She was being watched.
Grace looked back over her shoulder yet again but couldn’t determine who or what was causing the hair on the back of her neck to stand on end, only that it was the same feeling she’d had in the cemetery when she thought she saw someone in the shadows.
She briefly considered asking one of her father’s bodyguards to make a quick tour of the restaurant where she, Tom, and her father were having dinner with Nico Toscani, his wife, and the top capos in his crew. Her father’s visit to Vegas was not without danger given that the two cousins who had split the Toscani family would do anything to seize control of the Vegas faction. Although an underboss like her father was considered untouchable—his murder could be approved only by the don himself—it was not uncommon for a powerful capo to challenge the status quo by launching a coup and whacking everyone who stood in his way. At its essence, the Mafia was about survival of the fittest, and if the challenger proved more worthy, the don would rarely intervene.
“Is something wrong?” Mia Cordano Toscani followed Grace’s gaze to the back hallway.
“No. I just … It’s nothing.” She smiled at Nico’s unconventional wife, dressed in punk clothes, with a pink streak in her dark hair. Although they had both been brought up in Mafia families, they couldn’t have been more different. Mia was confidant and outgoing, her disregard for the traditional role of a Mafia wife apparent in everything from her appearance to her attitude. A shrewd businesswoman, she ran her own cybersecurity firm, and seemed to have no issues taking on clients from the mob.
By contrast, Grace wore a burgundy lace crochet mini swing dress, antique jewelry, knee-high black boots, and a black fedora which she had tucked in her oversize crochet bag when they sat down to dinner. Boho chic, her best friend Olivia called her look. And far from running her own business, Grace had been drifting since finishing her psychology degree, paying her rent with the money she made from voicing radio jingles as she tried to motivate herself to find a job as a trauma counselor.
Grace.
She heard—no, felt—her name whisper over her skin, and a shiver ran down her spine. Rocco was here. She knew it just as she knew the liquor in her glass was vodka, and the music playing over the speakers was Lana Del Rey’s cover of Sinatra’s “Summer Wine.”
After searching the room to no avail, she excused herself to freshen up and walked through the restaurant hoping to find the reason for her sense of unease in the form of the man she’d never thought she would see again.
“Can I help you, Grazia?”
Luca Rizzoli, the owner of Il Tavolino, and one of Nico Toscani’s senior capos, intercepted her after she’d made her way through the crowded tables and past the stage where a small jazz band was setting up for the evening show.
“It’s just Grace. My father is the only person who calls me Grazia. He’s pretty old school.”
Luca laughed. “I didn’t want to offend and possibly lose a few fingers.” He looked over at the table where his wife, Gabrielle, was talking with Mia, and his face softened. “Gabrielle wouldn’t be very happy. Our baby is due in a few months and she’s lined up a few tasks for me to do before then.”
“Your first?”
“Second. We have a son, Matteo. He’s six.”
“He must be excited.” She felt a tug in her heart, remembering how excited she’d been as a kid when her brother, Tom, was born. She had always wanted children, but after the devastating night at New York’s Newton Creek where she’d been broken in both body and soul, she didn’t even dream.
Rocco. Her first. Her last. Her only love. It had been six years since she’d run away. And two days ago, she’d run again. Why was she looking for him now?
“Not as excited as me.” A smile spread across his handsome face, and she felt inexplicably jealous of the woman who had a man like Luca to share her life. Once a police detective, and now a private investigator, blonde-haired blue-eyed Gabrielle had been warm and welcoming to Grace, and it was clear Luca totally adored her.
“I was looking for the restroom,” she said by way of explanation for her wandering.
“Down the back hallway, last door on the right.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. “I overheard you telling Gabrielle you’re in a jazz band.”
“Not me.” Her heart squeezed in her chest. “But my housemates, Miguel and Ethan, are in a five-piece jazz band. They’re looking for a new vocalist and Mia mentioned she had a friend who sang jazz so I thought I might try and hook them up. They’re called Stormy Blu.”
Sunita had been Stormy Blu’s vocalist for years, but when she hooked up with a guy who was big into drugs and started missing rehearsals, the band had to cancel gigs and bookings had slowed. Ethan, the band’s manager, was actively looking for a new vocalist and had begged Grace to take her place, but there was no way she could sing on stage when she knew everyone would be looking at her scar.
“Well, let them know there’s a club looking to book new acts.” Luca handed her a card. “I’ve just acquired an interest in the Stardust, a few blocks from here, and I’m trying to fill the stage.”
