Unforgivable Ties

Chapter 8

Vincenzo

S ometimes, I wondered if I had made a mistake forcing Stephanie into this lifestyle. Not just for her wellbeing, but for mine. The redhead occupied a space in my brain constantly, invading my thoughts, disrupting my focus during the day.

The most obvious answer was that I needed to fuck her. Once I had sex with her a few times, these thoughts would be out of my head and I would be able to return to normal. But I wasn’t so sure—I was as drawn to her personality as I was to her looks.

Stephanie was bold, audacious, and had a certain fire in her eyes that was impossible for me to resist. Despite knowing my profession and always having a gun secured at my waist, she wasn’t afraid to argue with me. She was like a magnet, pulling me in with an intensity that left no room for doubt or hesitation. I was drawn to her fiery spirit, the way she talked back when I was being unreasonable, the way she stood her ground no matter what.

Yeah, I definitely had to fuck her. She needed to get out of my mind ASAP. I just hoped it wouldn’t be awkward when I got bored and our relationship went back to business only.

“Vincenzo,” Emilio said, snapping me from my thoughts.

My four friends and I were gathered around, discussing the bug Stephanie had discovered at the dinner table. It was imperative we got to the bottom of this immediately.

“Yeah,” I responded. I needed to stop picturing Stephanie naked and start focusing on this conversation.

“Tell us about the bug.”

I had already briefed them on the night with Vito, so there was no need to recap that. But I had discovered some new information since then.

“I had one of my guys look into it. The bug was for Vito,” I said. “He’s been getting sloppy with his work, apparently.”

“Vito?” said Ettore, his knotted brow portraying his disbelief. “He’s always been the shrewd type. I find it hard to believe he let something like that slip.”

“I was surprised, too,” I responded. “But it’s true. My insider at the station confirmed it. It was a bug from the cops, meant for Vito.”

Ettore let out an audible sigh of relief. As a Don, something like this would have caused major problems if it had been meant for us.

“Well, that’s good,” he muttered, rubbing his hand against his jaw.

“Then it’s not our problem,” Felix, another fellow mafia member, interjected nonchalantly, swirling the amber whiskey in his glass.

“But we shouldn’t be lazy,” his twin brother Rocco added. “We can’t overlook the fact that there was a bug in our vicinity. Vito might have been the target, but we were in close proximity.”

“Good thing you didn’t get to the meat of the conversation,” Emilio said, lighting up a cigarette.

“Yeah, thank god Vito talks a lot,” Felix chuckled. “His incessant ramblings finally came in handy.”

“Agreed,” I said, my mind drifting back to Stephanie. If she hadn’t spotted that bug, we would have been dragged into Vito’s business.

After agreeing on plans for how we would tighten up security and keep watch, we switched the conversation to another subject. A topic that I hadn’t been able to tackle with this bullet wound in my side.

“We need to take down the men who tried to steal the meth shipment,” I said, placing my hand on my almost healed gunshot wound. “It’s punishment, and to serve as a message for anyone else who may be thinking the same thing.”

We finished up our conversation, making plans for our next steps. Ettore and Emilio would deal with increasing security, while Felix, Rocco, and I would take care of the retaliation. It was going to be a dangerous move, but necessary to maintain our reputation on the streets. Living in the underworld had its own rules, and inaction was not an option.

I bid them goodbye, and the minute I stepped foot out of the building my mind immediately drifted to Stephanie. She’d be getting out of classes soon. She didn’t have to work today, so there was no reason I had to see her, but I found myself justifying a visit anyway. There was no way she’d turn down a ride home, right?

I parked my car in the same loading zone as I did when I first picked her up from her college. The usual clamor of students leaving their classes had already begun. Young adults huddled together as they discussed the latest academic trials and tribulations. I marveled at their innocence, their ignorance. Innocence I never got to have. I had been in the mafia from a young age; the path predetermined by the blood coursing through my veins.

Slamming my car door, I walked around the side of the car and waited for Stephanie to appear. Soon enough, she and that prick she called her ex boyfriend walked out of the building together. Even though they were broken up, and I knew she hated him, I still felt a surge of jealousy.

Fuck, no. It couldn’t be jealousy, we weren’t dating. I didn’t do relationships, my life had no room for such fragile sentiments. Attempting to shake off the negative emotions, I focused on Stephanie as she spotted me and gave me a wave.

Her prick ex boyfriend saw and eyed me with undisguised hostility. He said something to her, the words lost in the bustle of the crowd, but Stephanie’s reaction was telling. She rolled her eyes and said something snappy back before leaving him standing there, his face drawn tight with annoyance.

“Hey,” she said, walking up to me.

“Hey.” I noticed her asshole boyfriend was still watching. Carefully, I placed my hand against the small of her back, guiding her towards my car. She shivered slightly under the touch, but didn’t pull away.

“Uhm…what’s that for?” she asked as she glanced back at my hand, her eyes revealing a hint of surprise but not distaste.

“Well, your ex is watching, and he thinks we’re dating.”

That was only part of it. The truth was, I wanted to stake my claim, even if it was just for the moment. Something in me ignited when I saw him with her, and it was an emotion I didn’t recognize.

“Of course he is,” she sighed.

“We shouldn’t disappoint him, right?” I said, using my free hand to cup the side of her face.

