Dangerous Ladies Read online

  Danny pulled out a chair.

  She seated herself, and Roberto shoved his way in next to her. Right next to her, almost on her lap, like some guy protecting his territory. She was tempted to elbow him again, but the waitress slapped menus on the table before her and Roberto, then stood with her pad at the ready.

  A single glance told Brandi what she wanted. “A Coke and a garlic kielbasa.” Garlic sounded like just the thing to ward off vampires . . . and Italian lovers.

  “Grilled onions and sauerkraut?” the waitress asked.

  “Oh, yes.” Brandi smiled sweetly at Roberto. “And fries. Lots of fries.”

  “I’ll have the same,” he said.

  The way he looked at her, she got the feeling that he wouldn’t care if she smelled like garlic and sauerkraut, which was bad for her plan to stay away from him—and way too flattering.

  “So, Bobby, how’s your grandfather?” Mossimo grinned, a lopsided grin that matched the way he talked. “Sergio doesn’t get out much. I haven’t seen him for a long time.”

  “For a man who’s eighty-one, he’s good. A few aches, a few pains. When the weather’s cold, his hand hurts.” Roberto tapped his forehead. “But the mind’s still sharp.”

  “Good. Good. As for the hand”—Mossimo pulled a long face—“it was too bad, but it had to be done.”

  The conversation died as the men looked at one another, then looked at her.

  You’d think they never dined with a woman.

  “Are you from Chicago, Miss Michaels?” Mossimo asked.

  “No, I just moved here.” No one said anything, and she added inanely, “It’s cold.”

  The Fosseras shuffled their feet under the table. Roberto leaned back in his chair, apparently relaxed, his thumbs tucked into his pockets, and not at all interested in upholding his end of the conversation.

  Why had he insisted on dining with these people if he didn’t want to talk to them?

  Yet Tiffany had instilled in Brandi her womanly duty, so she asked, “Have you lived here all your life, Mr. Fossera?”

  “I was born in Italy, but I came here with my brother Ricky when I was eleven. These kids were all born here.” Mossimo shut his mouth as if he’d inadvertently revealed state secrets.

  Carrying on a conversation with these guys was the heaviest social burden she’d ever had, and when her phone rang, she gratefully pulled it out of her purse.

  Then she looked at the number, and she wasn’t grateful anymore. “Excuse me; I have to take this. It’s McGrath and Lindoberth.” Pushing her chair back, she walked away from the table. She heard the buzz of conversation behind her as she left, but what those guys were saying about her wasn’t nearly as important as what McGrath and Lindoberth was about to say to her. Taking a breath, she answered.

  It was Glenn, and the tone of his voice froze Brandi as surely as did the weather. “What happened?”

  “I was going to call you. We had a little trouble with Judge Knight.” Euphemistically speaking.

  “I just got off the phone with Judge Knight, and that’s not what he told me.”

  Brandi should have anticipated that. She would have if she hadn’t just suffered through Roberto’s transformations: from Roberto the charming to Roberto the jewel thief to Roberto the aristocrat to Roberto the common jerk. Her brain was confused. “The judge took exception to a few things Mr. Bartolini said.”

  “Miss Michaels, in deference to your inexperience, I gave you the easiest job on the case—getting Mr. Bartolini down to meet Judge Knight so the judge would be predisposed to his case. And you failed.”

  What a balding, pompous windbag! She would take credit for being stupid and sleeping with a stranger—although not to Glenn—but she wasn’t taking the fall for Roberto’s behavior. “Mr. Silverstein, I am hardly capable of directing Mr. Bartolini’s conversation, and in fact, if Judge Knight told you everything, he told you that I kept him from immediately putting Mr. Bartolini in jail.”

  “Instead you got him remanded into your custody. Every woman here would kill to be in your position.” Glenn’s voice rose. “Do you think I’m a fool, Miss Michaels?”

  She wished he wouldn’t ask leading questions. Not when she was this tired, this hungry, and this irritated with men in general and Roberto in particular. “Mr. Silverstein, let me relieve your mind. I’m having lunch in a hot-dog place that I froze my rear off getting to because Mr. Bartolini wanted to walk. I am now stuck with Mr. Bartolini’s company when I should be home trying to reorganize my vandalized apartment. And in case you haven’t heard the gossip, my fiancé just married another woman.” It did her heart good to use Alan just once to deflect trouble.

