The Woman at the Docks: A Mafia Romance Read online

I froze.

  Just completely sat there a bit awestruck.

  Because I'd never had a man go out of his way to open a door for me. Actually, I wasn't sure I'd ever had a man pull a car door open for me period.

  But that wasn't enough for Luca Grassi.

  Oh, no.

  This man went ahead and reached his hand out to me, waited for me to place mine in it, gently helped me out of the car even though I was clearly capable of doing so myself.

  Maybe I should have objected to it, bristled because I didn't need help.

  But that wasn't how I felt right then.

  I felt almost, I don't know, honored.

  It was charming and unexpected and I couldn't help but wonder why it ever fell out of favor.

  There were no sparks or butterflies. I had never been a sparks and butterflies person, having learned from a young age to be a realist through and through. But I had to admit it felt calming and reassuring to feel a strong hand holding mine, offering help.

  He didn't immediately drop it when I climbed out of the vehicle, or even after he slammed the door shut behind me.

  His gaze went to mine, deep, unreadable.

  For a beat.

  Two.

  Three.

  Longer.

  Long enough for a strange heaviness to settle on my chest, making my breathing feel harder, slower.

  But then one of his men slammed his door, breaking the spell.

  Luca's hand gave mine a small squeeze before dropping it.

  We weren't even going to talk about the irrational surge of disappointment that rolled around my stomach, worked its way up my throat until I felt like I was choking on it.

  Disappointment.

  That made no sense.

  What could I have possibly been disappointed about?

  That he hadn't, I don't know, pushed me back against the wall, pressed his lips to mine, and taken my mind off my ugly reality for just one blissful moment?

  Actually, yes, I realized as I followed numbly behind him as we went into the house, that was exactly where my mind had been going.

  Why, I had no idea.

  Yes, Luca Grassi was a good-looking man. No, it was more than that. He was immeasurably attractive. Like he stepped off the page of a magazine.

  But being handsome had never been a good enough reason to feel so intensely preoccupied with the idea of kissing someone. At least not for me. I was someone who was into the whole package, not just the pretty trappings.

  And I didn't know much about this man.

  Well, that wasn't fair. I knew enough to feel intrigued about him. He was successful and driven. He was intelligent and a little bit dangerous. He was willing to offer a helping hand. He had good manners. He let his men who clearly respected him tease him, so he didn't take himself too seriously.

  It was enough, I figured, to know about someone to want to feel their lips on your lips, on your neck, your ribs, your inner thighs.

  Jesus.

  No.

  My mind absolutely could not be going to things like sex with a relative stranger while my sister was missing, while who knew what was happening to her.

  "Romina," Luca called, voice a little firm, making me wonder if he had called me more than once. "Are you alright? You're pale," he added when I stared blankly at him.

  "I, um," I started, hearing my voice crack, feeling my eyes sting, closing my lids tight to try to keep the tears at bay. "This is just a lot," I admitted, feeling my lips tremble, not knowing how much longer I could keep it together.

  "It is," Luca agreed, voice soft. And wasn't it such a strange thing for a hard man to be capable of being soft? "But you don't have to carry it all by yourself anymore," he told me, sounding closer, sounding like he was right in front of me, in fact.

  My eyes slid open, finding his gaze on me, and up close, those thick lashes of his were oddly mesmerizing.

  That, or I was getting delirious from lack of sleep.

  "You can give me some of the weight, Romy. I can handle it," he assured me, hand reaching up, and for a horrifying second I was worried a tear had slipped out without me noticing, but his thumb and forefinger went to my chin again, pulling it up a bit. "We've got this," he assured me with enough conviction that I found myself believing him. "Say it," he demanded.

  "We've got this," I agreed.

  "Yes, we do," he said, dropping his hand, looking down at it like he wasn't sure where it came from, why it was attached to his body. Or, more likely, why he'd touched me with it. "I have a change of clothes in the closet if you want to take a shower," he told me, making everything else fall away, making me wonder why he would feel the need to say that right that moment.

