Making the Break Read online

  “You did?” Her eyes grew wide.

  “Yep,” he said as he took his first stabs at cutting the lasagna with one hand. The wide noodles slid on the plate, defying his efforts. “And she turned me down.”

  “She went to bed with you, and then wouldn’t marry you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then she’s a sl—”

  “Don’t go there, Ma. Things are different from when you were growing up.” He kept struggling to cut his lasagna with one hand, so she took the knife and fork to cut the square into more manageable sections.

  “Not so different when I was, oh, younger than you,” said his mother, attacking the lasagna with gusto.

  “Oh?”

  “I wouldn’t have worn white at my wedding, except my mother insisted.”

  “Ma!”

  “But only with your father. I loved him enough, it didn’t matter when we...well, anyway. Let’s just say we used our honeymoon to refine our technique.”

  “Oh, Ma. TMI,” he laughed. His mother handed him back his knife and fork.

  She sighed. “But things weren’t easy for us, either. Your Grandfather Rocco wasn’t happy I wasn’t marrying a “real” Italian.”

  “What? Dad’s got Italian blood.”

  “Well, back then a man couldn’t enter the organization unless he was a full-blooded Italian. Things have eased up since then. At least, for the Roccos.”

  “Ma, you know I don’t want to hear about the business.”

  “All I’m trying to say, son, is that if you love someone enough you find a way to make things work.”

  “What? You wouldn’t mind a Serafini as a daughter-in-law?”

  “If she was the right woman for you, I wouldn’t care if she had webbed feet and dressed like a penguin. All that matters is that you make each other happy.” She patted Saks on the leg. “I’ve got dishes to do. Your sister will come and take your tray when you’re done. Get some rest. You look like crap.” She stood and paused at the door. “If you and Chrissy are meant to be, then wild horses couldn’t keep you apart.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Christina Marie Serafini sat in the back of Marcus’s refurbished red Camaro with her arms crossed, her blood boiling. Instead of bringing her to her apartment, Marcus insisted on taking her to her parents’ house. Worse yet, one of her bags sat packed on the floor next to her. Apparently, she was expected to stay there.

  No fucking way.

  She had no idea what her parents’ dysfunction was, but she would disabuse them of any notion of controlling any aspect of her life.

  Marcus pressed the call button at the iron gates that protected the house to open them and drove up to the half-circle drive to the house. Without a word, he pulled the bag from the car and walked up the steps.

  He turned back to see if she got out of the car.

  She did.

  Chrissy stalked up the ancient steps like preparing to enter the battlefield.

  She was at the end of her patience. Her parents and her grandfather interfered with her life too much. It was bad enough Chrissy messed up her career, though that wasn’t entirely her fault. Her boss’ boss had no business trying to get handsy with her. But this thing with Saks? That was almost entirely her fault.

  Except the sleeping with Saks thing. That was on her. But that was at an end, dammit, and she would just put the whole thing behind her. She’d eventually forget about the sexy biker who made her heart race like his motorcycle engine. His eyes, his dark hair, the scruff on his chin when he didn’t shave, his cologne, and his to die for body would fade from her mind.

  Eventually.

  It just had to.

  Because it would hurt too hard if it didn’t.

  She swallowed hard, not wanting to recognize the nervousness in her gut. But, yes, there was still a little girl response deep inside her where she didn’t want to disappoint her parents. Damn. After all this time and all the accomplishments she’d earned from her own hard work, she was still afraid of angering Mommy and Daddy.

  Call it like you see it, Serafini, she told herself. You’re a wuss.

  Now she was angry; not just at herself but her parents, too.

  Good.

  With the new fire in her belly, she wouldn’t back down. Her parents and her grandfather would have to understand that she would take back control of her own life, whether they liked it or not.

  Gloria walked into the living room from the dining room, carrying a bowl of ice cream.

  Great. Gloria was stuck here as well? “So they’re jailing you, too?”

