Sniping Her Mafia King -
Chapter 35
Arwen moved back to the house and watched through the glass window beside her front door to ensure the car was out of her driveway and away from the house. She sent a quick text to Jesse who responded with a thumbs up emoji and then looked to Addy. "My home security downloads directly to our HQ. Jesse will have the girls in office get you copies of whatever you need." "What were you doing on your watch? I feel you were trying to get me to be quiet."
"Listening device," she grinned broadly. "My watch can record a pin drop in the house across the street if I need it to." She smirked, "Want to hear what the big secret was to pull those assholes out of the yard?"
He nodded vigorously, "yes. Very much so."
She tugged Addy into the kitchen and then hit play on the conversation she had recorded. It was as clear as if she'd been standing with the group of men in her driveway.
"I need this technology," he grinned as they listened to Agent O'Malley say the team at Tower's murder scene got video from both the motel surveillance cameras and a gas station across the street of Agent Croft arriving to the motel just after midnight, banging on Tower's motel room door, shoving his way inside before and then leaving thirty minutes later in a rush.
"I'm sure Clara will sell you something similar for an exorbitant amount of money," she grinned back.
He shook his head, "funny they immediately came looking for me instead of checking the scene and knew I would be here. I wonder how they knew?" His gaze held hers for a second too long.
"No," she shook her head. "Don't you even think it. We wouldn't."
"Yet on the porch a moment ago, I could see you watching the video and wondering if I set it up for them to come replace me here," he didn't back away.
She rubbed her forehead, "we're both so bloody suspicious of everyone. How is this supposed to work if we don't trust each other?"
"Do you believe I would do such a thing? Use you for an alibi?"
"No," she tossed her head from side to side slowly, "as soon as the thought hit my head, I discounted it."
He reached out and pulled her towards him, connecting them at the hips, "neither of us trust easily, mia cara but it is something we will work on together. I do know, I trust you far more in such a short amount of time than anyone else I've met. Can we agree on this? We will work on trusting each other?"
She patted his chest, "yes, we can work on this."
"I am annoyed the FBI got us out of bed needlessly. We were having a discussion."
"You were talking nonsense," she countered as she remembered he had started a conversation on babies.
The creak of a door upstairs interrupted them, "can I come down now?"
"Yes, sorry Dee. Come down."
Deidre raced down the stairs and then stopped as she saw her aunt and Addy locked in a hug. "Aw this is cute. What did the FBI want this time?"
"This time?" Addy grimaced.
"Agent Croft always has someone at the door, usually it's him in person though."
"Well," Arwen felt Addy's hands tighten on her hips as she softened her tone. "He won't be bothering us anymore."
"Why? Is he dead?"
Deidre's words were meant as a joke but the silence from Arwen made her pause as she reached the refrigerator and turn to look at them slowly, her face frowning. "He's dead, isn't he? What happened to him?"
"He had a heart attack and crashed his car early this morning."
Deidre looked to Arwen with a funny expression, "am I bad person for not being sad about it? He scared me too many times. Remember when he tried to give me the lift home from school when I was in high school?" She shivered, "I know I should feel remorse or sadness for him or his family but I kind of just feel relieved to know he won't be looking over us all the time."
Addy spoke up, "you are not a bad person, Deidre. He was the bad person. You do not need to ever fake an emotion, especially towards a man who stalked you and your cousin."
"Thanks Addy." She grinned suddenly and waved her hand at the embracing couple, "you two really are adorable together. I knew you would replace each other."
"Happy birthday Deidre," Arwen grinned at her over Addy's shoulder, happy her cousin wasn't freaked out by any of the morning's antics.
"Thanks. Where's my present?" Deidre asked as she pulled open the refrigerator and pulled out the orange juice. "I hope it's as good as last years." She looked to Addy, "last year she took me to Disney."
"In my box of cookies." Arwen smirked as Deidre scowled at her.