  Did I smell or something?

  I had been running back at the docks, ending up soaked through with sweat. And left in a basement with no way to get a little whore's bath to clean up.

  "I, ah, I don't know if I can pull off a suit."

  "What?" he asked, brows pinching, lost.

  "You seem partial to suits," I explain, making his lips twitch, catching on.

  "You can make the shirt work for you. Until Michael comes back with more supplies."

  That irrational part of me that wanted him to kiss me also found itself inexplicably excited about the prospect of wearing his shirt.

  Food and sleep.

  Clearly, I needed some food and sleep.

  That had to be what was wrong with me.

  But until I could have those things, I opted for the shower on the off-chance that I actually did smell.

  The supplies were understandably sparse and masculine. I was handed a boxed bar of soap that smelled like, well, soap. No lavender vanilla honey peonies scent. Just soap. And, of course, it left my skin feeling clean to the point that it was squeaky which also meant it was as dry as possible. And there was no lotion to be found anywhere.

  But I forgot all about my dry skin when I unbuttoned the fancy white dress shirt I'd been handed, and slid my body inside, feeling it move over my skin like butter, soft, silky, luxurious.

  I did up the buttons, finger combed my hair, and reached for the doorknob, realizing just how naked I really was. In a plain white dress shirt that, while it was good material, that did not make it any less white, and therefore slightly see-through, my wet hair dropping drips of water onto the fabric, making it even more transparent.

  And then there was the fact that I didn't have pants on.

  Or panties.

  And would be walking around wearing this around a bunch of men I barely knew.

  That thought should have filled me with discomfort.

  But there was actually a heaviness in my lower stomach, something I wanted to call anything other than what I knew it was.

  Desire.

  Because what kind of monster did that make me? To be able to feel something so selfish and base when my closest relative was missing?

  Annoyed with myself, I yanked the door open, charging out, wanting to get away from the privacy that allowed my thoughts to wander.

  "That smells good," I admitted when I walked into the kitchen, finding Luca standing there with Lucky.

  "It better. Or I have someone to fire," Lucky declared, giving me a warm smile, his gaze doing a quick once-over. It wasn't even a savoring glance, just a quick one, just taking in the situation.

  "Fired?" I asked, hearing a strange croak in my voice.

  "Food is from one of my restaurants, baby," Lucky explained, motioning to the pizza box on the stove.

  "It's the middle of the night," I told them unnecessarily since they were awake at this ungodly hour with me.

  "It is," he agreed.

  "Your restaurant is still open?

  "No," he said, shaking his head.

  "You dragged an employee out of bed to make us food?" I asked. And as a former food service worker, I was deeply offended by the audacity there.

  "Don't worry, babe," he said, shaking his head. "I pay him well enough that he doesn't give a shi
t about losing a couple hours of sleep. Come over here and eat. You look pale," he told me, flipping open the cardboard box. "Margherita pizza, garlic knots, and some panzenella," he told me, pulling out a foil container, popping off the plastic top to reveal a salad with tomatoes, bread, onions, olives, and spinach. He can do better, but this was fast," Lucky added, grabbing a paper plate his chef had packed as well, piling a slice of pizza, a garlic knot, and some of the salad on it before handing it to me. "Eat," he demanded, waving a hand over to the card table in the dining room.

  I was too hungry to object, mumbling a thank you when he handed me plastic utensils, then heading off to the table.

  "You don't have to sit with me," I told Luca when he grabbed his plate, making his way across the kitchen. "Your friend is here."

  "He's my cousin," Luca corrected. "And he has places to be. It seems pointless to eat alone in separate rooms," he added, shrugging. "Out of curiosity," he said as I pulled apart my garlic knot," do you have a picture of your sister? Just for reference. If we want to ask questions."

