dressed men in powerful, dangerous positions, they loved him right back.

  "She was," I agreed. Because it was the truth.

  If you were going to have a problem on your hands, it made it more tolerable that the problem was easy on the eyes and ears, her voice somehow honey-sweet and smoky at the same time.

  Dario had been working on Romina's—Romy's—file since we'd first gotten a name for her. He hadn't' been able to figure out much, though.

  "You think she went back to California?" my father asked.

  "She'd be stupid not to," I said, shrugging.

  In my experience, when people figured out you were in the mob, they didn't tend to stick around for any length of time. They damn sure didn't fuck with your business.

  "But if there's one thing we know about most small-time criminals," my father said, "it's that they are usually not very smart."

  "Which is why we have everyone we can spare coming to the docks tonight, me included," I reassured him. Yes, he was my boss, but he was also my father. And I didn't want him thinking he needed to have his feet on the ground in potentially dangerous situations anymore. That was my place. It was his turn to take a break. He could hang back at the restaurant with Leandro, charming the high-rolling locals, making sure everything was up to his high standards from the food to the wine to the service. He was better at that than I was. Matteo was the best of all of us, but he usually couldn't be bothered to bring his charming ass in for a shift.

  "If you find her there again—" he said, waving out a hand, letting the topic fall off. Because there were some things you didn't say aloud, some things that went without saying at all.

  If we found her there again, she couldn't be allowed to get away. We would have to grab her, drag her in, throw her down in a basement somewhere, and then get information out of her by any means necessary.

  We were, in general, old-school when it came to our moral code.

  We didn't threaten wives and children. We didn't hurt women.

  But times refused to stay old-fashioned, and women could just as frequently be a threat to our business as men could. Which meant, when we had to, we needed to be willing to use whatever methods needed to extract information.

  We hadn't needed to put our hands on a woman before. And I hoped to hell we wouldn't have to now.

  But if the order came down, the order came down.

  Lucky and I shared a look, one of mutual apprehension and distaste mixed with resignation.

  Family before everything.

  Whether we liked it, at times, or not.

  "I think the girl got a scare and went on home, gave up this mission," Leandro said, voice soft and sure.

  I wasn't so sure.

  Did she get a scare?

  Yes.

  Was that enough?

  I didn't think so.

  Because there was something in her eyes. I noticed it when I rewatched the footage Angelo had sent over to me. There was a determination mixed with a desperation that said she would do whatever it took to find whatever the hell it was that she was looking for.

  Maybe a part of me was even anticipating it, wanted her to show back up, wanted an excuse to grab her, get some more alone time with her.

  Which was fucked, but true.

  Even after a little rest, a long run, and enough coffee to jumpstart a semi, I still couldn't get the image of her out of my head.

  She was gorgeous in the way that demanded you notice, that made it necessary to pause and take a second look.

  Everything from the shining dark hair to the flawless skin, the intelligent, brown eyes, the perfect bone structure, the fit, gently curved body, it took a moment to all sink in. Everything was too much to take in with one glance.

  I'd taken a few.

  I was greedy.

  I wanted more.

  On a sigh, I raked a hand down my face.

  I'd been working too much. I wasn't even sure when was the last time I'd spent a night with a woman. Too long, if I was fantasizing about holding a woman hostage just so I could notice how fucking shiny her hair was.

  "Sure," Lucky agreed with Leandro, but gave me a knowing look. "She got her scare and ran off," he said, giving the old man a clap on the shoulder. "Women haven't been known to have balls of steel in this town or anything," he added, sliding out of the booth.

  Navesink Bank was a clusterfuck of criminal activity from street gangs to loan sharks to paramilitary camps. Some of the most ruthless organizations were run by women.

  "Anything else, Unc?" Lucky asked my father, getting a head shake. "Then I'm off to work. Then hit up Ma's for dinner. I'll meet you at the docks by dark," he added, nodding my way before heading out.

  "You sure you have this handled, Luca?" my father asked. "Leandro and I can come for extra support."

  "We have half the family showing up tonight. If she's there, she isn't going to slip through our fingers."

  "Where will you bring her if you catch her?"

  That was a good question.

