“What the hell?” She jerked back, her hand pressing against the spot before running her fingers over the area, feeling for anything out of the ordinary. Anger sparked to life in her violet eyes. “That asshole. He must have put the tracker in the cut I got that morning after he drugged me.” She snapped the button and tugged down one side of the waistband of her pants to reveal a large Band-Aid before peeling the edge back to reveal a small, jagged cut with three poorly done stiches.
“I’m assuming your stepbrother, Ricco, did that?”
Her lips pulled back in a sneer. “The one and only.”
“You have two options. I can remove it here and now or wait and have my brother do it in Chicago. I vote for that option.” Trey would fix the sloppy job Ricco had done without leaving a scar. He could also pinpoint exactly where and how deep it was without having to dig around too much, which is what I would have had to do.
“Your brother, the surgeon?”
“Yes.” I sat back down, and after she patted the bandage back in place and refastened her pants, she did the same.
“Okay. I guess I can wait.”
I texted Trey and told him when we would be at Marco’s home and to meet us there to remove Mia’s tracker. Three dots appeared immediately, and I headed off the questions that I knew would be coming withI’ll explain later.
“I’m sorry,” Mia said. She reached across the table and rested her hand atop mine before removing it.
I couldn’t help but wonder if she, too, felt the zaps of electricity every time we touched.
“The contents in the bag were important to me. Mostly the jewelry box and the letter.”
Not the money or jewels. I was a little surprised—curiosity about what made her tick burned inside me. It had become clear that I was giving her a second chance. That damn nightmare she’d had and the fear I’d seen in her eyes before she’d masked it at Guido’s presence solidified my choice. I would protect her. I also wanted to get to know her better. “Why is that?”
Her gaze softened, turning introspective, and she leaned back against the chair. “My mom would play games with me when I was younger. The jewelry box was our secret place to communicate without others overhearing or watching—something just for us. She would leave me trinkets, fortunes, and little notes in the bottom drawer. I would put in a drawing for her, a pressed flower, or anything that I thought was special.”
“Didn’t your mom pass away when you were young?” I could understand why it meant something to her.
“Yes. I was seven years old. The night before she died, I heard her sneak into my room. I don’t know why I did this, but I pretended to be asleep. She put something in the drawer. It wasn’t until the next morning that I went to see what it was.” Mia pulled the gold chain with a vertical bar from beneath her shirt. “It was as if she knew she wouldn’t live past morning. Years later, I found the key and note she’d taped to the bottom of the drawer. She must have added them the night she left the necklace.”
“What did the note say?” It was apparent her mother was murdered. My guess was that her husband, Joey Tucci, had done it.
“Just what it would open.” She shrugged. “A locker at the train station. The getaway bag was in there, and I decided to keep the jewelry box there, too, because if I ever had to leave suddenly, I wasn’t letting go of it.”
“What was it like for you without your mom there?” Mia was a barely a blip on our radar. There were very few photographs of her.
My instincts said she wasn’t an enemy, but there was too much about her that I didn’t know. In a way, I understood why she hadn’t confided in me about getting her bag. It held something irreplaceable, and she didn’t want to risk its loss. If the alliance between us was to stand a chance in hell, though, we had to establish a baseline of trust. And I needed to learn more about her to anticipate her reactions better. She was still very much a mystery.
“I hadn’t realized how much my mom shielded me from the Mafia life until she was gone. After I woke up that morning and found her necklace, I put it on and then hid it under my shirt—just in case my dad decided to take it away. I also learned she’d died. He said it was a heart attack, a blood clot that they hadn’t known about that caused it.
“Everything happened so fast. Within a week, she was in the ground, and the captain of our guard had been shot. That wouldn’t have impacted me terribly, but everything changed again when my dad married the captain’s widow. Things were worse than before because with her came Ricco, my new stepbrother.”
“How old was he at the time?” Ricco was on our radar. He was rumored to be cruel but effective, and he had been named Joey’s underboss and the successor to the Tucci throne.
“He was nine.” She drew in a breath and held my gaze. “I want to make this work between us. I know running off this morning didn’t do me any favors regarding your trust, but I take the oath between us seriously. Because of that, I’ll tell you everything.”
I raised my brows, curious how far I could push her. “Including the information about the inner workings of your family’s trafficking ring?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, no. I already told you that would come after we’re married. I need to hold some power in this deal. I can’t risk you calling it off.”
I’d given her my word, but I would have done the same in her situation.
“When Mom was alive, I often saw the kids in both the Amato and Verretti families,” Mia explained. “She liked to get together with the other Mafia wives and socialize with us kids. After she died, I only saw the Verretti boys, Dante, Cal, and Adriano, if their father brought them to a meeting, which wasn’t often. I liked them. Guido wasn’t someone I wanted to be around, but he and Ricco got along well.”
“Not surprising there.”
“Exactly. When I complained to my dad about being stuck at home and not playing with other kids or even going to school, he told me my role in this life and how he needed to keep me locked away until the day I was to be married.”
The Chicago families were never that extreme. Even Camilla Rossi—who was given to Vic Pavlov, a member of the Russian Bratva, in an arranged marriage—had been able to attend school and have friends.