  “Um, yeah, I did hear that. But that’s really no excuse.” Glenn didn’t sound quite as forceful, though, probably because he was one of those guys who hated it when women cried.

  If only he knew how far she was from tears.

  Her phone beeped. She checked the number and said, “Excuse me, Mr. Silverstein; I have to take this. It’s my landlord—hopefully with the news that they caught the man who vandalized my apartment.” With a wicked glee, she put Glenn on hold.

  “Miss Michaels?” Eric sounded brisk and efficient. “The insurance man has come and gone, and he took pictures of the destruction. The cleaners are done. I personally supervised them. The broken glass is vacuumed up. Your belongings, the ones that were unharmed, were put away—I know that not everything is in the right spot, but you can return and feel that you don’t have to immediately unpack. I had the cleaners put into boxes things that I thought you’d want to distribute yourself. They’re stacked on the wall between your bedroom and the living room. The crew cleaned the carpets—”

  “The carpets?” What had been wrong with the carpets?

  “Yes, there was an odor. We ascertained that the vandals—”

  “Vandals? There was more than one?” She rubbed her forehead.

  “The video shows two men. They were wrapped up with scarves and hats; there’s no way to tell who they are.”

  “How did they get in?”

  “It looked like they broke in somehow.”

  She took a long, frightened breath.

  “But probably someone let them in. We’re upgrading the security at the front. I’m so sorry, Miss Michaels; this has never happened before, and it won’t happen again.” He really did sound sorry.

  She wrapped her arm around her waist and shivered. She supposed someday she’d feel secure again. “I appreciate that, Eric. About the carpet?”

  “The vandals relieved themselves in the living room, so we cleaned all the carpets.”

  She changed her mind. She would never feel secure in that apartment. And she was never walking barefoot in there again.

  Eric continued, “The painters have covered all the graffiti on the wall. Your clothes went to the dry cleaner’s. The place looks great, and I took the liberty of replacing your mattress with a new one. Same brand, same style, and the cleaning crew made the bed. You can sleep here tonight without any worries.” He was really putting himself out, trying to make sure she didn’t take legal action against him or his corporation.

  If he knew how bad her fortune had been lately, he’d take legal action against her for moving in and bringing all that lousy luck with her.

  She glanced over at the long table where Roberto sat surrounded by men who looked like thugs. They were bent forward. Their voices rose, but she couldn’t understand a word. In fact . . . Oh. They were speaking Italian.

  “Thank you, Eric. I appreciate your help. I’ll let you know if I choose to remain or if I’ve suffered too much anguish and wish to move.”

  “I certainly understand if you do want to move. Don’t worry about breaking the lease.” Eric sounded so hearty and approving she wondered if he did know about her bad luck.

  “Thank you.” She looked at the screen on her phone. To her surprise, Glenn had stayed on the other line. She thought he would have hung up in a huff. So she hit the lin
e talking. “I just discovered my carpets had to be cleaned because the vandals peed on them. The police have no idea who they are. And the landlord would be happy if I moved. Now Mr. Silverstein—do you really believe I’m in the mood to be swept off my feet by an Italian hunk with no morals and light fingers? And would you be accusing a man, even a gay man, of dereliction of duty for saving Mr. Bartolini from jail?”

  “Miss Michaels, I didn’t mean—”

  “No, don’t apologize. Just remember that gender-based discrimination suits are difficult to defend.” She hoped her kind-voiced reprimand would drive Glenn into a foaming-at-the-mouth fit. “I do have to put things away in my apartment again tonight. Can I depend on you to babysit Mr. Bartolini for me? I pay ten dollars an hour!”

  12

  A t the table, the men heard Brandi’s voice get more forceful.

  “She’s fiery, that one. She must be a handful.” Mossimo turned heavy-lidded eyes on Roberto and switched to Italian. “So why did you bring her to our meeting?”