  Back in the day, without my realizing it at the time, that place had been my chi
ldhood basement. Then, later, likely as the heat picked up from the local police force, in the back rooms at various businesses we owned.

  Eventually, though, those places got too risky as well. The local force could mostly be bought off with little hassle. The Feds who liked to poke around in organized crime when they didn't have anything better to do, they were the problem. Anything in any of our names would be under suspicion, could possibly be under surveillance.

  You didn't bring work home.

  "We have the rental," I reminded him.

  The rental wasn't exactly a rental at all. It was a house owned by someone my father once saved from a burning car wreck back in the nineties, a man who owned a bunch of properties in the area. There was no actual paperwork, but there was an understanding. The man, Joel, left that house empty for my father should he need it.

  He knew better than to ask questions.

  And in all the years since then, we'd only ever needed the house twice. And never for anything nefarious. Just a place to gather, to regroup.

  But it had a basement without a walkout, with barred windows, with a newly Drylok-painted floor that would make for easy clean-up. Which I hoped to fuck wouldn't be necessary.

  "It's settled then," he said, raising his glass to me, taking a sip, then moving out of the booth. "Keep me posted."

  "Always do," I agreed, watching him walk over to the security as they came in for their shift.

  Famiglia started as a front, a legitimate business to keep the IRS off our backs, to allow us to excuse our dirty money as restaurant income.

  It became, over the years, an actual passion of my father's. Especially as he stepped back from the heavy lifting work-wise. Food had been a passion of his, handed down from his grandmother, his mother, then my mom after they married. But the man didn't know a whisk from a hairbrush, so being a restauranteur was as close he could get to the food without having to know how to cook it himself. And, never remarrying, it gave him the opportunity to get gourmet meals cooked for him every night.

  I, not having my grandmother, then, later, not my mother either, hadn't developed the deep love of food he had, much to the disappointment of my aunts and cousins who served up their hearts in their dishes every night of the week, always inviting me, rarely getting me at their tables.

  I ate something on the run more often than I did with a knife and fork.

  So as much as Famiglia was part of my legacy, I didn't have the passion for it that my father did.

  For me, the passion was in the business. The other business. The main business. The one that would be my real legacy, the legacy of my kids should I have any, if I settled down for long enough to find a woman.

  There was no time for women now, though. Except, of course, if the woman was screwing around at the docks.

  Kindled attraction to her aside, I couldn't let her fuck with my business. Not with New York breathing down our necks.

  The Costa Family was struggling. The New York mafia had been struggling since the nineties when the old bosses were being locked up for life sentences on RICO charges, leaving other made guys running scared to the feds, singing family secrets.

  Omerta, the mafia code of silence, was a thing of the past in most of the big families. There'd been a freeze on promoting any associates for the past decade.

  The unrest, the lack of iron-clad loyalty, the hunger at the bottom while those at the top gorged, it all made for tension in the capos, in the boss.

  If Costa had run out of new scams or business ventures, if he was feeling a financial squeeze, and he knew our coffers were overflowing, he would want to raid them. He would send us into war if he needed to.

  War.

  When we'd known peace for a long time.

  We needed to do whatever it took to prevent that.

  The Henchmen weren't exactly allies, but they weren't enemies. I distinctly remembered walking past their clubhouse once when I was maybe ten or eleven, and my father pointing to the leather-cut-wearing, gun-toting bikers, telling me, "You don't fuck with two types of people, Luca. The cartels and the fucking outlaw bikers. They don't give a fuck."

  "About what?" I'd asked.

  "Anything," he'd told me, leading me away.

  I didn't want to start shit with the Henchmen because the Russians wanted to import their weapons through our port.

  So if I wanted any kind of leverage against Costa—through his son Lorenzo—we needed to get our shit together. They wouldn't trust us to make our own decisions about what was—and wasn't—good for the family if we had people running around our docks unchecked.

  "Ey, Luca, wait up," Dario called, jogging down behind me as I made my way across the lot.

  "What's up, Dario?"

  "You got a minute to talk about the job I mentioned last week?"

  The job he mentioned.

  A little extortion ring I'd already told him was not going to fly.

  "We already discussed this, Dario," I reminded him. "And we came to the conclusion that it was a bad idea."