  "Oh, right. Yeah," I said. "In my ph—thank you," I said when he reached in his pocket to produce my phone. With the hand not sticky with butter and garlic, I unlocked it and found the most recent picture I had, one that had her beaming at the camera, standing there in a white and pink sundress, looking like a model. "I know," I said after handing it over. "It's hard to believe we're related."

  'What are you talking about?" Luca asked, looking up from my phone, brows drawn together. "You two could be twins."

  "That might be the kindest exaggeration I've ever heard," I told him, snorting.

  "You haven't seen a mirror lately," he concluded, hitting some buttons on my phone. "Just sending it to myself. And now you have my number too," he added, passing it back to me. "I was wrong," he said a second later, gaze on me.

  "About what?"

  "You and your sister. I was wrong. I think your face has more character."

  'Character?" I wasn't sure if that was a compliment. It didn't seem like one.

  "You have a little scar here," he said, tracing a finger down his jaw where I did have an old nearly skin-tone scar.

  "I, ah, yeah. I fell into a little ditch on the side of our house. I was stuck in there for an hour before my father found me," I added, not sure why I wanted to give him more than what he asked for, but following the impulse regardless.

  "Clumsy kid?" he asked.

  "Not particularly. I'd been trying to reach my ball that had fallen in. And then I followed, scraping my face on the edge of the cement as I went. Were you?" I asked, realizing I wanted the conversation to keep going. "A clumsy kid," I clarified.

  "No," he told me, shaking his head, and even as I asked it, I had trouble picturing this very collected, very deliberate, very confident man tripping over his own feet. Even as a kid. "Matteo was the clumsy one."

  "Your brother?" I clarified.

  "Yeah."

  "Have I met him yet?"

  "No. And you likely won't. We don't see him around often."

  "He's not in the... family business?" I asked, surprised. "Aren't you, you know, born into this lifestyle?"

  "No. It's always a choice. When we get older, we make that choice."

  "No familial guilt?"

  "No. If anything, most of our parents don't want this life for us. My father wanted me to be a doctor," he admitted, chuckling.

  "Is that so far-fetched?" I asked, getting the mental image of him in a white jacket. Maybe it wasn't a good idea. He'd likely send all the little old ladies in his care into arrhythmia.

  "Considering the fact that I never once showed any interest in it, yes."

  "Did you always know you wanted to be like your father?"

  "I always revered my father. But it wasn't until I was seven that I knew I was going to grow up to be like him."

  "You knew what he did for a living then?" I asked, my heart aching for the little boy he'd once been, someone who should have been innocent to the ugly of the world. Then again, I hadn't exactly been untouched by the nasty things that life had to offer sometimes.

  "He tried to protect us from it. Even after our mom died. But I was a nosy kid. I figured it out myself one night. And ever since, then, I knew this life was my legacy."

  "Have you ever resented that? Having a life mapped out from the beginning?

  "No."

  "That's it? No?" I asked, reaching for my slice of pizza, already starting to feel more human with a little food working its way into my system.

  "I am good at what I do. I like being in charge. I am a fair boss. This was a good position for me."

  "Does your brother resent it? Is that why he is never around?"

  "Matteo is too busy chasing skirts and dropping cash to care much about how that money is made. He was never meant for the higher up positions in this world. He has always known that. He does what he needs to do, and he is happy to leave the rest to my father and me."

  "What does he do if he's not... doing family business?"

  "He operates a small string of party venues. It gives his life a little purpose. We get a cut. It all shakes out. Speaking of work, are you still going to have a job when all of this is done?"

  "I don't know," I admitted, "but it doesn't matter. I will figure something out. There are always jobs for interpreters. And I really never planned to stay there forever."

  "Do you miss your family? I'm assuming they are in Venezuela if that was where your sister was taken from."

  "I do miss them. My mom is gone now, and I didn't know my other relatives until I was an adult. But I do miss them. The way you miss a friend who moves away, I guess."

  "That is hard for me to imagine," Luca admitted.

