Born into the Mob Page 2

  “I’ll come up if you leave the gate open.”

  Luca tried to school his features so she would not see his surprise. What made her think she had any negotiating power whatsoever? What made her think he cared whether she got an inside look at her childhood home?

  “Sure, okay.”

  She smiled triumphantly and, yeah, she had negotiating powers. Because, damn, he would love to witness a few more of those smiles. Her face lit up like a freaking angel when she did it.

  “Okay, come on, I’ll drive us both up there.” Without waiting for his consent, she turned and strutted down the driveway to the vehicle parked at the curb.

  He dragged his hand over his face and followed. What the hell was he doing? Getting friendly with Gino Sarvilli’s daughter was playing with fire. Gino’s old enforcers frequented his club, kept the Armenians off his back, because of Luca’s connection to Frankie.

  But he didn’t kid himself that any of them weren’t still seriously pissed off over how Gino’s empire had crashed and burned so spectacularly nearly two decades ago. Half of them had gone to prison. The other half took plea deals, rolling on their compatriots like they were all participating in a fire drill and learning how to stop, drop, and roll. None of them ended up with any compensation beyond whatever they’d managed to save from their previous work for Gino.

  And they all knew it happened because Nina and her mother and her uncle disappeared with all of Gino’s money.

  It was a little over a quarter mile if one walked the length of the driveway, but of course, in a car, it took only a moment until they were parked in the circle with the ridiculous fountain shaped like a naked woman in the middle and the ostentatious entrance to the house on the right.

  As they mounted the steps, she asked, “How did you figure out who I was?”

  “Your father is the only other person who’s ever owned this house, so when you said you used to live here, it was pretty obvious.”

  Her eyes widened again. “Really? That was seventeen years ago. You’re—you look really young for your age.”

  He chuckled. “I’m not that old. Hit thirty a couple months ago. I bought it at auction three years ago.”

  “Auction?”

  He nodded. “When Gino died and no heir stepped forward…” He arched his brows, not that he expected her to tell him anything about how she’d managed to escape or where she’d been for all these years. Truthfully, it was far safer if she didn’t tell him a damn thing.

  “Actually, my mom came back and testified after he died and they started arresting the guys in his organization. But she didn’t want anything that belonged to him. Neither did my uncle. He even gave away all the money he’d made working for my father.”

  “Jesus.” Luca pressed his hand to his heart. “That had to be a lot of fucking money. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay, f-bombs don’t offend me. And yes, it was a lot of money. I assume so, anyway. I was obviously not involved in any of the decisions because I was only eight at the time, but we still get invited to go to this fancy charity ball every year from the organization they gave everything to.”

  She lifted her shoulders, let them drop, like it was no big deal to give away what had to be millions of dollars to a freaking charity. Hell yeah, they’d better get invited to a fancy ball every year. That charity ought to be kissing their damn feet every chance it got.

  She glanced up at the double doors. “It really sat empty all that time?”

  She studied the exterior of his residence. He’d had it repainted last year. “Yeah, it was pretty disgusting, to tell the truth. You’d be surprised how much wildlife actually lives in the suburbs. I’m pretty sure I had to exterminate every single one of them after I bought it.”

  “Why did you buy it?”

  She sure knew how to ask exactly the questions he didn’t want to answer. “It was the right price and good for my image.”

  And yet, he answered truthfully. Huh.

  Naturally, saying that piqued her interest, and as he opened the door and motioned for her to enter first, she asked what he meant by that.

  “The price was right because anyone who wasn’t connected to your father’s organization wouldn’t touch this place with a ten-foot pole, and anyone who was would never go to a police auction.”

  She stepped into the center of the massive, two-story foyer, with its white marble flooring and that stupid chandelier that cost him a small fortune to get cleaned every six months. At least he’d trashed all the portraits of naked women that had been on display everywhere. Truthfully, they were perfect for the image he was trying to portray, but most hadn’t handled well the fifteen years or so of this house sitting empty, and despite what he did for a living, that kind of art wasn’t his thing.

