“You stupid fucking puttana.” The man turned and faced her. He kept rubbing his eyes, but when he saw her he reached out and tangled his hand in her hair. Then he pressed the barrel of the gun to her forehead, and started saying a string of Italian. But before he pulled the trigger the sound of a gun going off filled her ears once more, and the warmth of blood sprayed across her face.
He fell to the floor, and she opened her mouth on a silent scream. His blood covered her face, hair, and chest, and her heartbeat filled her ears.
The man now standing in front of her was shrouded in darkness, but when he crouched on his haunches and the light from the streetlamp covered his face, her heart stopped in her chest when she saw who it was.
Joey Bacelli.
5
She was out cold.
Whether it was from the injuries she had, or the fact she was freaked the fuck out, Marra Santos was out like a damn light. Joey picked her up in his arms easily and moved away from the now two lifeless bodies on the asphalt. Little Johnny took another hit from his cigarette and flicked it away.
“What do you want me to do about the bodies?” he asked in a low voice. The streets were quiet right now, but he hadn’t put a silencer on his gun, and so shooting the motherfucker that had just been about to take out Marra would surely have been heard.
“Call the cleaner,” Joey said and took one more glance at Mario. The traitor had found his fate at the end of the gun-barrel of the Bacelli rivals.
“Look at this fucker,” Johnny said and reared his foot back to kick Mario in the gut. The punt was so damn fierce that Mario’s body skidded across the alleyway. “This fuckin’ pucchiacha got it easy,” Johnny said on a growl. “I would have taken my fuckin’ bat to his traitorous ass.” He grabbed his cell from inside of his jacket and called Luciano, the Bacelli cleaner that came to places and took care of the blood and bodies. It was a sick fucking job, but Luciano was also one twisted and demented man, and Joey swore he enjoyed finding creative ways to get rid of the bodies they didn’t want found.
Joey carried Marra, who was still out cold, over to his car. Johnny and he had been leaving the bar where Mario was supposed to have shown up. But it was clear they had been wrong about the once tight Bacelli informant. The fucker hadn’t just been running his mouth when drunk, but had been working behind their backs with the Gondalo crew.
The fact that they had gotten a call from Mario just half an hour before they stepped out of the bar, him telling them that he wanted to meet up and talk about some future jobs they had given him, told Joey all he needed to know. Mario had sounded sketchy as hell, nervous and twitchy, and he knew better than to bring up shit on the phone that was “work” related. So Mario had been in deep shit with someone, either the Gondalo or the Feds, and he was trying to find a way out.
But seeing his dead body staring up at him from the ground, with a Gondalo bullet in the middle of his forehead, told Joey that he had turned his back on the family for some fly by pussy crew that thought coming into Bourbon and taking what wasn’t theirs was going to happen. He felt his cell vibrate in the front of his pocket and put Marra in the backseat before answering it.
“Yeah?”
“Found out from Seth that Mario hasn’t just been running his mouth at the bar, but trying to cut a deal with the Gondalos.”
“Old news, Alex. Just saw Mario with a hole in his head thanks to one of their guys.”
“Well shit.”
“Yeah.” Joey scrubbed a hand over his face and glanced at Marra. She was lying on the backseat, and the skirt she had been wearing today was hiked up her thighs. God, he shouldn’t be thinking the filthy fucking things he was right now, because she was injured and in shock. But the bastard part of Joey couldn’t help but take in the tanned fullness of her thighs, or how the hem of the skirt stopped right where he would have been able to see her panties. “Fuck.”
“You okay, Boss?” Alex asked, sounding concerned.
“I’m good,” he responded, knowing that things were far from okay because some motherfuckers had managed to turn a promising guy in their crew. Mario might not have been a made man yet, but Joey had been watching him, and seeing how loyal he had been. Seems like his instincts on the little prick had been wrong. “But Marra was nearly executed by the fucker I just laid down.”
“The café chick?”
“Yeah. I’m taking her to my place until she wakes up. I need to know if she heard or saw anything that can help us.”
“Boss,” Alex said softly, but with more concern in his voice. “She could be a liability now. She might know shit that she shouldn’t.”
Yeah, he knew that, too. “Don’t worry about her, I’ll handle it. Just figure out why the hell Mario flipped on us, because it doesn’t make sense.” He disconnected the cell and shoved the phone in his pants pocket. He then took off his suit jacket and laid it over her legs. He knew that she was a liability, and that if she knew anything that she shouldn’t about the business, he’d have to handle it. He could have just finished her off right in the alleyway and let Luciano handle it, but Joey wanted her, and letting her get hurt wasn’t an option.
For the last year he thought he had just wanted to fuck her desperately, and every time she turned him down it just made him want her more. But then when they had walked out of the bar, about to hunt down Mario and find out the truth, he had heard her scream. The fact he had known it was Marra had sent a jolt of awareness through him. And then he had seen her across the street getting dragged into an alleyway. Everything inside of him had gone on alert, and this white-hot rage moved through him that someone thought they could touch her.
The possessive and territorial side of him was something he had never felt for a woman, but it was intense and powerful, and he wasn’t about to ignore it. Then he had seen her getting tossed around like a ragdoll, and that gun pointed to her head. He had been so fucking angry, but the calm of the kill had come upon him. He had gotten his gun out, placed the barrel at the back of his enemy’s head, and blown his brains out. Joey had never felt the relief that had coursed through him as he did at that moment when he had pulled that trigger.
He had killed a lot of people, bad men that deserved to die because they had done heinous things, or had turned their back on the family. But this kill had been different. He had done it because he wanted to protect the woman he wanted.
The sound of Little Johnny moving behind him had Joey shutting the backdoor and turning. “All good?”
Johnny nodded. “Luciano is just a few blocks away.”
Headlights flashed across them, but Joey knew it was Luciano. The car came to a stop behind Joey’s, and then Luciano climbed out. Another man came out of the passenger side, and without saying anything, just tipping their chins in acknowledgment, Luciano and his partner went into the alleyway to clean up.
“You want me to take care of her?” Johnny asked. He reached in his coat for a cigarette, and stared at Joey.
“No, the only one taking care of her is me.”
Johnny nodded. “Understood.”
Joey climbed into the driver’s seat, and Johnny headed over to his car. Joey adjusted the rearview mirror so he could look at Marra. What in the hell was he going to do with her?