Giorgio, Celeste and Gwen were going down to Emeril’s Miami Beach restaurant, but David and Mom had plans for a quiet evening at the Acqualina’s Beachfront Grill Night, and they were more than willing to have us as company. I was surprised Kimmy wasn’t with them when we arrived downstairs. The tables were arranged on the lawn with torches, lanterns and candles for lighting as the Atlantic lapped steadily at the shoreline.
We ordered our drinks and I tried not to frown when they ordered a bottle of wine. Both of them looked different tonight. Mom looked so young, in her gauzy beach dress, her hair pulled back at the temples in a ponytail and the rest was loose on her shoulders. She had gotten some sunshine today and her skin was slightly red, but I knew she tanned easily and by tomorrow she’d be brown. Her smooth, tanned legs were crossed at the knee and casually swinging her sandaled foot in the night air.
David was impressive. I guess he always was, but I had no reason to notice him before. Now I studied him carefully as he smiled and laughed and occasionally reached over and stroked my mother’s arm. He was slightly taller than Micah, but the closer I inspected, I realized Micah had a bit of a muscular advantage over his brother. What impressed me the most was the fact that David was completely devoid of vulgarity and crudeness. He was proving he could be a gentleman when necessary, and I liked that side of him. My only problem was forgetting his other side.
“Where’s Kimmy,” I finally asked as the appetizers were brought to the table.
“They have a pool-side movie night,” Mom answered, with the slightest hint of a grin, “she’ll be there until about nine or nine thirty.”
“By herself?” I was hoping I was wrong.
“Leese, she’s six years old, of course she has someone with her.”
“The hotel offers babysitting?” Micah asked.
“Yeah, but not this late,” David responded before Mom could answer, “A friend of Leese’s offered, so we decided to take him up on it.”
“Him?” I said, clearly confused as to who was watching my little sister.
“Ryan,” Mom clarified, “We asked him if he’d like to join us for dinner, but he offered to entertain Kimmy instead.”
The conversation around the table continued, but all the while I thought about Ryan’s tall, tattooed, macho persona sitting through a Disney film surrounded by small children, all to provide a quiet evening for my mother and a guy who looked a lot like my husband.
“Did you tell him Micah and I were joining you for dinner?” I asked, completely out of sync with what was being discussed.
Mom took a sip of her wine and put the glass back on the table, “Actually, yes, I think I did mention that to him.”
I could see from the corner of my eye Micah was studying my face, so I looked at him and tried a smile. It still bothered me to think that Ryan, who should be scoping out the cute girls at the resort or on the beach, was instead ‘babysitting.’
Mom and David ordered light from the menu and were soon excusing themselves from our company. I watched David place his arm around her shoulders as she leaned her head against him and they walked away. I felt a light touch on my arm.
“Are you okay?”
“They’re both happy. I don’t know how I couldn’t be okay with that,” I sighed.
He leaned over and kissed my cheek, “Why does Ryan watching Kimmy bother you so much?”
I rolled my eyes, “It doesn’t bother-”
“Leese,” he said, eyebrows rising as if to say to think twice before uttering a lie.
“He should be finding a date, not covering so someone else can have one,” I confessed.
“He’s a big boy. Maybe he wanted to meet a single mom at the pool and Kimmy was his ticket to do that,” he gave a light laugh.
I frowned without thinking, “He’s not that kind of guy.”
“I’m trying hard not to be a jealous person, but you might give me a complex if you spend much more brain power on Ryan instead of me.” There was no teasing to his statement.
I knew he was right. It had only been twenty-four hours since we said I do and the only person on my mind should be him. I gave him a sultry smile, “If I start thinking about you, we might be clearing the table for a little public exhibition.”
“You know a hit man has to be discreet, but you could probably talk me into that one.”
I could tell he was happy the subject was back on the two of us. After our meal, we walked along the shoreline and talked about the future, our future. We discussed houses and neighborhoods, states and relatives. We had been brought and kept together under such unusual circumstances that it was an odd feeling to enter a realm of normalcy.
We stopped and sat on the hard packed sand as the conversation ended and the tender kissing and cuddling began. I think if it hadn’t been for the occasional beach walkers, he would have taken me right there, but instead he had to use some of the restraint that we had once been so good at.