  "If New York is breathing down our necks, wouldn't it be smart to bring in more money to keep them from bringing in the guns?"

  "By getting the cops on our asses because you threaten law-abiding and tax-paying citizens?"

  "I didn't say anything about threats, Luca."

  "Dario, how the fuck do you think you get those shop owners down in 3rd Street territory," I started, meaning our local street gang with a revolving door of different leaders, none of who proved capable of holding onto the position for long, creating all the issues the shop owners did deal with on a regular basis, "to agree to your 'protection'?"

  "Because they want protection."

  "It's not exactly a wealthy area. They don't have it to spare. So the only way you'd get money out of them would be to threaten them, saying shit about how you hope nothing happens to their kids or daughters. We don't do that shit. I know New York does, but this isn't New York. We have the docks."

  "And when that's not enough anymore?" he asked. And, to be fair, it was a valid question.

  "We will deal with it when it comes to that."

  "This is a good gig, Luca, mark my words."

  "It's a gig. And it might pay. But that doesn't mean it's good."

  "Your old man—"

  "Would lose his fucking mind if you brought that to him. Let it drop. Think of something else. Then come back to us with it."

  Dario's jaw was tight, a muscle ticking there. He'd always wanted to prove himself. He wanted to step in at my side like his father did at my father's side. He wanted to leverage his position of power for the day when I became boss.

  Dario was always quick with a scheme, but had never been a good earner the way Lucky was without having to work half as hard. It ate at him to know he would likely never rise above a soldier, no matter how hard he tried.

  "What about the other kind of extortion?"

  "Blackmail backfires just as much as it works. But if you can find a way to do it with minimal blowback, we can talk. But don't bring it to me until it is a job that is ready to go."

  "Got it," he agreed, nodding. "I'll see you in a few hours," I added, climbing in my car, heading across town to check in with some of the other men. Collecting money, stashing it somewhere safe, my usual rounds most days of the week consisted of making sure everything was going smoothly, that all the soldiers and associates were doing what they were supposed to be doing, were giving us the cut they owed us.

  It sounded like a hassle, but it meant I spent most of my time in and out of the pizza shops run by Lucky, a car wash run by some of our other guys, a couple bars, and a laundromat franchise—shooting the shit with friends and family, getting something to eat, and securing college educations for my great-great grandchildren.

  The media liked to claim the mafia lost its stride in the eighties and had been on the decline ever since. But there were capos in New York making eight mill a week in profits. We weren't at that level, but not a single one of us wo
uld be hurting for money for a long time.

  Even if New York got greedy.

  If we had to, we could hold them off with some money from our coffers. But our best bet was to impress Lorenzo when he showed up, to reason with him, so that he could attempt to reason with his father.

  And to impress him, we had to get control over our operation.

  I should have felt determination when I made my way to the docks later that afternoon to work on a new plan to catch Romy should she show up.

  But what was coursing through me was a hell of a lot more like anticipation, like excitement.

  Maybe even a bit like hope.

  Chapter Four

  Romy

  This was stupid.

  I knew that.

  Even as I walked up to the docks with the sun still beating down on me, making my shirt stick to my back, my hair stick to my neck, everything about the entire situation was miserable and frustrating.

  Getting there earlier was no better an idea than showing up at night when they would be expecting me.

  But I couldn't stay in the relative safety of my new hotel room when the container I needed might show up at any moment.

  The pier was a crowded place in the daytime, full of employees and people from various companies milling around.

  I threw on a baggy black tee, slapped a baseball cap on my head, and hoped I would not stand out too much.

  If security was looking for me at night, then I had a small advantage creeping around in the daytime.

  Even if it was disgusting, the humidity so thick it made my chest feel tight when I tried to take a deep breath, even if I was wishing for a dark sky and a slight evening breeze off the water.

  It was okay, though.

  It would be worth it if I found what I needed, if all of this could end right now.

  But three hours later, my entire back slick with sweat, I couldn't find a single container that had been brought in from South America.

  Not one.

  When there should have been dozens of new ones. On a busy day, even hundreds.

  What the hell was going on?

  Heartbeat skittering, I rushed back out the way I had come. Or I thought it was the way I had come. But then there was a turn I didn't remember. Then a cluster of containers I wasn't sure I had seen before.