  If he were honest with himself, a small cottage on a lake was more his style, but appearances were everything in the industry he’d chosen. This house fit the bill perfectly.

  Which was why, other than cleaning it up, modernizing the appliances and furniture, and taking down the moth-eaten naked pictures, he’d done little else to change it. The only room he’d updated to fit his own style was his bedroom, but then again, no one else ever went in there, so it didn’t matter. Even when he had lady “friends” over, he used one of the myriad other bedrooms for those activities. He didn’t want to sully his personal space with the sort of women he tended to sleep with.

  “I remember this,” Nina whispered, her voice sounding far away, her gaze taking in the huge, whitewashed space. He’d had parties in which the guests filled this area when he first bought the house and was promoting his club to all the wrong people. Except those were the people who spent the most money there, so he’d had no choice.

  He stood where he was as she wandered about, those huge eyes absorbing the minute details, her mouth forming a perfect little O. She was feminine and confident and…he struggled for the word.

  Dainty. That was it. It was an odd combination, to be sure, but it worked for her. With those big eyes and cupid’s bow, rosy lips, high cheekbones, and that mass of dark hair, she reminded him of the elfin princess from the Lord of the Rings movies. Without the pointy ears, of course.

  Her body was decidedly feminine too, although not in the overtly sexual way of most of the women he associated with these days. Hers was more of a quiet elegance, with her long, narrow neck and smallish breasts, slight curves, and long, lean legs. He was definitely a leg and ass guy, so yeah, he appreciated the way hers looked in those form-fitting, casual pants. They weren’t quite leggings, and they weren’t sweatpants. Yoga pants, maybe? Whatever, he liked the way she filled them out.

  And all of these observations were pointless, considering who she was and the fact that she should get the hell out of town as quickly and quietly as possible.

  He slipped his phone out of his pocket. Nothing more from Uncle Frankie. Maybe he wasn’t coming over after all. Still…

  “When are you planning to leave?”

  She had wandered over to the hall that led toward the back of the house, where Gino’s ornate and oversized office was located. Luca didn’t use it; he preferred to keep work at work, but when he threw parties, the guests always wanted to see it, so it was yet another area he’d changed very little. This place was like a museum, a monument to Gino Sarvilli. The craziest part was, most of the people who came to ogle it hated Gino.

  Or at least, hated the way their way of life had ended, which brought Luca back around to the elegant woman standing across the room from him.

  She glanced over her shoulder. “Trying to get rid of me already?”

  “Yes and no,” he admitted. One would expect, in his line of business, that he’d be a chronic liar, but no, he much preferred things be on the up and up, if at all possible. It was too hard to keep track of all the lies. That was one of the last pieces of advice his dad had given him before he left, after Mom kicked him out for cheating on her.

  Dad had literally disappeared off the face of the earth after that, and while no one would admit it out loud, Luca was convinced he’d been one of Gino Sarvilli’s many hits. Seventeen years ago, when Gino was killed and his men started scrambling to save their own asses, all the missing persons cases that had been open in Detroit were finally closed, but there were plenty of others that had never been reported to the authorities.

  “Cryptic answer,” she murmured and then pointed. “Can I go down here?”

  He strode toward her and indicated she should follow him down the hall. He didn’t ask why she wanted to go this way, and he took her straight to her father’s old office. She paused outside the door, which was closed.

  “I remember standing out here the day after my dad, well, your uncle, kidnapped me. I didn’t understand what was going on, but I already knew I didn’t like it here and didn’t want to stay. But my father wouldn’t let me go home.”

  She glanced at the wall across from the office door. There used to be a black-and-white, vaguely abstract painting of two naked women there. He’d replaced it with a truly abstract black-and-white painting.

  “And then Uncle Antonio showed up. I hadn’t seen him in two years. He didn’t recognize me at first.”

