Sniping Her Mafia King
Chapter 31

The girls were sitting around a cluster of small tables inside a gelato shop where a sweet older man had given them free reign and as much of the sweet creamy goodness as they could dream of. Arwen was giggling at something Jesse said when the bells over the shop door jingled again and all ten women instantly drew to their feet to face the door.

Adrianu let out a laugh at their immediate actions and pointed to Jesse, "and you once denied being in a gang." He motioned to the old man nodding off in the corner of the shop. "I got word my friend was growing tired and I told his wife I would lock up for him when you were done." He gently shook the older man squatting in front of him, "Giuseppe, my friend, you wife is waiting for you at home. Go, Enrico will make sure you get there safe. I will lock up after the girls."

"Sì, sì," the man straggled to his feet and pushed a key into Adrianu's hand. Adrianu helped the elderly man to the door and outside, oblivious to the women who were all watching him embrace the man tenderly, kissing both of his cheeks. Clara sat back down across from Arwen, "Why does he such sweet things when we know he sells guns and drugs? He's a walking contradiction."

"If he didn't sell guns, where else would we get weapons?" Bliss said over a mouthful of pistachio gelato. "I have zero judgement for anyone after some of the s**t we've done, so long as they aren't abusive pricks who hurt women. He hurt you?" she looked to Arwen who shook her head, "then he's good with me."

Clara grunted.

"You threw shuriken into a man's chest tonight, Draxton," Jesse mocked her, "then slit his face open like the joker in a batman knock-off movie, yet, you'll go home and have pancakes with the twins. Do you really want to talk contradictions?" Clara made a face, "fine, but if he hurts you," she pointed at Arwen, "I'll do more than throw shuriken."

They were all silent as he walked back in and locked the door behind him and held up a laptop bag. "I'll be in Giuseppe's office out back. Let me know when you're ready to leave and I'll let you out." He paused, "I didn't see cars or bikes. How are you all getting home? Should I arrange transport?" He motioned to a bottle of vodka hanging out of the top of someone's bag. "You shouldn't drive."

"I concede," Clara grunted with a smirk ignoring his confused expression.

"We have rides Addy," Jesse spoke up. "We won't be much longer. We'll finish our treats and then you can kick us out."

"Don't rush on my account," he shrugged, "it's only ten back in Vegas. My work is just starting."

He disappeared through the swinging door behind the frozen display case and the women all let out a laugh.

"You know, we've just been locked into an ice cream parlor with the known head of a mafia family. By morning we'll all be on the FBI's watch list." Corry said suddenly.

Clara grinned, "do you really think I haven't already taken out all the surveillance in the area. Strangely enough, whatever he said to Arwen earlier about getting them off his back here in New York, seems to be right on the money. There's not a car around here for miles." Her grin widened, "also, he's probably losing his mind right now trying to figure out why his laptop won't connect to the internet."

The girls all chuckled as if on cue the man came back into the room. He looked directly at Clara, which surprised them all.

"I assume you are the reason my devices aren't working. I ran into a similar issue in Arwen's clinic earlier today. I believe you are responsible. Would you care to fix it?"

Arwen and Jesse both giggled as Clara swirled her tiny little spoon around her bowl of gelato and looked at him with a smirk. The woman was scary. Isabella stretched out her legs under the table and nudged Arwen's and she knew she was enjoying the sudden power play as well.

"What's in it for me?" Clara licked the strawberry confection off the back of the spoon and eyed him steadily. The woman went toe to toe with presidents of some of the scariest nations in the world. She could easily deal with a mob boss.

He leaned against the display case with his arms casually folded over his chest and crossed his ankles as if unbothered by her. He was so relaxed it was almost laughable. Here was a man who knew his own power and reveled in it. "I opened a gelato shop at nearly one in the morning for you."

Arwen took a big bite of her vanilla bean gelato and let the cream melt over her tongue. He was hot when he was playing it cool. She fought the smile tugging her lips. "Nah," Clara shook her head, "you let us in here to keep Arwen happy. We all know you're sleeping together."

"Who said anything about sleeping?" he c****d an eyebrow and Arwen finally turned to meet his gaze and he laughed at her discomfort. "Sorry, did I spill secrets?" "No," Josephine called from the back of the room. "We know you're f*****g. Just because we're a gang doesn't mean we are uncouth. We do try to be polite." "Good word!" Jesse threw out to Josephine and high-fived her.