“Are you ready to go back upstairs?” he whispered, his deep green eyes sparkling as the moonlight refracted off the white sand.
I nodded, staring into that perfect face and then suddenly found myself becoming overwhelmed with emotion, and the tears began to course down my cheeks.
“Annalisa, what’s wrong?”
“I-I don’t know,” I answered as he tried to wipe away my tears, “all of a sudden, I’m afraid.”
“Of me?” he said, clearly shocked.
“No-of course not,” I sobbed. “It’s just my nightmare-”
“You’re still having that? I thought it was over when I moved into your mom’s house.”
“It’s come back lately and I’m just afraid that something is going to ruin what we have.”
He pulled me against his chest, “God, Leese, you’re about to shake apart. You really are scared, aren’t you? Baby, I won’t let anything come between us.”
He was trying to assure me he could keep us together by his own strength, but what he must have forgotten was that it was me in the dream that ran away. I pressed my face against his crisp cotton dress shirt, inhaling his Polo Double-Black cologne and relaxing in his grip.
“I know how you feel, though,” he admitted, as he held me. “It so perfect between us, and I’ve done so much wrong in my life that I can’t believe I deserve to have you. But the hard part is over with; you are my wife and I’m not letting go of you.” He reached under my chin and placed a slow, sweet kiss on my mouth, “Are you ready to go back inside?”
“Yes.”
It was a long night spent in his arms. The love was so gentle and I was so emotional that I must have pulled him into the emotions as well; several times he was overcome. It was the most sensual night we shared yet, touching, stroking, kissing, and needing each other on a level so deep it went beyond the physical and moved into a realm of spiritual. The sky was just beginning to show signs of dawn when we finally fell asleep in each other’s arms.
It was two in the afternoon, before I felt him stir beside me. He rolled out and went to the bathroom as I pulled the sheets tightly around myself and wiggled into the warm place he’d left in the bed. He returned and placed a kiss on my bare shoulder, sending goose bumps down my arm.
I tried to get up, but he grabbed me before I could escape, “Micah, I’ve got to go pee-let me go, baby.”
He laughed, but obeyed my request.
“How about break-I mean, how about lunch?” he called out to me. “I’ll have it sent up to our room.”
I was absolutely starving, but (apparently just like him) I didn’t want to dress and leave the room.
Lunch was ordered and we enjoyed our meal in privacy until our room phone rang; it was his family. They were leaving to fly back to Louisiana within the hour and wanted a chance to say goodbye. We dressed and tidied up the room for their visit. We only spoke briefly, and Giorgio confirmed Micah would be joining him the week after we returned from Hawaii to go inspect some prospective businesses. Celeste and Gwen each gave me a teary hug goodbye, but I assured them we would be coming to New Orleans in the next few months to look for a house. Celeste said she would start the search and let us know if she found something suitable.
David pulled me in for a firm embrace and whispered in my ear that he would be returning in a week, and then he kissed my cheek. With the exception of Micah, the whole family looked at him rather oddly. Evidently David wasn’t the sweet, touchy-feely kind of person and they were all surprised. I knew, in that moment, he had been very discreet with keeping his relationship with my mother from his family.
Micah went downstairs to see them to their taxi as I stayed behind and called Mom. I wanted to see if she and Kimmy might like to have dinner with us tonight, but I also wanted to see how she was doing now that David was stepping out of the picture for a short span of time. She said they’d love to have dinner with us, especially Kimmy who hadn’t seen either one of us since the wedding. I asked about David, and she sighed, admitting she couldn’t wait for the week to pass. I was just hanging up when Micah returned. I hate to admit it, but I think the fact that I stopped talking and put down the receiver just as he came into the room, caused him a moment of jealous suspicion.
“Mom,” I said, pointing at the phone, “I just called to see if she and Kimmy would have dinner with us tonight.”
“Oh,” he said, clearly relieved, “so are we having dinner with them?”
“Yes, down in Il Mileno at 7:00 p.m.” There was no reason to ask if he liked Italian food; I already knew the answer.
Dinner was enjoyable as we discussed our pending flight to Maui the following evening. Then Kimmy began to tell us about how much fun she’d had last night during the movie. I could see Micah tensing as she went on and on about how nice Ryan was to her and how much he talked about me.
“You were right,” she said, smiling up at him as she placed a forkful of pasta in her mouth, “he really does like Leese as much as you do.”