"You always hide them in the weirdest places," she reached into the cabinet and found the vanilla wafer cookies she despised. "These are the nastiest cookies. Who makes a sugar free cookie like this? You may as well just chew thin pieces of cardboard." She laughed as Addy took one of the cookies, bit it and then spit it out. "See?"
"They're awful. Do you like these?" he stared at Arwen in disgust.
"They're good dunked in tea."
"I will make you biscotti. They are better dunked in tea." He ran his mouth under the tap as both women laughed at his antics.
Deidre looked into the box and then looked to Arwen in confusion as she pulled out an envelope. She opened it up and then moved to sit in a chair, her face turning red. "Are you kidding me?"
"If you're going to earn your diploma studying the works of Shakespeare, Dickens, and Bronte, you should at least do a tour of their country." Arwen smiled as Deidre exhaled and put her hand to her flushed cheeks.
Addy squeezed Arwen's hips tightly, evidently pleased with the gift she'd gotten Dee.
"You'll be going when school is out for the semester in two weeks."
"I'll be going?" Deidre looked at Arwen in alarm.
"Yes." Arwen smiled gently. "I can go with you, or you can take Miley or someone else. There are two tickets and I arranged transport for a full two-week tour. If you and Miley want to do a bit of exploring on your own, her parents already said it was good with them." She'd let them know she had a friend who would be watching their every move, even if they didn't know it.
Deidre swallowed deeply, "I can barely get my a*s to college without you helping."
"It's not a test, Dee, and I'm not shoving you out of the nest." Arwen said as she moved away from Addy and squatted in front of her now pale cousin. "I am happy and thrilled to go with you. But I also know a young woman doesn't always want her mother-figure hanging around when she's starting to spread her wings a bit. If you want me there, I'll be there. If you want to try to do a trip with just you and Miley, then I am happy for you to go on your own as well. If you go on your own and decide you need me to come help you finish the trip, I'll do it too."
"Won't you be worried? You worry about everything."
"You're going to Stratford-on-Avon, not the Red District in Amsterdam."
"Have you been there?" Deidre blinked at her cousin in shock.
"Multiple times," Arwen teased and tweaked her nose.
The crash of dishes being moved around made Arwen look over her shoulder at Addy who was holding teacups in his hand and scowling her. She grinned broadly at him. "Isabella Ruiz' brother-in-law is from there. We visit all the time." He pointed at her, "not anymore."
"What if we bring you with us?" At his growled 'absolutely not,' she laughed loudly. "Okay then," she gave him a salute and laughed as he shook his head in a mock warning at her.
He was making himself a coffee and had a kettle on for their tea. The two women exchanged a look as he muttered under his breath in Italian what they were certain were curse words.
Deidre looked between them and then looked to Arwen, "is it weird it feels normal he's in our kitchen making our tea?"
"It's strange." Arwen agreed with her as they both watched Addy putter around their kitchen as if he had always been there.
"Get used to it," he tossed over his shoulder as he rifled through the cupboards.
Arwen felt a tingle run down her spine at his comment.
Deidre grinned, "what are you looking for?"
"It's your birthday. You should have birthday pancakes." He was rolling up his shirt sleeves.
"You're going to make pancakes?" Deidre was incredulous as she looked to Arwen whose mouth was now hanging open.
"I am if I can replace anything other than wheat germ, flax and almond flour," he stared into the pantry and then clapped, "ah there it is." He pulled out a container of all-purpose flour. He opened it and sniffed it. "When did you buy this?"
"A couple of months ago," Arwen furrowed her brow at him. "It's just flour. It doesn't go bad."
"You are a poor judge of when food goes bad," he mocked her as Deidre giggled at his words. "Am I wrong?" he questioned Deidre with a wolfish grin and was rewarded with Deidre laughing aloud.
Deidre jumped up from the table and moved to stand beside him. "Will you put chocolate chips in my pancakes?"
He flicked flour at her and nodded at her request. "I can but this is my mother's recipe. It will legitimately taste like a birthday cake in pancake form. It may be too sweet, and I feel, piccola, you are already sweet enough."