  "Missing your family? Don't you ever miss yours?"

  "I'd have to go more than a week without seeing them to miss them," he told me, giving me a small smile. "We're close in the way that you couldn't get a new watch without everyone stopping over to see it," he told me.

  I honestly couldn't imagine that kind of closeness. At least not anymore. Not since I was little and my mom was around all the time, when our world was much smaller, much tighter.

  For a long while now, I had been as alone as a person could be, with my only family several countries away, and not making any new friendships because doing so as an adult was a lot harder than anyone ever talked about.

  No one noticed when I got a new piece of jewelry. Or brought me soup when I was sick. Or spent holidays or my birthday with me.

  It must have been nice to have that. Even if the closeness could chafe a bit at times.

  "Romy, do you—" Luca started, tone soft, when the door burst open, bringing in Michael, his arms weighed down with bags, the ones in his hands cutting into his skin.

  "I think I got everything you guys will need. At least for the night."

  "Or the next month," I told him, offering him a grateful smile.

  Luca was right, after all—they were helping me. And while I didn't love the idea of not being able to move around freely, now that I had a little food in my system, and felt less irritable, I could see how lucky I was that it hadn't been a shoot-first-ask-questions-later kind of scenario. They were going to help find my sister. They were going to exact revenge. And on top of all of that, they were getting me supplies to make my stay more pleasant.

  "I think you are holding more items than I own," I added, watching as he dropped them down on the floor.

  "I called my sisters," Michael told me, looking a little sheepish. "You know, to ask about what shit women might need for a visit."

  "Oh, yeah? What did they say?"

  "That if this woman was staying with me, she'd probably need black-out glasses," he told me, but he was smiling, someone who enjoyed the ribbing of his female siblings. "But they shouted out some other things too. I think I did alright," he added, shifting his feet. Being a lower man on the totem pole, he was looking for some validation. I wasn't his boss, which meant I wasn't likel
y giving him exactly what he wanted, but I figured my appreciation would gain him his boss's approval.

  "I'm sure it is more than enough. Thanks for going out of your way to get me everything," I told him, wondering if his sisters had mentioned panties, or if they had assumed I would have thought to bring my own.

  Either way, if I had pants, at least that was a little coverage. I was a panties girl to the bitter end, but in extreme situations, beggars couldn't be choosers.

  "Thanks, Michael," Luca said, giving him an approving nod. "Tomorrow, I will have someone drop by your new hotel to grab your things on top of this," he told me.

  "I appreciate that. As nice as I was sure everything they got me was, there was something comforting about things that belonged to you.

  With that, Michael moved outside to act as a guard, Luca and I finished our late meal, then he helped me sort through the bags, shoving everything for me into what ended up being more than enough to last me for a couple weeks, then helping carry them to my temporary room, dropping them down near the closet door.

  It wasn't a big space with a bed pushed up the wall with no headboard. The walls were bare and white. There were plastic mini-blinds on the windows, and a dark wood nightstand with an old frosted glass lamp.

  Bare bones, but comfortable enough.

  Luca made his way back into the hall, pulling the door half-closed.

  "Goodnight, Romy," he told me, voice smooth, deep, a sound that shivered across my heightened nerve endings, making a strange heat pool in my lower belly.

  But before I could determine if he meant it the way my body was clearly taking it, he was pulling the door closed, and going across the hall to his own bedroom.

  Alone, I found myself too antsy to sleep despite the long days weighing down my eyelids.

  I gathered the bags, putting them near the bed, and sorted the items.

  There were comfy clothes—yoga pants and tank tops—as well as t-shirts, flip-flops, a sweater, and silky pajama sets.

  No panties.

  Oh well.

  Then there was the good kind of shampoo, conditioner, body wash, a facial moisturizer, and—inexplicably—a bottle of feminine gel. Which had to have been tossed out to Michael as a joke by his sisters, but he hadn't been in on it, so he added it to the list.