Lure (Mafia Queen Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Front Matter

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Signup for my Newsletter

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Back Matter

  Lavish (Mafia Queen #2) Cover

  Groupie Cover

  I Was Born Ruined Cover

  Glacier Cover

  Biker Rockstar Billionaire CEO Alpha Cover

  Keep Up With The Fun

  More Books By C.M. Stunich

  About the Author

  This was it for me, the beginning of the end, the moment I shifted my gears from reluctant princess to greedy queen.

  Lure (Mafia Queen #1)

  Lure © C.M. Stunich 2017

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  For information address Sarian Royal Indie Publishing, 89365 Old Mohawk Rd, Springfield, OR 97478.

  www.sarianroyal.com

  Cover art and design © Amanda Carroll and Sarian Royal

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, businesses, or locales is coincidental and is not intended by the author.

  this book is dedicated to all the wonderful authors in my writing group.

  you know who you are!

  to many more late nights of writing to come.

  Special thanks go to Arianna Amyra H. Bonfanti for helping me with the Italian that appears in this book! Any errors remaining are entirely my own.

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  Seduction was not a weapon I was comfortable wielding.

  “A woman can bring a man to his knees with the right shade of lipstick,” my mother used to say. And there wasn't a person on this earth that would know better than her; she'd married the most feared man in North America, kept his attention until the very end.

  But I was not my mother.

  “I don't …” I started to say, but I knew better than to spit meaningless phrases at my father's feet. Telling him that I didn't understand would only get me a harsh, bitter smile and a reprimand that would sting as sharp as the kiss of a whip.

  I did understand.

  I just didn't want to believe that his words were true.

  I swallowed hard and swept my hands back over my hair, pushing the dark wavy strands away from my face. I was sweating—profusely—but my lips, tongue, and throat were suddenly dry, like none of the moisture in my body was where it was supposed to be. Droplets of sweat dotted my forehead and trailed down my spine like warm fingers.

  “I'm sorry,” I said, taking a deep breath and trying to ignore the men on either side of me, dressed casually enough but with this tightness to their bodies, like taut strings. If my father were to give any indication that he wanted me dead, I would be. “But why now?”

  “Let me worry about that,” he said, standing up and moving across my mother's meticulously decorated living room. Since she'd died, he'd kept the place up like a museum, treasuring every last magazine she'd left fanned out on the coffee table, the empty water glass on the mantle, even the vase of flowers on the sofa table. They were as dead as she was, but there they sat, brown and dried in the white vase my mother'd received as a wedding present.

  I was pretty sure her dying had driven him insane.

  “You want me to … date three different men?” I asked, feeling a small tremor pass through me as my father, Carlo Costello, the leader of the Costello Crime Family, paused on my right side, his arm just barely touching mine.

  “Is that a new habit you've developed since moving out?” he asked me, and even that simple question held the slightest tinge of a threat. “Repeating things that have already been said?”

  I stood there, staring straight ahead at my mother's white linen couch, watching my life pull away from me like waves on a beach.

  No, no, no, no, no. This isn't happening. I won't let this happen.

  “I have a life now,” I started, but Carlo just laughed.

  “A life?” he asked, as he waved Vincent, his consigliere—basically his advisor—over to us. Carlo put a big, meaty hand on my shoulder, a gesture that should've been familial but came across as ominous instead. “Ah, tesoro, you know that any life you lead is just a gift from me.”

  His hand slid off my shoulder and he walked away, loafers loud against the marble floor, the taint of cigarette smoke trailing along behind him.

  I waited until I got to the bar to have a freak-out.

  “No, God, please,” I whispered, rubbing at the rosary around my neck and pacing back and forth in the swanky gray-on-gray bathroom at the Nightingale. It was the only bar I liked, upscale enough to keep college students out but affordable enough that I could keep a long-standing appointment with my best friends to have drinks every Friday night.

  Putting my hands on the edge of the countertop, I leaned forward and stared at myself in the mirror, at the purple-blue bags under my eyes and the tightness around my mouth. I was feeling okay about turning thirty next month, really okay … but now, looking at myself, I looked haggard.

  “Fuck you, Carlo,” I growled, turning on the tap and splashing my face with water. One visit with that man had aged me a decade and now I was supposed to work for him? I glanced up, staring into dark brown eyes ringed with smudged liner.

  My father's eyes.

  I hit the tap with the heel of my hand and headed out into the haziness of the bar, happy chatter and the clinking of glasses following me across the room toward our usual table.

  “We need you, Adelasia.” A pause. An eerie smile. “That special talent that only you possess.”

  “I won't do it,” I said as I tucked my sequined clutch under one arm and steered my way through the bar, straight over to where Takia, Edlyn, and Millie were sitting, waiting for me. “I'll just tell him no and that'll be it. He has no control over me. None. The things I know could sink that whole ship …”

  Yet I knew without a doubt that if I went to the cops with the mafia's secrets, I wouldn't be around long enough to enjoy this life I was so scared of losing.