I know a little blush of embarrassment hit my cheeks, but then I remembered Micah’s explanation of who Ryan was to Kimmy the morning I made the pancake breakfast.
“Can’t you have two husbands?” she questioned me innocently.
“Kimberly Margaret!” Mom snapped. “No. Women don’t have two husbands and men don’t have two wives. Ryan is only Leese’s friend.”
I could see a moment of curiosity hit Micah as he leaned toward Kimmy, “Do you think your sister made the right choice?”
Mom froze, never expecting him to ask her such a question.
My mouth had gone dry and all I could think was Micah would be crushed if my sweet little sister preferred Ryan to him.
Kimmy smiled and then hugged his neck, “You’re my favorite, and Leese loves you best, anyway.”
He was smiling, completely happy with her response, but I couldn’t help but think he opened himself up for a crushing blow had her answer been different.
“We’re checking out in the morning and heading home. Do you need any help packing things up for the trip?” Mom offered.
I nibbled off the end of a bread stick knowing there was something I had wanted to ask her, but it had been forgotten, “No, I’m okay with that, but I keep feeling like I’m forgetting something.”
“Well, don’t stress over whatever it is because you aren’t on a budget.” Then she shook her head and laughed, “Matter of fact, if I were you, I wouldn’t pack a thing. I’d just buy whatever I needed when I got to Maui.”
“Mom, I can think of a lot better things we can be doing when we get their other than shopping.” My original thought was hiking, snorkeling, and luaus.
She looked at us and flushed with color. “I can understand that,” she laughed with a faraway look in her eyes.
I had a feeling it was a ‘David’ memory causing the look.
We finished dinner, then said our goodbyes and headed up to our room. We were both yawning by the time we closed the door to the rest of the world. Even though we’d slept six or seven hours after the sun came up this morning, it didn’t take place of missing the entire night before. We crawled into the bed exhausted and knowing tomorrow wouldn’t offer too many opportunities for rest either. Tonight was our chance to behave ourselves and get some actual sleep. We snuggled into our favorite position, which was me facing away and Micah pressed behind me with his arm around my waist, when I sat up quickly.
“That’s it.”
“What’s it?”
“What I couldn’t think of at dinner,” I stated. “I never got the house key from Mom.”
“You won’t need it until we get back, baby,” he said trying to pull me down into the covers.
“No-to the house in Maui-I forgot to get the key and I don’t want to travel 5000 miles only to have to wait hours for a locksmith to open up the house.”
“It’s too late tonight. You can call your mom in the morning, baby. Come back to bed; we need some sleep.”
I landed back amongst the pillows and sheets, but I didn’t roll my back to him, I rolled toward him as I twined my leg over his and let my hand trail down his hot body, “You know we’ll sleep better if we…”
He ran his fingers through my hair, sweeping it back away from my face, and then dove growling and snapping for my neck. I squealed far too loudly, and the new experience was on as we began to literally play with each other, until need overwhelmed us. We did get some sleep, and I was right about it being a better kind of sleep as we curled around each other and drifted off.
When morning came through the windows, I knew I’d have to get up and dress to catch Mom before they left, but I couldn’t resist just a little teasing before climbing out of the bed. I rolled over and met his gaze, kissing him and then letting my hand travel down his perfect abdomen to rest just below his belly button and just above his inability to control himself.
“You can’t be serious,” he laughed, “Baby, you’re gonna kill me.”
I kissed him once more, but quickly this time and rose from the bed before he could get me in his grasp. He was up and after me as I laughed and ran for the bathroom. “I don’t want to kill you,” I said teasingly through the closed door.
“I can’t think of a better way to go. Come back out here or I’m coming in there.”
“Sorry, baby, but the door is locked. I’ve got to go see Mom today and then when I get back I’ll see if I can put you out of your misery and-” To my utter surprise the door opened and he was right beside me. “Ah, I locked that! How did you get in?”
“I know how to do a lot more than aim straight under pressure,” he chuckled as he came around behind me and moved my hair to gain access to my neck.
I could feel my resolve melting into a warm puddle. “I really do need to see Mom, and I’ve got to catch her before she checks out with Kimmy and heads home. Oh, Micah, don’t stop,” I said as he began to pull away.