"I've been wanting to use it for a while." She looked to Addy, "uncouth means uncivilized, if you didn't know."

"My cousin is a forensic linguist. I'm certain there's not a word in the five languages we both speak I don't know."

"You speak five languages?" Arwen asked curiously.

"He speaks Italian, French, Greek and Russian, and of course English." Jesse grinned at him, stealing his thunder. "He curses the best in Italian though." "Principessa," he wagged his finger at her, "you talk too much."

"She's a linguist," nine women all said simultaneously revealing it was a comment they'd all heard before.

He threw his head back and laughed at them. "Ms. Draxton, would you be so kind to fix my internet services so I can call and check on my businesses?" "What do I get in exchange?" Clara's grey eyes danced with mischief.

"What do you want?"

"A night in the palatial suite at your resort in Atlantic City."

Arwen choked. They had been looking online at his business interests before they'd started partying with Trace and the room was a twenty grand a night suite.

His smirk was naughty, "I assume you just want the room. My body isn't for sale."

Clara choked at his innuendo while the rest of the girls roared with laughter. She gave a shake of her head, "point for Cavallaro. Yes, just the room." "Done. Let me know when you want it and I'll make it happen."

"The room is reserved months in advance," Naomi muttered, "what about your other guests who probably have it reserved when she wants it?"

He laughed lowly, "do I look bothered? They can go elsewhere. Ms. Draxton, my internet?"

Clara held her hand out for his phone and he passed it to her unhesitatingly. "This guy just blindly trusts me with his phone Arwen. Do you want me to send you a list of his contacts so you can suss out any other girlfriends?"

"Nah," she shook her head as he moved to lean back against the display case. "There's no way he can handle me and another woman. I'm enough woman. He can keep the numbers, but he won't use them."

His low laugh floated around her.

"This is just a backup phone anyway," Clara made a snarly face as she passed it back to him. "Right?"

"Well, no s**t. I'm not going to give the device I live off of to the FBI's most wanted hacker. I might be pretty, but I'm not stupid," he smirked right back at her. "What does this app do?"

"Scrambles and unscrambles surrounding devices and allows you to bypass bits of my security. If you ever need to scramble a device around you, have at it. It'll charge you though. In-app purchases and so on." She gave a chortle of laughter at his frown. "Want me to put it on your laptop?" "How much of this app will infect my laptop?"

"It's not spyware, Cavallaro. It's anti-listening programming. I don't need to touch your laptop with one of my apps to replace out what's on it." Her half smile was crooked and menacing.

He looked back to Jesse, "your friends are evil."

"It's all I know," she quipped back looking at him pointedly.

"True," he didn't dispute her comment. He waved at Clara as he pushed away from the case, "please update the laptop. Giuseppe mentioned as well, when I was outside, you ladies can help yourselves to the Italian soda in the cooler. He mentioned he saw you had vodka in your bags. His favorite is to mix it with the orange." He chuckled when the woman who appeared the same size and height of Clara jumped a table in one go and beelined for the cooler. He looked at her with a grin, "thirsty?"

"Yes." Naomi paused and then reached out to grip his shoulder. He looked at her hand, but she didn't move it, "just so you know, Cavallaro, we're all pretty friendly tonight, right now, but if she ever cries because of you, we will make the Cavallaro family look like pussycats compared to the lionesses we are."

"Naomi!" Arwen yelled at her.

"Hey," Naomi looked over her shoulder, "he might think you're his, but you were ours first and there are hundreds more women in the world than just the ten of us who would destroy him and everything he stands for if he makes you cry. There would be a long line of people who would want their pound of flesh." She looked to Addy again who was completely still under her grip, "capisce?"

"Capisce," he agreed with a curt nod.

"Naomi, you can't just threaten him," Jesse hissed when he disappeared behind the swinging doors.

"I just did," Naomi said as she popped open a bottle of Italian soda and took a long drink of it. She then grabbed her bottle of vodka and dumped a glug into the space she'd created in the bottle. "Hey, the old man is right, this is amazing." "You put a target on your back," Jesse argued.

Arwen shifted uncomfortably.

Naomi pointed at Arwen, "she is mine. She is Bliss. She is Clara's Ours"

"You're not her mothers." Jesse stood up furiously, "and you just threatened a mob boss and revealed there are hundreds more women than just the ten of us. It was not authorized."

