Chapter One:Denise
As the airplane reached its intended altitude, the pounding in my head reached an apex. My vision was starting to blur, and I thought I might actually pass out. I probably should have been relieved that I was on a private jet back to Chicago as opposed to laying in a ditch next to my spineless brother with more holes in me than swiss cheese, but as Anthony Carducci stared me down from the seat across from me, his large, imposing form completely taking up his seat and some of those next to him, I wondered if I might be better off dead.
The steady drum of bullets leaving their guns still echoed in my mind and would likely haunt my nightmares for years. Getting in between the Varasso family and the happily ever after they’d planned for themselves nearly cost me my life, and as I rode away from my family’s home, knowing I’d never see it again, knowing my father and brothers were dead, knowing that it just as easily could have been me, my stomach churned in a continuous loop, despite my not having eaten that day.
To my right, Anthony’s twin sons, Ashton and Arturo Carducci, both sat looking at me with their own gazes of pity. Arturo’s expression matched his dad’s—disappointed and angry. On the other end of that expression was a gun set for my face, hinting that I might be reunited with my dead dad and brothers sooner than I’d like. If I didn’t find a way to shift those gazes, my final resting place would likely be Chicago, and I would probably find myself dead not long after the plane touched down.
Next to Arturo, his brother sat staring at me with more of a sad expression, if not forlorn. It wasn’t as if I was totally unaware of his attraction to me. Hell, there was a time when I’d considered it. The twins were gorgeous, no doubt taking after their mother as opposed to the ogre that was Anthony. They had dirty blond hair, with enough length for it to stick up off their heads. Arturo kept his gelled back, while Ashton preferred to let his hair do whatever it felt like that day. They both boasted impressive muscles. Even if Arturo was a bit bigger, Ashton’s look suited me better. He was strong enough that he could handle me with ease, but not so big that he bordered on body-builder like his brother.
Yeah, I’d considered Ashton at one point, but between my mom shoveling me back and forth between Chicago and Philly and Anthony forcing me to play double agent between the Binachis and the Varassos, a romantic life wasn’t something I had much time for.
In front of me, Anthony pulled a gun out of his waistband and set it on the seat next to him. It wasn’t a threat but a warning. Making it to Chicago was still a maybe. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what happened?”
What a simple question with such a loaded answer. Did it make the most sense to tell Anthony that I’d intentionally changed his plan from killing Gabriel Varasso to trying to befriend and flip him? Or should I start with the fact that, in trying to get revenge on my brother for torturing me through my childhood, I’d accidentally let too much information slip, allowing the smartest of the Varassos, Willow, to figure out Anthony’s plan?
“It wasn’t my fault. I don’t know how she figured it out,” I said.
Everythinghadbeen going according to plan. For a con-woman like me, it wasn’t a difficult plan to carry out. Infiltrate the Varassos, kill Gabriel to paralyze my mother, Illiana Costa, and keep the Varassos from running, then lure Dario and the remaining Varasso boys into Anthony’s trap so thathecould take control of Philly and the two families that lived there. I’d infiltrated more well-guarded organizations before. It was even easier to do because the Varassos already wanted revenge on Dario, and I wanted revenge just as much. Dario, along with my father and my other brother, had killed the Varasso patriarch, Angelo, and nearly killed the boys and their wives. The Varassos were so blinded by rage that they didn’t pick up on the most obvious clues.
Or so I thought.
Willow was the one little hiccup in my plan, the single Varasso who wasn’t willing to overlook the menial. Thanks to her incessant dislike of me and persistence in getting her family to see that I was actually a crook, she’d managed to unravel the truth about me. I was actually the eldest daughter of Illiana Costa, the quiet queen of Chicago and the darkest mob boss in the midwest. Willow also realized that I was one of five kids, including her brother-in-law, Gabriel, that my mother had with the other five families’ bosses. As much as her intelligence ruined my life, I had to give it to her—she was smart, and in the end, that ruined everything.
“I know how she figured it out,” Anthony growled. “You spent too much time with the damn Varassos. I told you, make nice, get in, kill Gabriel, and get out. What the hell were you still doing there a whole fucking week later?”
I scoffed. “He was with his wife nearly twenty-four-seven.” It wasn’t untrue, but it also wasn’t the reason I failed.
Could it have been that, in the little bit of time I spent with the Varasso family, they actually treated me like one of their own? Could it have been the fact that with Marco Varasso’s wife in Maine when we’d all gotten together for the family barbecue, it felt like I could have been the woman he was missing? Could it have been that I realized I didn’t want to kill my brother when I saw him smiling with his new wife and planning for a future with her? In the end, there were dozens of reasons why I was still putzing around days after the kill was supposed to happen.
Ididlegitimately try to kill Willow, not that it counted for much.
“So kill her too,” Arturo added from the next row over. “All you had to do was spare the boys. It shouldn’t have been that difficult. We were waiting for the call. You tell us Gabriel’s dead, and we swoop in and get you before they even know.”
“It wasn’t that easy,” I hissed back. “I tried.”
Anthony let out a barking laugh. “You didn’t try. If you’d tried, you’d have been successful.”
I crossed my arms. “Look. I told you, I’m not a killer. I’m a con-artist. If you wanted a fucking gun war, you should have sent in Mr. Eager over there, not me.”
“I wasn’t about to send them into the lion’s den,” Anthony replied.
“But you’ll send me?”
Anthony shrugged. “Who are you to me at the end of the day?”
That phrase stung. It was always how things had been for me. I was never anything to anyone. Maybe that’s why I found it so easy to take on different personas and galavant around the world, behaving as if I was someone else. The Binachis certainly didn’t see me as one of their own, apart from Renee, the Binachi matriarch who selflessly raised her husband’s bastard child like her own. I’d never been more than a tool to my real mother, Illiana Costa. Like with my siblings, she’d given birth to me for no reason other than providing herself political gains down the line.
The Varassos started to treat me like their own—Willow not included. When I threw myself in front of a bullet aimed at Marco, I was acting on pure impulse. I’d developed feelings for him and didn’t want to see him die. The way they all corralled around me and rushed me to a hospital. The way they fawned over me when Alessandro Varasso, the family head, had me transferred to their family home. I actually felt like they cared about me.
Then Willow ruined it. All she had to do was keep her mouth shut while I figured out how to develop a new plan that got me out of Anthony’s clutches, and then I could have made away with them intotheirnew life.
But I wasn’t a Varasso, either, and that became incredibly clear when I tried to shut Willow up. They didn’t wonder if I’d snapped, if it was an accident, or if I was just under stress. In an instant, I was back to being the outsider, just like I’d never been anything to them at all.
“Where’s Callista?” I asked.
Anthony frowned at me. “Don’t change the subject. I asked you what happened.”
“I told you what happened,” I spat back. “Don’t forget that this was allmyplan to begin with. You’d know nothing if it wasn’t for me. Not about the Costas. Not about the Binachis. Not about the Varassos. You’d still be running around, catching nothing but the used-up air my mother left behind, so don’t act as if I’ve toppled some great structure for you. If anything, this is a setback.”