  Uncle Antonio. Gino’s younger brother. The money man. Stupid of Gino to let someone else control all of his assets. Because that person tended to spirit away in the middle of the night with your dough, your wife, and your kid.

  “You still call him uncle.” He would have assumed she’d eventually start calling the guy “Dad.”

  She barked out a laugh. “My mom and Uncle Antonio never got together, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  That was exactly what he was thinking.

  “Would you believe my mom married a cop?”

  “No shit?” r />
  “Yep. And after he killed my dad, he adopted me.”

  “That’s fucked up.”

  She lifted that thin shoulder again, let it drop. “Gino found us and threatened to kill my sister. Well, Hillary. She wasn’t my sister yet at the time. But she was already my best friend. And I can’t believe I’m telling you all this.”

  “I’m a good listener.” Christ knew he’d heard plenty of sob stories from the girls at his club, and he’d managed to keep his cool through all of them.

  “Yes, but my story is a dangerous one to tell. And to know.”

  “This is true, which is exactly why I’m wondering how long you plan to be in town. It’s doubtful anyone would recognize you after all this time, but if you start throwing around your last name, well, you’d be surprised how small the metro Detroit area is. And how many ears there are. And how long the memories are. And how poorly it would go over if people knew you were in town.”

  She batted her eyelashes. “You mean people around here don’t like the Karneys?”

  He smirked and then waved at the door. “Do you want to see the office?”

  She gave the slab of wood an almost fearful look. “Sure.”

  He opened the door, stepped over the threshold, and moved to the side. She moved hesitantly, like she was afraid the boogeyman was going to jump out at her.

  Once she apparently was confident that was not going to happen, she walked straight through, behind the massive desk that sat facing the door, and then turned to face him.

  He liked the way she looked there. Powerful. In control.

  Sexy.

  “This is the first time I remember ever coming into this room.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded. “Maybe I did when I was really little, but I don’t remember. All I recall was that week he kept me here because he was mad at my mom and wanted to punish her. The week before we all disappeared. He spent a lot of his time, most of it, actually, in here, but he never allowed me in. If he wasn’t pawning me off on my lousy nanny, he was making me wait out in the hall while he had some meeting or another.”

  “I’m even more intrigued by you now than I was five minutes ago.”

  She smiled, a small, fleeting lift of her lips. Did she feel this curious attraction too? Because it was curious. She was nothing at all like the sort of women he mingled with. Although, if he were honest with himself, he’d admit that he deliberately sought out a certain type.

  The sort with which there was no risk of emotional attachment.

  Chapter Three

  Nina dropped her gaze to the desk, her heart beating far too rapidly for her liking. Yes, Luca Russo was attractive. And charming. And he was allowing her to wander about his house, despite the fact that she was a perfect stranger and, as he’d said, a dangerous person to befriend.

  He was also from Detroit, was connected to her father, and lived in his freaking house, for God’s sake. Interesting that he didn’t seem to really like the place, yet he’d still bought it, deliberately, she suspected. He said it was the right price, but there had to be more to it than that.

  “Oh,” he said, striding toward her. She admired his smooth, determined gait. Long, muscular legs. Gorgeous forearms under those rolled-up sleeves. Almost too-long, thick, black hair that was just this side of curly. Enough stubble on his face to give him a slightly dangerous look.

  And 100 percent Italian. She’d discovered she liked boys around the age of fourteen, and ever since, she’d been trying to convince herself that she wasn’t attracted to Italian men.

  At the moment, she was failing spectacularly. Because if Luca Russo asked her out, she would absolutely say yes.

  Even though she should absolutely say no.

  Stepping up next to her, he tugged open a drawer in the desk and pulled out a framed picture. “I assume this is you?”

  She took it out of his hand and stared. The child in the picture looked to be three or four years old. She wore a purple, flowered sundress, and she was waving a wand, a stream of bubbles dragging behind her. The look on her face was complete and innocent joy.