  “Hey!” I said, plastering a false smile onto my face as I slid into the purple velvet booth. “Looks like you guys got started without me.”

  I waved a server down as Takia pushed her martini toward me.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, putting her hand on my arm, a full wrist of gold bracelets tinkling with the motion. “You don't look very good.”

  “I'm just …” I started, but how did I tell my friends that everything they knew about me was a lie? How did I tell them that the bubbly, outgoing girl they met in college was a persona that I made up to escape the reality of who I really was? As far as they knew, both my parents were dead, and the lives they had lived … boring, average, unassuming.

  So how was I supposed to tell them that my father wanted me to date not one, not two, but three different mafia underbosses? Hmm? Three different men with the royal blood of three different crime families running through their veins, each one a prince to his own throne.

  “Meet with them. Seduce them. Find out what I need to know.”

  It was dis
gusting, just fucking disgusting. All of it.

  My father wanted to join two great crime families by using me as a pawn—but he wanted to play the field first. It was a dangerous move that risked my life first and foremost. An indispensable weapon, that's what my father called me.

  “Just … had a hard day at work,” I lied, downing Takia's drink in a single sip and setting the glass down on the table a little harder than necessary. “Just a hard goddamn day.”

  “It's not Bo, is it?” Edlyn asked, leaning back against the seat, and surreptitiously glancing down at the screen of her phone. It was sitting on the table, glowing harshly in the dim, atmospheric lighting. Edlyn had three kids—one of whom was a nine month old baby—and she didn't get out much. Friday was supposed to be her day of the week to relax, but she couldn't resist checking her phone every few minutes to see if her husband had texted.

  “It's not Bo,” I confirmed, mouthing a generous thank you to the waiter for bringing over my drink.

  God. Bo.

  His face was the first image that popped up in my mind when my father started talking, listing his demands like I was a soldier in his stupid fucking army instead of his only daughter. Bo, my boyfriend of two years, was not going to just sit by while I dated three other dudes. And even if he were so inclined, how did I explain the how part of this equation?

  How the hell did a twenty-nine year old woman get forced into dating men she didn't know for her father's crime syndicate?

  Because her life depended on it, that's why.

  But like the girls, Bo didn't know a damn thing about the true history of the woman he was living with. Not a goddamn thing.

  “Lawyer stuff?” asked Millie, and I smiled, nice and tight. Three sips of the drink in my hand and I was starting to feel a little more relaxed.

  Well, as relaxed as a person can be when they've just been told by their mafia don father that they're going to be dating three violent criminals with sordid histories painted in blood.

  Oh, sure, I was about as calm as a rabid wolverine.

  “Lawyer stuff,” I repeated, because apparently that was all I was capable of in that moment.

  “I don't care if you have to wine, dine, or fuck their brains out, but you will figure out who's in league with the cartel and then report back to me. Are we clear, cucciola?”

  My throat got tight all of a sudden and I had to down the rest of my drink just to wet it enough to speak.

  “So, what's up with you guys?” I asked, trying to settle myself into the familiarity of our routine, a routine that I wasn't going to get to enjoy for much longer if I didn't figure out a way to weasel out of this.

  Either my dad was going to kill me for refusing his orders … or one of the other families was going to find out that he was not only shopping for my future husband-to-be, but also fishing for information that somebody was going to be awful careful to keep.

  Seduce three dangerous men.

  Kill one.

  Marry one.

  Hope the third didn't kill me when he found out what I'd done.

  Oh yeah.

  Seduction was not my weapon of choice.

  But it might be my only salvation.

  Nightmares stole the rest of my Friday night away from me, leaving me in a sad, sorry state on Saturday morning. Bo was out of town, so I had the apartment all to myself, just me and his little orange tabby cat named Sanders.

  “I hate my life,” I told the cat as he sat in Bo's usual chair and licked his shoulder.

  My elbow was propped on the edge of the table, my head in my hand as I contemplated downing a glass of orange juice to try to wash away my hangover. Then again, considering the current state of my affairs, maybe a little hair of the dog was in order?

  “Well, actually,” I continued as Sanders chewed a spot on his leg and made me wonder if it was time to reapply his flea medication, “I loved my life. See? The worst thing I had to deal with on a Saturday was whether or not Bo would make it home for dinner, and if I should give you a bath. Now it's wondering if I'm going to be executed in my sleep by hitmen who work for my father.”

  I stood up, my stool scraping across the worn hardwood floor, and made my way over to the cabinet for some vodka. It was screwdriver time for fucking sure.

  I refused to look at the clock and acknowledge that it was only nine in the morning.

  When one's life is on the line … vodka is not just a want but a necessity.

  “What am I going to do, Sand?” I asked, pouring a more than healthy dose of alcohol into my juice. “If Carlo were at all inclined to take his daughter's wishes into account, he wouldn't have asked me over to the house with an audience.” I finished pouring my drink and set the bottle aside, picking up the glass and not even bothering to stir it before I took a chug. “If I defy him now, then everyone will know it. They'll know it and he'll have no choice but to …”

  I didn't get to finish my sentence—not that it mattered since, you know, I was talking to a cat—because the doorbell to my loft rang, echoing with ominous intent around the cozy little space I shared with Bo.