“You’re confused, baby,” he whispered, “first it’s stop and then don’t stop. What’s it gonna be?”
“Ah-stop, Micah,” I chose reluctantly. “I really want to catch them, but as soon as I come back through that door, don’t stop, and I really don’t care what my argument is.”
He gave a slow smile, “I’ll be waiting and I don’t care how long it takes.”
I dressed, picked up my purse and left, wishing the whole time that I’d stayed. I was starting to wonder how we were ever going to go back to functioning normally in life when we simply couldn’t keep our hands off each other. I pushed the elevator button and began my descent to the lobby. Would this whole fascination with each other eventually burn out or at least mellow? I couldn’t see it happening; he was simply too mesmerizing. I could only hope he felt the same about me.
The elevator jerked hard causing my pulse to quicken. The lights dimmed and I could hear breaks being applied. It stopped between the third and second floor and panic gripped me. I wasn’t claustrophobic, but my air felt as if it had been cut off. I’d never been trapped in one of these things. What do I do? I grabbed for the panel marked with a telephone symbol and opened it, but just as I put my hand on the receiver the elevator took off. This time I was going up instead of down.
Now, I don’t know about anyone else, but the idea of falling from the second story wasn’t as terrifying as the idea of dropping from somewhere higher. I was steadily climbing, passing our floor and still rising. I grabbed the phone and pressed the single button, but it was dead. My hand went for my cell phone, though I didn’t know exactly who I was going to call, when the elevator stopped on the seventeenth floor. The bell dinged and the doors opened. A group of men stood waiting to get on, but I didn’t care; I was getting off this mechanical menace!
As I started to push my way through them, I recognized, to my alarm, they were converging around me. I opened my mouth to scream as several pairs of hands took hold of me, one of them reaching around, covering my face with a rag. A sweet odor assaulted my senses and blackness hit me.
When I came to my head was still groggy. I wondered if this was just another strange bad dream, but, as soon as my focus returned, I knew this was reality. I was leaned back in a chair with a man on each side holding me upright and another man seated in front of me, studying me intently.
Clarity was returning as I tried to pull myself free. My battle was short lived, and they pushed me roughly back down into the chair.
“Don’t be so upset Annalisa, not yet anyway, I just need to talk with you,” the man across from me murmured in a condescending tone.
“Let go of me!” I growled, still trying to jerk myself free from the men around me. “This isn’t how you tell someone you need to speak with them!”
“If you promise to sit still, I’ll have them turn you loose. I honestly don’t think you’ll want to leave before you hear what I have to say, if you love your husband, that is.”
That hit me harder than the rag that knocked me out. I stopped struggling immediately and the hands released. I think I’d have rather been plummeting to my death in the elevator than for this to have anything to do with Micah.
“What’s this about?” I asked, calmness trying to replace my angered fear.
“My name is D’Angelo,” he began.
I knew the name; this was deadly serious. In Micah’s former mafia life, he obeyed this man’s every command and the command was always to kill someone. As far as I knew, I was the only person to ever survive those orders.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked, low and even.
I could only nod.
“Good. I trust I can ask my assistants to leave and you won’t cause me any problems, correct? We do need to speak in private.”
“Yes,” I tried to say confidently, but it came out as a whisper.
He looked up at the men and they left immediately. He was as unanimated as stone until the door clicked shut, and then he began, “It wasn’t supposed to go quite this far.” An odd smile spread on his leathered face. He was very much Italian. His hair was deep brown and graying along the sides, his eyes were a penetrating black/brown and they had that vacant quality that Micah’s used to get when he had to kill someone. “You weren’t supposed to get married until next month and when I found out it had been moved up, I couldn’t get to you quick enough.”
I was mute, not by choice, but by fright.
“You didn’t move things up due to a pregnancy, did you? That would only complicate matters for Micah.”
“N-no, we just…” I couldn’t explain and he evidently didn’t want to hear an explanation anyway, he just wanted to be certain I wasn’t pregnant. My heart thudded against my chest. It was possible I could be, but I would only be days along and there was no way I was telling him that bit of information.
“Good, then maybe we can salvage this whole thing after all. Micah would never stop looking for you if there was a baby involved.”
The heat in my body felt as if it had been drained and I was now aware of how very cold my hands had become as I unconsciously wrung them together, “What do you mean? Do you have plans to kill me?”