"We are her aunties at the very least. We've been watching her since she was fifteen for crying out loud. I'm not letting some pissant run roughshod without a little warning," she swung her hand impatiently. "Besides, Clara Draxton will be Artemis in ten years or less. He put us all together in Vegas. He knows she runs with us. If he knows she is with us, then you can bet your sweet a*s, our current Artemis will be read ing him in soon. The woman does nothing without being fifty steps ahead. She put Clara in his path for a reason." The eight women all looked to Naomi curiously and she groaned, "are you all kidding me right now? I'm not even the smartest one in the room and none of you have figured out if Artemis was letting him figure out the most powerful woman in the world," she thumbed in the direction of where Clara was, "is part of Arwen and Jesse's posse, he was going to have to be read in, somewhat? Use your heads ladies. I trained you a hell of a lot better than this."

"But what if they don't work out?" Isabella spoke quietly eying Naomi as she rose from her seat, moved to the cooler, and took a cherry soda for herself and an orange one for Sabine.

"He's an asset. Artemis has already decided he's an asset," Arwen spoke quietly shoving her now melted treat around the bowl. "He has demonstrated the one thing he won't tolerate is s*x trafficking. He has shipping companies, two of them now since he's seized control of Ferraro's companies and he knows how to move underground and behind scenes. She'll use him." Arwen pushed away from the table suddenly feeling overwhelmed.

"Jesus Christ," Isabella stared at her, "you're right." She plopped down in the seat looking at the bottle of the soda in her hand. She looked back to Naomi. "Do we have male assets? Anywhere?"

"No," Naomi shook her head, "unless you count when we use your husband as a cover for Jesse's shenanigans."

"f**k," Arwen muttered angrily, grabbing Naomi's vodka bottle, and drinking right from it. "Psych-One made a joke about pimping me out but what if it wasn't a joke?"

"It was a joke," Jesse insisted. "It was a joke in horribly poor taste which is on par for her, but it was a joke. At no point would we ever want you to use yourself. We have other ways of getting info. Jesus, look at who is in the room with him right now." "She's taking an awfully long time, by the way," Bliss spoke up.

"Who is?" Clara asked as she stepped back into the room. "Jesus, what happened out here? This looks like it went from ice cream party to funeral."

"Naomi!" Bliss uttered as she grimaced at her wife. "She got all possessive of our girl and then pointed out our newest asset has a p***s."

Clara made a face, "none of you figured it out before now? He rescued twenty women and killed everyone in their path. He then provided for them like he was their savior and made it, so they didn't feel an ounce of debt to him. If he had a v****a, Artemis would have him in boot camp no matter the fact he's as old as us." She waved between her and Naomi.

"He's not that old," Jesse quipped with a grin.

"b***h," Clara shoved her and took Naomi's offered drink and sipped it. "Oh snap, that's good."

"Giuseppe knows what he's talking about," Naomi agreed.

"Don't do it with the cherry though," Isabella grimaced as she looked at her bottle. "Tastes like medicine."

"I bet it's good with lime flavor," Corry stood in the door of the cooler eying the different flavors. "Arwen, are you okay? You're really quiet."

Clara walked past her and squeezed her shoulder, "she's fine. Right, Delta?"

"Yeah," she reached up and patted Clara's hand. "I'm good. Is Naomi right though? Is he going to be read in?" If he got read in, would he know she shot his father? The thought was unsettling.

"Jesse would know before we do and if she hasn't said anything," she looked to Jesse who shook her head, "then we don't know but considering the way those two have been behaving lately, I'd bet my company they do."

"They read Elian in more than seven years ago. Then nobody since. They then read Cam and Torben in within months of each other. He's going to be read in."

"What if he doesn't want to be?" Arwen asked seriously. "He has said to me more than once he doesn't ask questions because the less, he knows about Jesse's world the better. He said he'd be afraid if he knew too much, he'd use her talents."

Jesse rolled her eyes, "stupid family." She nodded at Arwen, "though he did say to me he was curious if you'd beat up all his exes for him when we were in Vegas so maybe there's truth to using the strengths of the people he knows."

"I wouldn't beat up his exes," Arwen grimaced.

"Not even if one of them tried to get back with him?" Cat taunted her.

"He's a big boy," Arwen shook her head, "if he can't handle a chick and make her piss off, he's not the kind of man I'm interested in."

"Hey, men get stalkers too. Remember the nutjob who shot Clara? Elian hadn't even put his d**k in her and she was telling people he fathered her children and shot Clara."