“Thanks. I’ll let them know.” She tucked the card in her purse. Luca’s reference to “acquiring an interest” was mob-speak for taking over a business in payment for a loan that had gone bad. Most likely the owner was dead or in the hospital. How did Luca go home at night to his young son and pregnant wife after doing what he did? Probably the same way her father had done. Without any flicker of conscience or regret. Her father had been a different person when he was at home—a good husband, a great dad, and a well-loved member of the community. It was what he did when he was away that she couldn’t handle.
After Luca headed back to the table, she followed his directions to the back hallway, feeling a curious sense of anticipation as she walked along the dimly-lit corridor. Grace’s mother and nonna and all her female relatives on her mother’s side were firm believers in a sixth sense that was passed down through the women in the family. No one laughed if someone “felt” something. Coincidence was explained by karma. Portents and omens were taken seriously. Close calls and brushes with death were the work of angels.
And yet, no one could explain why that sixth sense, and all the angels in heaven, couldn’t save her mother when Jimmy “The Nose” Valentino burst into Ricardo’s Restaurant on the corner of Mott and Grand and sprayed the restaurant with bullets after finding out that Ricardo was having an affair with his wife.
There was nothing unusual in the hallway. Two kitchen doors with glass windows. Broom closet, door ajar. Storage room. Men’s restroom. Narrow hallway on the left, leading to the exit. Women’s restroom on the right.
She reached for the restroom door and the skin on the back of her neck prickled.
Turning, she saw a man in the shadows near the exit. Her heart skipped an excited beat and she took a step toward him. “Rocco?”
He stepped into the light. Tall. Dark. Dressed in a leather jacket, faded jeans, and a worn pair of boots. His jaw was dark with stubble, and the gold cross that he’d worn as long as she’d known him glittered against the pitch-black T-shirt that covered his muscular chest.
“Grace.”
The soft beat of Otis Redding’s “These Arms of Mine” drifted from the restaurant, and the sound brought up far too many memories, ones she had buried long ago. They had connected through music. Shared through music. Loved and lost through music.
She drew in a ragged breath, pushing away the bittersweet memories as she inhaled the scent of him, whiskey and leather, and something so familiar a wave of heat flooded through her veins, shocking her with its intensity. How could he affect her so deeply after all this time?
Grace swallowed hard, forcing her throat to work. “What are you doing here?”
“Security.”
“I mean here in Vegas.”
“I live here.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “So do I.”
He didn’t answer and she had nothing else to say. Until yesterday afternoon at the cemetery, it had been six years since they last saw each other. Six years since he had made a choice that destroyed a friendship and a love that had grown slowly over time.
His gaze raked over her, from her hair to her breasts and over her hips to the bare expanse of thigh between the hem of her dress and the top of her boots, and then back to her face. She trembled beneath his scrutiny. This man who had been her friend, her soulmate, her lover. Her first.
He reached for her, his hand pushing back the hair that she always wore down to hide the scar on her cheek. His touch set off a cascade of memories. Eight years of beautiful destroyed in eight minutes of horror.
“Don’t.” Pain that she had locked away clawed at her insides, ripping open the emotional scars that had never truly healed.
His face twisted in a scowl and he jerked his hand back as if he’d been burned. Or maybe it was disgust. She wasn’t the same girl he’d known in New York, inside or outside.
“So you hated all this so much, you decided to become part of it?” His voice was tight and tinged with cruelty. “You and Benito. A match made in fucking mob heaven until he got himself whacked.”
She stared at him, confused. “I never met Benito. His father is my godfather and one of Papa’s oldest friends. We were all going to have dinner together. I went to the funeral out of respect, not because I’m involved. And I’m here tonight because Nico invited me and Papa said I couldn’t refuse or I’d dishonor the family.”
“The family you ran away from.”
She bristled at his accusatory tone. “Yes, I ran away. That’s what normal people do when psychopaths kidnap them, drag them down to Newton Creek, slice up their face and force them to watch…” Her voice caught, broke, but she made herself go on because she might never get the chance again to say what she wanted to say. “When she discovers the man she cared for wasn’t who she thought he was.”
“You knew who I was,” he said, bitterly.
“I didn’t want to know so I didn’t think about it. But even when I did, I never imagined…” She couldn’t say those words, couldn’t say out loud that he was a member of the De Lucchi crew, a brotherhood of assassins who were at once revered and reviled by everyone who knew them.
“If I’d known you’d be trolling the streets of Vegas looking for a wiseguy to spread your legs for, I’d have come after you.”
She slapped him. At least she tried to slap him. He caught her hand before it made contact and slammed it against the wall above her head, pinning her in place. His face, as he stared down at her, was cold and hard, his eyes terrifying in their emptiness, and yet as she looked into the darkness, she saw a flicker of light.
In all the years she’d known Rocco, he had never once been cruel or unkind to her. He had never been rough as he was now. Maybe the face she’d seen that night on the banks of Newton Creek was the truth of him, and everything she’d known about him in the eight years prior was a lie.