Her eyes widened, startled by my sudden, gentle touch. But she didn’t flinch away. Instead, she stared back at me, her breath hitching.

“Vincenzo,” she said, her voice going up an octave. “You’re not suggesting we…?”

I leaned in close, ghosting my lips against the shell of her ear. “Get your mind out of the gutter,” I teased, before pulling away.

“You, you!” she spluttered, her cheeks flaming a gorgeous shade of red.

I opened the car door for her and she slid in, still flushed and flustered. With a last smug look towards her ex-boyfriend, who was now glaring daggers in my direction, I closed the door and walked around to the driver’s side.

“I don’t work today,” she said. “And I’m not doing anymore side work for you.”

“Calm down. I have to go to the warehouse by your house, so I thought I’d give you a ride home.”

It was a lie. I most certainly did not need to go to that warehouse, but I could find a reason to poke around.

“You’re something else,” she muttered under her breath, but there was no fire behind it. Just a spark of frustration and surprise.

“You’re welcome,” I responded, and drove us towards her apartment, a comfortable silence between us.

As we pulled up to her apartment, there was a city truck parked outside, blocking the entrance to the complex’s driveway. I parked the car on the street, and the two of us got out.

“What’s going on?” she asked, looking confused. “Are they doing maintenance work?”

I almost laughed. As if they’d be doing maintenance work in a shithole like this.

We walked closer and saw a man hammering red signs into each apartment door. It said “condemned” in capital letters, with smaller text beneath that we couldn’t quite make out from a distance.

“Wh-what? No!” Stephanie said, jogging towards a worker.

I couldn’t say I was surprised. The reason I was under the impression there were no apartments in this area was because I thought this building had been condemned the entire time. I followed behind her, watching the confusion on her face turn into panic as she reached the worker.

“…structural damage, black mold, electrical hazards, toxic chemicals, illegal additions,” the city worker said to her.

“No way! I live in there; it’s totally fine!”

As if on cue, the step I had been weakening finally gave way and broke in half. The concrete narrowly avoided hitting a worker who was pounding a sign into one of the apartment doors below.

“The building needs to be vacated immediately,” the worker said to her.

“But my stuff is in there!” Her eyes grew wide and desperate, her hands clenching into tight fists.

“I’m afraid it’s too unsafe, miss,” the worker said, shooting an apologetic glance her way.

“But, but,” she said, her eyes welling up with tears.

“You haven’t put the signs on the second floor, right?” I said, stepping in front of Stephanie to talk to the worker. He shrank away from me, like most people, intimidated by my size.

“Well, no, but—”

“So that means we have time to grab her things before that floor is officially condemned,” I finished for him, crossing my arms and looking down at the worker.

“I-I suppose if you’re quick about it,” he stammered, inching away from me.

“Great.”

Stephanie and I climbed the stairs, making sure to skip the missing step. She unlocked the door to her apartment, and let out a little sigh of defeat as we walked inside.

“We need to be quick about this,” I said. “Get your suitcases and bags. I’ll do your clothes and toiletries, you can grab the stuff that’s sentimental or can’t be replaced.”

Stephanie nodded, wordlessly moving towards her bedroom. As she pulled out luggage bags and backpacks, I moved towards the closet. I grabbed one of the unzipped bags and shoved her clothes in haphazardly. Knowing our time was limited, I moved quickly. I could hear the constant pounding below as they continued to place signs on each door, a reminder that we were against the clock.

I tore through her wardrobe, trying not to let my thoughts wander as I picked up her bras and panties and shoved them in the bag. My mind’s eye couldn’t help itself, and it flickered to her wearing a purple lace set I had stumbled upon, that she must have saved for special occasions.

“Fuck,” I mumbled, shaking my head to clear the thoughts out.

After clearing out her clothes, I made my way into her bathroom, shoving all her makeup and girly shit into another bag. Then, a hot pink flash caught my eye and I couldn’t help but smirk. It was the toy that Stephanie had left out to dry the day I had forced myself into her apartment. I threw that and her vibrator in the bag, too.

“Time’s up,” a gruff voice barked from the stairwell, the echo of it carrying throughout the apartment.

As I stepped back into the living room, the worker’s tone shifted. This wasn’t the same man who had spoken to us earlier.

“I mean ah, sorry, we have to close this up,” he said, shifting uncomfortably.

“Okay,” Stephanie said sadly.

We took her bags and walked back towards the car.

“Vincenzo,” she said, her eyes welling up with tears. “What am I going to do? I mean, Jessica will let me stay in her living room, but the apartment is super small and Ted lives there, too. And I—”

“Stay with me,” I said abruptly, cutting her off. She blinked at me, her brown eyes wide with surprise. “I have an extra room.”

“Stay with you?” she echoed weakly.

I could see the gears turning in her mind, calculating the pros and cons. There were a lot of cons—I was a dangerous mafia member after all, a criminal with a rap sheet longer than the Mississippi river. But the pros included having a place to sleep that wasn’t a sofa in a cramped apartment shared with two other people. And I was offering it freely.

“You barely know me, Vincenzo,” she said. “Why would you...”

“I know enough,” I responded, tossing one of her bags in the trunk. “Are you coming?”

Nodding, she tossed the backpack she was carrying in the backseat.