"That's what happens when you let men clean up their own messes," Clara grumbled, "stupid man thought he could fix crazy by being nice."

"He was always too nice," Isabella complained loudly, "he's the oldest in our family and he had two years of mama alone who must have done kindness and bible drills until she pushed out Raoul. Then she realized she birthed the antichrist in him and just started focusing on him instead."

"Raoul is a hoot!" Cat said with a smirk. "We need to go back to Amsterdam with him and his man."

"Speaking of Europe, when does Tuva have to go back?"

"She's got three weeks left of her work visa and then she goes back," Cat said quietly. "I'm going to go for a week with her when she goes."

"Are you coming back?" Josephine asked curiously.

"Yeah," Cat didn't hesitate. "I love her. I asked her to stay, permanently."

"Holy s**t Cat!" Corry exclaimed loudly. "What did she say?"

"Her life is in Oslo," Cat said quietly as she took a seat on Arwen's lap, knowing both Jesse and Arwen had already heard this part. They had talked about it earlier in the day in Arwen's office. "She would have to give everything up for me and I'm not giving anything up." "I'm sorry Cat," Sabine said gently.

"I love her but it's not enough," Cat shrugged, "I can't tell her why I'm staying here." She looked pointedly around the room. "There are things in the world so much bigger than me and Tuva. The last two weeks I was personally involved in the rescue and recovery of forty-two girls and getting the body of a teenager in Boston back to her family. Forty-two girls," she whispered, "I could never imagine not being part of us."

"We have teams in Europe," Arwen said gently rubbing her back.

"My cover would be blown in days, and we all know it. If I start disappearing in the middle of the night in Oslo, you think Tuva isn't going to ask questions or complain to her parents how I just f**k off on her all the time? There's a reason we all work in our home cities. We build our lives here on purpose."

"This sucks," Arwen said resting her head on Cat's shoulder.

"Just don't take him for granted," Cat motioned her chin in the direction of the back room. "Whether he gets read into activities or not, enjoy the time you have with him. It's clear he has it bad for you Arwen. I mean the guy opened a gelato shop for you in the middle of the night and is working out back to make sure you're safe." At Arwen's protest she shook her head, "he could have had any one of his guys lock up. He's here to make sure you're safe."

The girls all nodded at Cat's words.

Jesse sighed, "she's not wrong. I've known him my entire life. He never chases, Arwen. Not ever. He left the feds in his hotel in Vegas and came to New York on the Friday you had your date just because you had your date. He made plans with you, so he kept those plans. Anyone else, he would have just cancelled and told them to suck it up. He's bending for you. It is not typical Cavallaro behaviour."

Arwen closed her eyes against Cat's shoulder, "Sabby?"

Sabine gave a laugh, "needing psych services while you're drunk on gelato and vodka?"

"Just a quick question," Arwen looked over Cat's shoulder to meet her friend's dark-eyed stare. "What does it say about me I feel more emotional over the possibility of him walking away from me than putting the bullet in Trace's forehead?"

Sabine sighed deeply, "as a woman who took months to reconcile the fact, she had fallen in love with a muscle-bound meathead who reads Woodworth and Keats and cried like a baby holding Portia's kid, I can only tell you, my sister, you know when you know." "What does it even mean?" Arwen scrunched her nose up.

"I think she's saying," Isabella stood up and stretched her hands over her head, "you're f****d, just like her, me, Jesse, Clara, Naomi, and Cat. It's too late for you. You may as well surrender and wave the white flag to whatever Goddess of Love you pray to." Josephine growled, "you are all a bunch of saps. Are me and Corry the last of a dying breed?"

"You'll get yours," Bliss laughed at her. "If Chavez caved, the rest of you are f****d."

"Hey!" Jesse protested Bliss' comment.

"I'm just saying, out of all of us, you were the one none of us expected." Bliss looked around the room, "you're mean, Jesse. You punch first and ask questions only if the person you punched is still coherent."

Jesse started to frown and then she started to laugh loudly, "she's right. You're all f****d, cause if I'm in it, and Arwen, the single-parent chicken lady of Flushing, New York who put a bullet in an ex's head ends up in it, you're all toast." She lifted her bottle of soda mockingly at Josephine and Corry, "welcome my friends. You thought you were already on the dark side? Wait until you see how dark you can get for someone you love."

"Cheers," Clara mocked as she lifted her bottle in their direction.

Arwen couldn't help but giggle as they all lifted their bottles in a toast. She had weird friends.