D’Angelo laughed softly, “Of course not, my dear, that simply wouldn’t work to help my cause. I did consider that, but I want him angry, not heartbroken. You’re going to leave your husband, and he’s coming back to the family by his own free will.”
“There is nothing you can do to make me leave him,” I said through a quivering voice. In a matter of moments, I was going to discover how wrong I was about my statement.
“Of course there’s nothing I can do, but I won’t need to when you know what’s at stake.” He reached behind him and picked up a folder and pulled a handful of papers from it and laid one on the table in front of me, “Do you know what this is?”
I could see at a glance that it was a contract on David Gavarreen. I looked up at D’Angelo; there was no need to say the vile words when it was obvious the piece of paper represented the end of David’s life.
“Yes, you know what it is,” he replied when he saw the look in my eyes and took note of the fact that I was refusing to state it. “He should have died months ago, but the family recognized the serious flaw in removing him for his disregard of policy. Giorgio Gavarreen lost one son to you and he couldn’t take losing the other for insubordination. He knows the rules, but he openly threatened the family should any harm come to his remaining son. Giorgio used his family’s position to get them to release Micah, but he won’t let go of David.”
“What does this have to do with my leaving Micah?” I asked, wondering if I was about to become some kind of trade for David’s life.
His hand went back to the folder and removed more papers and spread them on the table. “This is where you come in,” he stated.
To my horror it was plain to see he was showing me contracts on Giorgio, Celeste and Gwen. I felt faint, every ounce of bravery and stubbornness washed out of me. It was a sick relief to me that Micah’s name wasn’t among the contracts. I reached out and separated them to make certain I was seeing it correctly.
“No, his name isn’t there,” D’Angelo answered what hadn’t been asked.
“Would you have shown me if it were?”
“Our family gave the blessing for him to leave, and they don’t go back on their word.” He sounded angry for me asking that question. Evidently, he wasn’t used to someone questioning his integrity.
“Why all of them?” My eyes were beginning to sting with the need to release the pain slamming my senses.
“His entire family knows too much about everyone in our organization. Giorgio has financial dealings with every person, the money they have, what they did to earn it, how they have invested it, where they have invested it; if he goes ballistic he could take us all down.
“And then there is the issue of his lovely wife, Celeste. She’s created new lives for so many of our people, documents and records, complete histories. She helps create identities for those that do complicated hits so things can’t be traced back to the family. If she loses her husband and son, she could wreak havoc.”
He pulled Gwen’s contract away from the others and tapped his finger on it for emphasis. “Gwen is truly the worst of them all. She is our inside connection to law enforcement. We have nearly free reign in Louisiana because of her knowledge about what is happening and where. She keeps heads turned the proper direction when we have a mess to clean up or records and evidence that needs to be, well, let’s just say adjusted. She almost blew that trying to cover for Micah’s escapade with you.
“The FBI is still curious and she’s had to become more legalistic since then so she doesn’t end up in the federal pen. She has a whole rank of officers that are loyal to her. She’s played them like fools, but should she decide to change her ways, we’d be all but shut down in that state.”
“Why are you showing me this?” My voice beginning to crack under the emotional strain.
“I’m going to give you the chance to change it. You see these contracts haven’t been assigned to anyone, yet,” he stated, without leaving any doubt he could issue them within minutes if needed. “If I can get Micah to return, on his own to the family, I can present the argument that he can keep his family together. I don’t think you’ve grasped even a fraction of the kind of man you’ve married. Losing him was quite a blow to the organization. And, I must say, shook the confidence people had in the Gavarreen name.”
“Why do I have to leave him? Can’t I just convince him to return to the-the mob?”
He laughed and leaned back easily in his chair, as he seemed to size me up, “Do you really think you can convince him that you, of all people, want him back in a life of crime? A life where he is expected to go out and kill and then come back to a happy little home while you wait to ask him how his day went? Please, don’t even try to insult my intelligence with that ignorant question. And besides, there are plenty of people in our organization that would be too leery to have you that close to what we do.”
“He’ll never believe that I’ve changed my mind,” I stated honestly.
“Oh, I don’t know about that, I mean you must be a pretty good actress to have stopped him from killing you. And, I know Micah well enough to understand he doesn’t feel like he deserves you in the first place.”