  “What are you talking about?” Her sister’s face scrunched in confusion.

  “Didn’t they demand that you come home?”

  “No—”

  But Chrissy wouldn’t give the scheming rat a chance to say anything else. “Where are they?”

  “In the study.”

  “All of them?”

  Gloria nodded, and then shook her head. “What are you about to do, Chrissy?”

  “As if you didn’t know.”

  Chrissy stomped to the library doors and swung them open. Her grandfather sat at the desk and her father and mother sat in the leather chairs off to the side. They all looked up in surprise.

  Well, she had a few surprises for them.

  “Chrissy,” said her mother. “What’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong?” Stupidest question in the world. “What’s wrong is you people dragging me here against my will.”

  “You need to grow up and be responsible, young lady,” said her father sternly.

  His patronizing tone fired her anger even more. Grow up? Young lady? Wasn’t that an oxymoron? “Young lady? I am a woman. A grown woman. I’m tired of you, Mom, and Granddad here running my life.”

  “Chrissy!” her mother protested.

  “It was bad enough you threw me at Saks. Trying to force a marriage.”

  “Saks?” said her father. “Who’s Saks?”

  “Anthony Parks, dear,” replied her mother.

  “Oh, that one.”

  “Yes. That one!” snarled Chrissy. “You had to have me marry into the Rocco family, didn’t you? Only, you found it was a Rocco you didn’t like, right? Then all bets were off, regardless of how I felt about it.”

  “I don’t understand,” said her mother. “You were against it from the start. We thought you’d be pleased it got called off.”

  “Pleased?” said Chrissy sharply. “Did you even bother to ask me? ‘Chrissy, meet the Rocco. Chrissy, go to this party. Chrissy, make things right. Chrissy, he’s not the right Rocco, so stay away from him. Chrissy, Chrissy, Chrissy.’ Argh!”

  “Argh?” said her father. “Is that some word the kids use now?”

  “Kid! Now you’re calling me a kid?”

  “You’re my child, Chrissy,” said her father. “You’ll always be my little girl.”

  What was her father smoking? Seriously? Did he not get what was going on here? He was a tough wise guy, and yet an idiot in his own home! “Can you just leave me alone? Let me live my life? Keep that family business out of my business?”

  “Explain to me why Marcus had to get your car out of Westfield’s impound?”

  “What?”

  “You don’t need us, or our business, but you need Marcus? Here are the keys.” He held them up for her to see, then set them on the side table between him and her mother.

  Chrissy blinked. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me. Marcus has good connections with the people who do impounds. It was cheaper to get it out sooner rather than later.”

  “Where’s my car?”

  “In the garage. First, tell me what’s going on. How’d your car end up there?”

  Chrissy stared at her father. “I, I went to see Saks.”

  “What!” roared her grandfather.

  Her father held up his hand. “I’ll handle this.” He turned back to her. “Why,” he said coldly, “did you go to see Anthony Parks when you were tol
d to stay away from him?”

  Chrissy stared at him, not knowing what to say. Well, Dad, I went to see my lover ostensibly to tell him that the men who shot him were hired by the Rojos, but since he’s hot I went to bed with him. Oh, and yeah, I love him, too. Yeah, that would go down really well. “It’s none of your business,” she said defensively.

  “Everything about you is my business!” roared her father. “I can’t protect you if you keep secrets from me.”

  “Protect? That’s what you call it? I wouldn’t need protection if I came from a normal family.”

  “What does that mean?” rumbled her father ominously.

  “You know what it means,” she snapped.

  “Chrissy, calm down,” said her mother.

  Calming down was not on the menu. “Stop telling me what to do! Stop trying to marry me off to some goombah, and stay the hell out of my life!” She grabbed the keys from the table.

  “Christina Marie Serafini,” said her father in a threatening tone. “If you walk out that door, you’ll walk out for good.”

  It was a threat she’d heard many times during her teenage years. However, at this point in her life, she was more than prepared to take him up on it.