  “I had no choice. She’s my lawyer. We had trouble at the courthouse.” And she was eye-popping, absolutely gorgeous and charming. She’d distracted the men and upset the Fosseras’ strategy to bully Roberto. Of course, Mossimo was going to get his own way, but Roberto enjoyed derailing his strategy, if only a little.

  “That’s why you’re late?” As if Mossimo had the right to demand an accounting of Roberto’s time.

  “I knew you’d wait for me.” Roberto tipped his chair back, returned Mossimo’s stare, and waited to see if Mossimo had taken the bait.

  Mossimo gave a sideways grimace that doubled as an ingratiating smile. “We had a problem with our inside man. The feds got him on income-tax evasion.”

  “Classic maneuver on their part. Wasn’t he smart enough to . . . No, I guess not.” Roberto wanted to laugh at the frustration on Mossimo’s face. His inside man had been his son, Mark. Roberto had just dissed him, and Mossimo needed Roberto too badly to take offense.

  Oh, yes. Mossimo had definitely taken the bait.

  “But you have other inside men.” Roberto waved a careless hand at the men seated around him.

  “Yes, of course, but not of his caliber.” Mossimo winked in a heavy-handed attempt at coyness and lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “Not for a job like this one.”

  “Tell me about it.” Roberto didn’t expect Mossimo to talk. Not yet. Not until the terms had been broached.

  But he lit up a cigarette. The ring on his little finger winked at Roberto. With seeming candor, he said, “There is a diamond at the museum. It’s fifty carats or so, sort of blue, sort of purple, very famous. It needs to be liberated.”

  “The Romanov Blaze.” Roberto glanced at Brandi. She was still talking, but with less temper and more of a steely-eyed determination that boded ill for the person on the other end. She was paying them no heed. And he was glad, for he couldn’t understand what game Mossimo was playing. What trump did Mossimo hold to give up his information so quickly?

  “You know of it.”

  “Every aficionado worth his salt has heard about the Romanov Blaze. It’s one of the top ten diamonds in the world.” Roberto knew damned good and well that Mossimo had known nothing about the Blaze before it arrived in Chicago and he saw a way to make a profit off it. Nonno called Mossimo a thug; for sure he was a peasant who understood nothing about the finer things in life.

  And Mossimo knew it, too. That was one of the reasons he hated Nonno so much. He always felt inferior—because he was.

  Roberto rubbed a little salt into the wound, reminding Mossimo that Roberto traveled in the highest circles of society. “I saw it Saturday night at McGrath’s fund-raiser at his house. Surely if the stone needs to be liberated, it should have been liberated while on the road between the museum and a private home.”

  “Better the night before it leaves to visit the next city. When it’s packed up, it will be easy to transport.”

  “Very good. Very clever.” Mossimo was shrewd, so Roberto played the innocent. “But what has this to do with me?”

  “You’re an inside man.”

  “I haven’t been convicted yet.”

  “A technicality.” Mossimo laughed and coughed, then stubbed out his cigarette in his plate. “Your grandfather was the best in the business.”

  “Until you took him out of the business,” Roberto said without heat. He had no reason to be angry. Not when revenge was within his grip.

  “It was time for a change. Believe me, I hated to push him out. But he was old. He was getting soft. It had to be done. Yet I think”—Mossimo shook his finger at Roberto—“he must have taught you all he knew.”

  Roberto sliced a glance at Brandi, talking low and fast, giving Glenn Silverstein the facts and taking no shit. “My lawyer won’t be busy forever. Get to the point.”

  “For this job, I want you to be my inside man.”

  Roberto laughed loudly enough to make Brandi pull the phone away from her ear and stare.

  Mossimo was unfazed. “It wouldn’t be so bad, would it, to get a slice of that diamond?”

  “I don’t need the money.” Roberto kept an eye on Brandi.

  Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes hot, and she was snapping into the phone.

  “You’re a count. A really important man in Italy.”

  “In a few other places, too.” Roberto realized he was enjoying himself.

  “Yeah. In a few other places, too.” Mossimo bared his yellow-stained teeth in what passed for a smile. “You never need the money, but you’re stealing stones all over Europe and Asia. For a man like you, it’s the challenge. The thrill. And think about it—taking down an important museum. You’ll be famous among our kind.”