He was right about that. Micah plainly stated he didn’t feel he deserved this shot at happiness. The pain inside was crushing me. I didn’t want to let go. I stubbornly wanted forever with the man I loved, but what was the cost going to be? “And if I refuse to leave him?”
“You can do that; selfishness means you can keep him to yourself and the mob won’t touch him. But I wonder when his entire family is dead in a few days, and he discovers you had the chance to stop all this, how will he feel about you at that point? Has he told you about his life before you met him?”
“I-I didn’t want to know too much about-”
“The first person he ever killed was a woman,” he hissed, cutting me off. “A woman he’d slept with.”
Fear cut into me like a knife and I didn’t want to hear more, “I don’t want to-”
“Whether or not you want to hear this, you are going to understand something about him; when he snaps, and he will snap when this happens, you won’t be able to control him no more than the first woman who tried to control him. Have you felt him on the edge of losing control, Annalisa?” He leaned toward me and the eyes narrowed, “He has a particular problem with women.”
I wanted to call him a liar. I wanted to tell him how incredibly good Micah truly was inside. Yes, I’d felt his control erode, but that was in moments of passion. He’d always been able to reign in his actions. I believed my husband when he told me he could never hurt me, no matter what D’Angelo said about him.
“I personally know women who’ve slept with him and they are all afraid of him.”
“Shut up, you son-of-a-bitch! Micah isn’t-” I tried to stand when I uttered my angry words, but the back of his hand slapped hard against my mouth, knocking me down into the chair.
He snatched the papers from the table and shoved them in my face, “Tell me right now! Do I make these effective or are you going to be reasonable?! Your husband is an animal, a lethal animal, and I need him back.”
It was suddenly very clear; he needed Micah. The lives of the Gavarreen family members were incidental.
My face was stinging, but I refused to cower in pain, “What if I tell Micah what you’re planning?” I grabbed my cell phone and flipped it open.
He looked at me and laughed, “Go ahead. I’ve got enough snipers in this building that he won’t get far. His name doesn’t have to be on these papers for him to lose his life, Annalisa. How about if I call him? Huh? Would that make you happy? I’ll bet he’d be here in minutes and I would kill you both. But this I promise you, you’ll watch him die first.”
My heart shuttered to a stop and then took off as if I’d just run a marathon. I couldn’t allow his family to suffer this fate, even if it meant letting go of the one thing I wanted more than life itself. D’Angelo was right, unarmed, Micah would charge up here to try to save me and I would be responsible for his death. My own life after that would mean nothing to me.
“I’ll let you live long enough,” he continued, “to know the rest of his family is dead-then I’ll kill you, personally.” He reseated himself and straightened his jacket, “It’s a shame really. I’ve known Giorgio and Celeste before they were even married. I was at the Christening of each of his children and I’ve helped train them to be what they are. I would hate to see so much waste. Tell me right now; can you leave him and make it convincing or am I wasting my breath on you?”
“I can do it,” I said, my voice quivering, but completely confident, “but I want one thing in exchange for preventing what would have to be a huge loss for your sick, demented family.” I rose from the chair and put my purse under my arm.
He leaned forward in is chair, his elbows on the arm rests, his lips were pressed against his index fingers as he clasped his hands, “Do you really think you are in any position to ask something of me?”
“Yes, actually I do-if you want this to work.”
“Name it.”
“David doesn’t die,” I uttered.
“That might be difficult, I-”
“Not for you. I know in this ‘family’ a lot of weight is put on a man’s word, I want your word that David won’t be harmed. I think you can find a way to convince the others that he should live.”
He took in a deep breath, still studying me. He’d been intently studying me ever since my eyes opened, “Agreed.” And then he smiled, “I hope you are a convincing actress, for Micah’s sake. But, if you try to get back with him or if you ever tell him what’s been discussed here today, his family won’t last 24 hours, is that understood?”
“I’ll do what I promised and you’ll make sure no one in the Gavarreen family is harmed. Do I have your word?”
“Yes,” he stated, seemingly relieved we reached an accord. He put out his hand to me. I knew he wanted to seal this deal, but the idea of touching him repulsed me. When my hand slipped into his, it was as if I had just shaken the hand of Satan. My world was over and now I had to destroy my perfect new life that was only days old.