  “Vince!” exclaimed her mother.

  “No. She’s had enough? I’ve had enough. To have such an ungrateful daughter.” He leveled his gaze at Chrissy. “If you can’t sit and talk like a normal person—go! Out with you!”

  “Glad to!” Chrissy stalked out of the library with self-righteous rage. She spotted her bag in the atrium and she dragged it through the living room, the dining room, and finally the kitchen to the side door that led to the garage. She slammed her luggage in the trunk of her car, and opened the car door.

  “Chrissy?” said Gloria. She filled the doorway, backlit by the kitchen light. “Where are you going?”

  “Away.” She slammed the door. She half-expected some goon to jump out and stop her. Force her to her old bedroom. Except she knew her father wasn’t going to do that. She’d crossed a line; there was no going back. She got into the car, and after starting the engine burned rubber to get out of the Serafini driveway.

  She drove crazily until she got to the highway and realized she’d get herself killed on the interstate. She slowed and drove at a sane pace. Her phone rang. Stopped and rang again. She ignored it.

  It kept ringing as she drove. Finally she retrieved it from her purse.

  “What!” she barked.

  “Chrissy,” said Gloria, “what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I’m tired of our parents running roughshod over my life. What the hell? Bringing my clothes to the house? Did Marcus go and grab them? Did you?”

  “Chrissy, it’s not what you think—”

  “Really? What is it then?”

  “Something happened with the water, we don’t know what. But our apartment and the first-floor apartment got flooded. We’re just staying here until Grandpa can get it fixed.”

  Chrissy blinked. “What?” Belatedly, she remembered turning on the water to the tub and not turning it off. What the hell was wrong with her?

  “Why are you acting like such a crazy person?”

  “Oh, hell,” said Chrissy, tears welling in her eyes again. “It was my fault.”

  “What?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ve burned my bridges. Tell Grandpa I’ll send him a check for the damage. Goodbye, Gloria.”

  She hung up the phone feeling like the worst sister, daughter, and granddaughter on earth. Hell, the worst person on earth.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Three days after he arrived at his parents’ house he felt better physically, but he was still in the dumps. It cut that Luke walked out on him. Not that Saks didn’t deserve a blow upside the head. He did get stupid about Chrissy. But they were brothers through the Spawn, and that wasn’t just thicker than whiskey, it was thicker than blood.

  All this Rob Gibson explained to him when he came to visit. Rob worked with him, that was true, but had just started. Luke hired him just before the stuff with Chrissy started. He didn’t have much time to get to know him. All he really knew about Rob was that he retired from the DEA, and that in a long, strange, and convoluted story he was Luke’s wife’s birth father.

  So Saks was surprised when Rob showed up, and his mother didn’t look too thrilled to see the biker with the full gray beard now sporting the leather coat of a Spawn. But when he handed her a bunch of flowers and a gift card to the grocery story, she eased up.

  A little.

  “You didn’t have to do this, Mr. Gibson,” his mother said.

  “Ma’am, I’m sure you don’t think much about us Spawn. But we think a lot of Saks, here. You can do what you want with that, but I’m sure Saks is more than eating his share. I don’t know where he puts it, but he downs more than anybody else in the club. I swear, at the summer barbecue he eats half the pig himself.”

  “Barbecue?”

  “Sure. We roast a pig, and put corn on the cob in the fire pit, and—”

  Good lord, Rob was overdoing it...though he did attend the pig roast last summer.

  “Rob, don’t get my mother started on food. It’s her number one passion, after which trail her children and husband.”

  “You sure don’t look like it.”

  “Like my son, fast metabolism.”

  “I envy you both.”

  “Are you hungry? I did bake a ricotta pie this morning.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. But I really came to get Saks out of the house for a few minutes. I know the couple times I was laid up, I’d have done anything to get out. If he’s up for it.”

  “I’m up for it.”

  “Good. Then let’s go.”

  Saks’ mother gave him a look that said he was crazy. “Take things easy.”