“Do it.” She lifted her chin, wondering who this bold, brave woman was and where Grace had gone. “Hit me back. Hurt me. That’s who you are, isn’t it? That’s what you do. You don’t feel anything so why not teach me a lesson? Then we’ll both know that what we had in New York was a mistake.”
His massive body shuddered and he took a step closer, caging her against the wall with his hard, muscular frame. He was so much bigger than he had been six years ago, so strong, so powerful. She had no doubt that even with her Krav Maga skills, he could end her life as easily as he used to flick the cigarettes she had convinced him to stop smoking as soon as she was old enough to kiss.
“It wasn’t a mistake.”
It was the last thing she’d expected him to say and for a moment she was at a loss for words.
“You’re smoking again,” she said, using the scent of nicotine on his breath to avoid a discussion she wasn’t ready to have.
His eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn’t respond.
“I thought you quit.”
Silence.
“Nothing has changed in six years, Rocco. Smoking is still addictive. It still causes cancer. And you are still going to kill yourself if you don’t stop.” She swallowed hard and put the mental brakes on that particular topic of conversation. What the hell was she doing lecturing a De Lucchi enforcer on the dangers of cigarettes?
“Why the fuck do you care?”
Why did she care? He was an enforcer. He hurt people and took lives. And yet, what he did for the crew didn’t reflect who he was, at least not the man she knew before she ran away.
“I never stopped caring.” Just like with her father after she left the family home when she discovered he was in the mob. She’d never stopped loving him; she just couldn’t accept what he did for a living. “You were a huge part of my life. You were my friend, my…” She trailed off unable to call him a boyfriend because he’d never been a traditional boyfriend. They hadn’t been able to go out together or socialize together. She couldn’t introduce him to her friends and family. They had only stolen moments—the short drives to and from school, secret rendezvous in hidden places, nights in the darkness of his small apartment wrapped around each other in the refuge of his bed. “You were everything to me.”
He snorted in derision. “I believe that like I believe you’re not involved with the mob.”
“I don’t care what you believe.” She lifted her chin, met his gaze straight on. “I made a new life here. I’m a psychologist now, specializing in trauma. And I sing. Jingles. On the radio.” Anger flared in her chest, surprising her with its intensity. Usually, she buried all her feelings deep inside and only showed the world the face people wanted to see. When things didn’t go her way, she tried to move on. When people annoyed her, she turned the other cheek. Anger was destructive, not productive. Nothing got accomplished when people got angry. Dead mothers didn’t come back to life. Fathers didn’t morph from mobsters into insurance salesmen. Boyfriends didn’t betray you. Scars didn’t fade.
“And if this is the person you’ve become,” she continued, struggling to free her hand. “This mean manhandling mobster, I’m not interested in getting involved with you either. Now, let me go.”
Rocco released her and she turned to leave. “Dammit,” she muttered, half to herself. “I should have known better. I try to do one nice thing for Papa, and look what I get. Some crazy nasty mob boss assaulting me in the cemetery, and now you.” She looked back over her shoulder as she walked away, only to see his lips twitch at the corners. “Good-bye.”
Grace didn’t know how he closed the distance between them so quickly. One minute he was near the restroom, the next he had his hand on her shoulder.
“Wait.” He turned her to face him, the heat of his palm burning through her clothes straight to her core.
“Let me go, or you’re going to regret it.” Part of her couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth, but the unfamiliar surge of anger felt good, powerful, like it could buffer her from any storm.
“Like you regret wasting all those years with me every time you look in a mirror?”
His cruel words sliced through her, deflating her anger in an instant, sending her crashing to the ground. Her hand flew to the scar on her cheek, and she gritted her teeth to fight back the emotion welling up in her throat.
“I didn’t regret them until now. You’ve become a total jerk.”
He released her shoulder, pain flickering across his face so fast she wondered if she’d seen it. “Fuck. Grace—”
“Go to hell.” She squared her shoulders and walked away, taking a deep breath and praying no one would be able to read on her face how totally ripped up she was inside.
All these years, some little part of her had imagined that one day they would find each other again. That she would get a chance to explain that she’d run away, not because she didn’t love him, but because she couldn’t handle the chaos, brutality, and insanity that was the life he had chosen to lead. She couldn’t handle knowing that there was a part of him she would never be able to touch. It had taken six years and a psychology degree to help her deal with that night at Newton Creek, but until this moment, part of her had never stopped believing that the man who had taken a life before her eyes wasn’t the man she had loved from the moment they met.
She’d been wrong. It was finally time to move on with the life she had worked so hard to build in Vegas, and close the door on a past that had started when she was ten years old.