  Roberto toyed with the idea of denying he was one of their kind. But he didn’t want to make Mossimo so mad he lost his temper. Roberto had seen the results of that. So he said, “I’ll be dead. The security for that diamond is state-of-the-art. I’ll be fried before I go two inches.”

  “You’ve looked it over.”

  Roberto shrugged noncommittally.

  “So . . . it’s a job that’s going to get done with or without you.” Mossimo talked faster as Brandi finished her conversation.

  “Without me. I’m already going up on trial. Only a fool would do another job now.”

  “A fool with a grandfather.”

  “Ah. So that’s it.” Did Mossimo really think Roberto would fail to protect his own grandfather?

  But Mossimo knew how Roberto’s mind worked. “He’s old. He’s not leaving his house or his neighborhood, and he’s not going to let you put a guard on him. If you don’t cooperate, sooner or later we’ll get him.”

  The waitress headed toward the table with their food.

  “Sooner or later, Mossimo, someone’s going to get pissed and take you out.” Roberto’s voice was so reflective it took a few minutes before the other Fosseras realized what he’d said.

  Ricky and Danny stood up so violently their chairs hit the wall.

  The waitress veered off and caught Brandi by the arm as she started toward them.

  “Calmly. Calmly.” Mossimo waved his men back into their seats. “There’s no reason for threats. We’re all friends here. We can work this out.”

  The stick and then kindness. Mossimo’s grip on Chicago’s lucrative jewel-robbery franchise was slipping, and he was desperate enough to try anything, no matter how risky, to keep control. Just as Roberto had hoped.

  “We go way back, our families do. In Bernina for centuries the Fosseras and the Continis robbed together.” Mossimo intertwined his fingers and showed Roberto. “A joining now is tradition.”

  “Not quite.” Roberto put his hand palm down on the table. “The Fosseras don’t know shit about being in charge.”

  Ricky and Danny stood up again.

  So did Roberto. He placed his other palm on the table and leaned toward Mossimo. “Like having two of your guys follow me. That’s stupid, and I want it t
o stop.”

  “I don’t have my men following you.” Mossimo managed to fake astonishment.

  Before anyone saw him move, Roberto grabbed Mossimo’s wrist and twisted it sideways. “Get them off my tail.”

  A collective growl rose from the Fosseras.

  Cold metal touched Roberto’s neck.

  He let his gaze linger on the ring that decorated Mossimo’s little finger. It was old, so old the design in the gold setting had worn off. The stone set into it, a flawed emerald with perfect deep green color, was not cut, but rounded and polished. That ring . . .

  He hadn’t wanted to seem eager to accept the job, but he hadn’t expected the violent upsurge of emotion he experienced at the sight of his grandfather’s ring. He wanted to wring Mossimo’s neck. Instead he’d gone for his wrist. Without looking around, Roberto said, “Tell that son of a bitch to take that pistol off me or the doctors will have to cut the ring off your broken finger. It would be justice, yes?”

  Mossimo’s round face grew damp with pain and sweat. “Put the gun away. Diavolo, Danny, put it away before the cops see you. We don’t need this kind of exposure!”

  From the corner of his eye, Roberto saw Danny slide the gun under his shirt. Yes. “Now, Mossimo—get those men off my tail.”

  “I don’t have men on your tail. You want me to take out whoever it is? I can do that.” Mossimo was in real pain, so maybe he was telling the truth.

  And maybe he was a lying sack of shit.

  Roberto looked into Mossimo’s mean little eyes, challenging him, letting him know that he had threatened an adversary to be respected. “I am so sorry for the unfair accusation. I should have known you, an old friend of the family, would not stoop to so dishonorable a practice.” He released him. “So I’ll take care of those two men.”

  “I can help you,” Mossimo said.

  “No help needed.” Roberto smiled with all his teeth, and turned to Brandi.

  She had hung up her phone, and now stared at him with wide, astonished eyes.

  Well, of course. She’d thought he was a dilettante, an Italian count with light fingers, not a man capable of serving a generous helping of violence.