  “We’re just going for a ride, ma’am,” said Rob.

  “On a motorcycle?”

  “No. I have a car.”

  “Since when—” said Saks, but Rob cut him off.

  “Time’s wasting, Saks.”

  With questions in his mind, he followed Saks out of the house and out to the street of small cookie- cutter homes from the fifties. The day was bright and sunny, which would have made Saks happy any day except this one. He didn’t trust Rob’s motives. “Where’s this car of yours?”

  “Not mine,” said Rob. He pointed to a Cadillac that looked suspiciously like Chrissy’s.

  “Wait a minute.”

  “Hey, Saks.” A dark-haired woman stuck her head out of the window. “Remember me?”

  Gloria? “What the hell?”

  “Get in.”

  “Nah,” said Saks, and he turned to go back inside but Rob put his hand on Saks’ bad shoulder and he stopped.

  “Listen to the woman, Saks, and don’t be pigheaded. There’s serious shit going on, and there’s only one person who can fix it.”

  “I don’t want to have anything to do with the Serafinis.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “What do you know about it?”

  “Come on, Saks,” called Gloria. “We don’t have much time.”

  “I’m coming with you to make sure they don’t pull some nonsense but, really, man, just get in the fucking car.”

  Rob spoke with such seriousness that Saks did it, though he was questioning his sanity. Rob opened the back door for him and when Saks sat, pulled the seatbelt over to the clip.

  “Hey,” protested Saks. “I’m not two.”

  “Sorry, man. Safety first. And your wing is clipped. I know what that’s like.”

  Saks noticed Marcus was behind the wheel. “What’s this about, guys? Where’s Chrissy?” His stomach dropped when he realized she wasn’t here.

  “Chrissy is about to make the biggest mistake of her life and we have to stop her.”

  “Yeah,” said Marcus, starting the car.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Chrissy quit her job and took one with this big shot who promised
her all sorts of money. But Rob checked into him and found out he’s a huge scum bag. She won’t listen to me, but she’ll listen to you.”

  “The guy’s an ass. All about taking what he wants from women, then asking after if they liked it,” said Rob.

  Saks ground his teeth. “Chrissy’s a big girl. She doesn’t want me. Or my help.” But Marcus was on the highway now and they were speeding north. He could only guess they were heading to Bradley International Airport.

  “Tell me how the hell you got involved in this plan to save Chrissy from herself,” said Saks, glaring at Rob.

  “Gloria showed up at the shop a couple days ago, looking for you. She told me her story, and I didn’t give it any serious thought. But the name she told me, James Pearson, rang a bell. So I checked him out through my sources, and he’s bad news, Saks. He’s involved in international crime on a scale we haven’t seen. Drugs, sex-trafficking, gun deals, extortion, you name it he’s got it on the menu.”

  “Sex trafficking?” said Saks. His mouth ran dry.

  “I don’t know if he wants her for that. But he might think with her family connections she won’t care what he does for business.”

  “In a world of bad, Saks,” said Gloria, “he makes the devil look like an amateur.”

  “And the worst thing is two of his assistants,” said Rob. “Well, one has disappeared. Another turned up floating face down in a Venice canal.”

  “Oh shit,” said Saks. A cold chill ran up his spine. “Why’re we heading to the airport?”

  “Because Chrissy’s getting on his private jet and leaving the country,” said Gloria, her voice cracking with worry.

  “And you come to me at the eleventh hour because...?”

  “Because there’s nothing I can do legally from keeping a consenting adult from leaving the country with a man who has no charges pending here.”

  “So,” said Saks sourly, “not retired.”

  “Look, I won’t apologize. I have my reasons.”

  “Luke won’t appreciate you lying to him.”

  “I’ll worry about Luke later. Right now, I don’t want to see your girl get in over her head.”

  “She’s not my girl.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Gloria, turning in her seat to stare at Saks. “Then why has she been crying for three solid days?”