* * *
“Grazia. Come here, tesoro. Meet Rocco De Lucchi. He’ll be driving you and Tomasso to and from school until we get something worked out.”
“Mama drove us to school. Why can’t you drive us?” Her mother had only been gone two weeks and the pain wouldn’t go away.
“I have to work,” Pap said gently. “The insurance business pays our bills. I can’t be here the way your Mama was.”
“Then I’ll walk,” she shouted. “I’m ten years old. I know how to get to school.”
“Tom is too young to walk with you.” His voice rose to an angry pitch. “We discussed this already. Downstairs. Now.”
She knew better than to defy Papa when he had been pushed to the point of shouting, and he’d been angry a lot since Mama died.
Lips pressed tight together, she stomped down the stairs, pulling up short when she saw the driver in the hallway. She didn’t really like boys. They acted up in class and played stupid tricks at recess. But Rocco was different. Not a boy, but not quite a man. Beautiful. She didn’t know boys could be beautiful, but there was no other word to describe him. His eyes were the brown of the caramels Mama used to make candy apples at Halloween, and flecked with gold, and his skin was tanned and glowed bronze in the morning sun. He was tall and his arm muscles flexed when he leaned down and held out a hand.
And then he touched her.
Electricity zinged up her arm and something clicked in her heart.
“Buongiorno, signorina.” His lips were soft on the back of her wrist when he kissed her skin, and her face heated although she didn’t know why.
Papa laughed, breaking the spell. “I see you can charm little girls as well as you charm the big ones.”
Rocco dropped her hand as if he’d done something wrong and stood abruptly. “She will be safe with me, Mr. Mantini.”
“I know she will.” Papa patted her on the back. “And now I think Grazia won’t mind so much the ride to school.”
“My name is Grace.” For some reason, it was important that Rocco call her Grace and not her full, formal, boring Italian name.
“I am honored to be your driver, passerotta.”
Her lips twitched at the corners. Although he hadn’t used her name, his term of endearment acknowledged she wasn’t a little kid like Tom, but instead was “learning to fly.”
Papa went to collect Tom, and she followed Rocco out to his car. It was shiny and red, and the front was long and round. “How old are you, anyway?” she asked. “Are you even legal to drive?”
“Twenty.”
She studied him, pursing her lips as if deep in thought. “You don’t look twenty.”
“You don’t sound ten.”
“How come you’re driving us around? Don’t you have a job?”
“This is my job.” His smile faded as he opened the front passenger door and ushered her inside.
Before she could ask what was wrong, Papa showed up with Tom and a few minutes later they were on the road.
“You got any music?” she asked, uncomfortable with the silence. Tom was in the back seat fully engaged in playing a video game.
“I don’t know any kids’ stations but you can try to find something you like.”
“I don’t listen to kids’ music.” She pulled out her MP3 player and held it up for him to see. “I like the oldies. Frank Sinatra is my favorite.”
His hands jerked on the steering wheel, making the car swerve. “You listen to Frank Sinatra?”
“Yeah.” She shrugged. “I’m not embarrassed about it either. His songs are cool.”
He laughed out loud, and the sound made her grin. She wanted to hear him laugh again, watch his eyes crinkle at the corners, and the lines on his brow smooth with his smile. “Do you like Sinatra?”
“Maybe a little.”
“My mom loved his songs.” Her bottom lip quivered, her mother’s death still a fresh wound in her heart. “That’s how I know them all. When I listen to them I think of her.” She turned to the window so he didn’t see her tears.
“Lamento la muerte de tu madre.” He reached over and squeezed her hand. His touch eased the ache in her heart, and she turned to study his face.
“I lost my mother, too. Both parents, actually. When I was six.” His words came out stilted as if he had to force each one out. “I don’t have very many memories of them, but I remember my mother singing in church. She had a beautiful voice. Do you like to sing, Gracie?”
Her bottom lip trembled. “I love singing. I used to sing with my mom.”
“Let’s see if we can find something for you to sing.” He turned the radio to her favorite station and the first bars of Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night” played through the speakers.
“That’s my favorite Sinatra song,” Grace said, blinking back her tears.
“Mine, too.”
How could they have so much in common? He called her Gracie. Just like Mama. He liked her music and he wanted to hear her sing. His favorite song was Grace’s favorite song, and he’d lost his mother, too.
It was all too much. She hadn’t cried since the day Mama died, but this man, with his handsome face and his beautiful voice, his kind words and his gentleness, had touched the very essence of who she was. He saw the girl who missed her mother, and through their shared passion and experience, he saw something more.
She felt safe with him—safe enough to let go.
“I can’t sing today,” she whispered. And then she leaned against his big strong arm and cried.