  She touched the glass protecting the photo. Tried to reconcile the man who had held a gun to Hillary’s head and then trained it on her mother with the man who would frame a picture of her and, she presumed, keep it in his office.

  “Almost makes him human, doesn’t it?” Luca said, and she glanced up swiftly. “That’s what I thought when I found it, anyway.”

  She dropped her gaze to the picture again. “Yeah, you’re right. Which is weird, since I’ve thought of him as a monster since I was six years old.”

  “Don’t kid yourself. He was a monster. This picture just means his heart wasn’t completely shriveled and black. Close, though.”

  She chuckled.

  “Keep it,” he said when she started to place it back in the drawer.

  She shook her head. “I’m sure my mom has a copy. I don’t…I’d rather not have any mementos. Any physical ones anyway. I came here for closure, to be honest.”

  “Closure? For what?”

  Turning away from his inquiring gaze, she wandered over to the shelves where myriad other pictures sat: Gino with what she suspected were a variety of politicians, Gino with a former Detroit Pistons hotshot, Gino with a buxom woman she recognized as an actress who had been in her prime thirty years ago. Had all of these people been pulled in for questioning when he died and the empire he’d built collapsed?

  “It’s going to sound dumb.”

  “Try me. You’d be surprised by what I don’t think is dumb.”

  With her gaze focused, she toyed with a pen she’d picked up from the desk. The silence stretched on, and he didn’t try to break it, didn’t press her or change the subject. He just waited.

  She finally glanced up. He watched her, nothing but simple curiosity on his face. This urge to tell him the truth was surprisingly powerful. She didn’t know this guy. All she had to go on was the earnestness in his voice, on his face. For all she knew, he had been waiting for her to reappear and was now waiting for the right moment to kill her.

  Although that honestly didn’t make sense. Her family hadn’t heard a peep out of anyone from Detroit in seventeen years. Her last name had been changed twice and Nina wasn’t so unusual, especially in the Italian community, that someone who heard it would immediately think of Gino Sarvilli’s daughter.

  But therein lay the problem, didn’t it?

  “I thought maybe if I came here…I would be able to get a sense of how truly notorious he was.”

  Luca furrowed his brows, and she hurried to explain.

  “Aside from when he came to New—when he found us and I thought for a minute he was going to kill my best friend, I was sheltered from who he really was.”

  “Witnessing him try to kill your best friend didn’t give you a sense of who he was?”

  She shook her head. “Of course it did. But that was rage over Uncle Antonio stealing all his money. And yet, as I understand it, the man could be in a perfectly jovial mood and still cheerfully tell one of his men to kill someone.”

  “And that fascinates you.”

  He didn’t ask, he stated it, like it was a fact. Like he understood.

  “Yes,” she admitted.

  He glanced at his phone, then slid it back into his pocket. “Come on.” He motioned for her to stand. “Let’s go to the kitchen and raid the liquor cabinet. I’ve never been very comfortable in this room anyway.”

  He led her down the hall, past several closed doors, and then they turned right and the air became significantly more humid.

  “Pool,” he explained, nodding at a steamed-up glass door. “In the basement.”

  She didn’t recall ever using the pool when she lived here. “That’s cool in the winter, I suppose, although give me a sunny afternoon at the lake any day.”

  “I’m with you.” He turned around and grinned at her while walking backward until he bumped into a wall. Laughing, he opened another door and held it so she could pass through first.

  She remembered the tiny cottage she and her mom lived in after the divorce. And she vaguely remembered this kitchen, too. She definitely remembered, even at age six, thinking it was the same size as the entire house she’d lived in with Mom.

  The appliances and countertops had obviously been updated, and the stools tucked under the island appeared to be new, but otherwise, this room felt like it had when she was a child. Gigantic double fridge. Two ovens. A walk-in pantry the size of a small bedroom. It was all so much, especially for only one person.