  “Jesus Christ,” I murmured and clutched at my rosary, praying that it was just Millie stopping by with coffee or Edlyn with a desperate plea for me to babysit. I grabbed my phone off the table as I moved to the door, but the only message on there was from Bo.

  Have dinner out with me tonight? I'll be home at six.

  I swallowed hard and bit my lower lip, trying to hold back a scream.

  I didn't even bother to check the peephole before I opened the door; I already knew who was going to be standing on the other side of it.

  “Good morning, Vincent,” I said, nostrils flaring at the sight of Vincent Gotti, my father's righthand man. He was looking sharp in a checkered black and white suit, a crisp button-up and black silk tie layered underneath. His face was lined, but still handsome. It was no wonder my Aunt Giuliana had fallen for him almost as badly as my mother'd fallen for Carlo. “Would you like something to drink?”

  “I'd love something,” he said, closing the door behind him and making sure to flip all the locks. “Bourbon, neat, if you've got it.”

  “I have vodka and red wine,” I told him, noticing a visible wince on his part as I made my way over to the kitchen cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Cabernet. I made sure it was a California grape—there wasn't a man in the Costello Crime Family that didn't despise Napa Valley wine.

  “Vodka then,” he said, and then waited patiently next to the table while I fetched him a glass.

  Old-fashioned as he was, he didn't sit until I did.

  “You're here awfully early,” I said, and watched as his thin lips twisted into a smile. He looked nice enough like this, sitting at the distressed French country bistro table that Bo and I had picked out at the secondhand shop. But I knew better. I'd seen this man covered head to toe in blood.

  “You know your father,” he said with a congenial laugh, leaning back in his seat and tapping his fingers on the tabletop. “Once he's made a decision, he likes to move quick. Besides, cartel involvement is bad for business. We've all got families to take care of, Adelasia.”

  “Right,” I said, taking the seat opposite him and pulling my screwdriver close. If Vincent was here this early in the morning, I was going to need at least three of these to function properly. “This is all about putting food in your children's mouths.”

  “The family always put food in yours, didn't it?” he asked me as I stared into the thick orange waters of my drink. It was tempting to lift it up and toss it in his face, but that wouldn't get me anywhere. If there was one thing the family would not tolerate, it was disrespect. “Paid for that fancy law school of yours.” He paused and lifted the tumbler to his mouth, taking a long, slow sip of the vodka. It was good stuff, nice and smooth, but he sipped it so slow, savored the mouthful before swallowing—and he didn't even flinch. “Tell me, Lazy,” Vincent continued, using my childhood nickname, the one I'd always hated. I might've been a lot
of things, but lazy was not one of them. “What have you ever done for the family? Hmm? Have you ever put that fancy law degree of yours to good use?”

  “I work in animal rights law, Vincent, not criminal law. Helping men slip past very legitimate charges isn't exactly my thing.”

  “Right, va bene, so you use your degree for puppies and kitties—I respect that.”

  I frowned. It didn't sound like he respected me at all. No, I was clearly being mocked.

  “So if you won't use that law degree of yours to help your papà, then why not take advantage of that pretty face?” Vincent winked at me as I tightened my mouth into a long, thin line.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  I'd worked my whole life to stand up for those that didn't have a voice—working for equal rights for women and those in the LGBT community, for the rights of shelter animals, fighting to save huge swaths of public parklands from development. I wasn't about to sit here and watch my own voice be ripped straight from my throat.

  “If I find out the information that my father wants,” I began, knowing that I was trying to bargain with absolutely zero chips. If I wasn't careful, my father would send someone after Bo, after Takia, Edlyn, or Millie. And then, once everyone I loved was dead, he'd come after me. “I'd like to come back here, to my life.”

  Vincent smiled and stood up without answering me, setting his empty vodka glass aside.

  “Phone, please,” he said as I gaped up at him.

  My entire life was in that phone. My work schedule, client list, photos of me and Bo, my girlfriends' numbers.

  “What do you need my phone for?” I asked warily, pushing it across the table. Thing was, I knew this was coming. In fact, I'd been worrying about something like this happening for so long that I always kept a backup phone—charged and connected to my account. The phone I carried with me was connected to the cloud and scheduled to backup all my information every hour on the hour.

  Vincent could take this phone, but I had another one.

  “You let me worry about that,” he told me, pocketing my cell and handing me another one. “You'll get a different phone everyday,” he explained, watching as I flipped through mindless photos of kittens, grocery lists I'd never made, and texts to numbers I didn't recognize. It was all meaningless fluff, meant to throw off someone snooping through my phone. “Every morning, you will check in with me,” he continued, moving over to the door and unlocking it, gesturing with his chin for several of my father's men to enter. “Understood? No matter where you are.” His mouth quirked up at one edge. “If you spend the night out, no problem. But at nine every morning,” Vincent pointed to the clock on the stove, “you will call me and we'll talk about meeting for breakfast. Understood?”