Deidre rested her head on his shoulder as he started going over the ingredients in the recipe and telling her how when he was a little boy his mother would make the pancakes for him on his birthday and how when she died, his maternal grandmother would take him to their vineyard for his birthday and in her stead, would make the special treat for him. Deidre giggled when Addy told her a story about eating so many of them, he threw up and covered his nanny in vomit from head to toe, causing her to resign on the spot. Arwen couldn't help the smile on her face at their playfulness. She recalled one of the girls saying Deidre had gravitated to Addy because he was strong and had a take charge personality reminiscent of their fathers. Deidre was extremely comfortable with him, and it made Arwen happy.
A knock on the front door made Arwen groan again, "I swear it's not even seven in the morning. Why are so many people at my house?" She looked at her watch display for the camera. "It's a delivery guy."
Addy paused and she patted his shoulder as she made her way to the front door, "relax Cavallaro. We're in the burbs."
"Santino can take the delivery," he said over his shoulder as she moved to the front of the house. "He's been stationed outside since early this morning."
She made a face and pulled the door open unsurprised to see Santino questioning the man on her porch. "Back off Santino. It's probably for Dee. It's her birthday."
"Flower delivery for Deidre Beddoe," the florist was shaking in his shoes the way Santino was towering over him, his weapon on full display. His hands trembled as he placed the ginormous bouquet in Arwen's hands.
"Leave," Santino said after he signed the slip with a flourish. As the kid raced on foot down the driveway, he dropped his scowl and grinned at Arwen. "I forgot how much I love being the bad guy." He took the flowers out of her hand and ran a device over them before passing them back, "they're clean."
"A*****e," she shook her head at him and held the door open. "Addy's making pancakes."
"Birthday pancakes?" he clapped his hands and stepped into the house. "They're the best."
Santino patted Deidre's back, "Happy Birthday, piccola. Enrico and I have a gift coming for you later." He pointed to the flowers, "they aren't from us."
Arwen brought the flowers into the kitchen and Deidre stared in disbelief at the size of the bouquet. It was a mixed bouquet and Deidre opened the card with shaking fingers and then blushed furiously.
"Ooh," Arwen grinned teasingly. "Tell me, did a certain hockey player send you flowers for your birthday?"
Deidre swallowed audibly and let Arwen read the card.
Arwen tapped her chest, "aw." She looked to Addy and Santino who were both staring with narrowed eyes, "for the only girl with eyes to see into my soul."
Addy looked to Santino, "make sure he knows if he hurts her, I will personally break both his legs and he'll never skate again."
Deidre pushed him, "not funny."
"Who is joking?" Addy tugged her hair playfully, "You two," he waved at Arwen and Deidre, "go get ready for the day and by the time you come back down, breakfast will be ready. Go."
Deidre laughed and raced up the stairs.
As Arwen started to walk away, he reached out a hand and pulled her back, he kissed her mouth hard. "I will break his legs if he hurts her."
"It would be silly to break a dead man's legs," Arwen retorted earning a chuckle from Santino when she winked, aware he'd heard her comment.
Arwen quickly took a shower and got ready for her workday, her usual attire of yoga pants and t-shirt with the name of her clinic emblazoned on her left breast. She pulled her hair and divided it into sections and braided it quickly and then slipped into her trainers. She flipped a quick text off to Norah to let her know she'd be late since they were doing breakfast pancakes and then moved into the hall.
The sound of Deidre sighing loudly through her opened door made her pause. "You okay Dee?" She peeked into the room and grimaced at the clothes strewn everywhere.
Deidre was sitting on the end of her bed. "I kind of want to feel pretty today. Normally I don't care but it's my birthday and I just want to feel good." "Nothing wrong with that," Arwen shrugged. "Need help picking an outfit?"
"Nah," she waved towards the head of her bed. "I have the outfit." She looked to Arwen sheepishly, "Can you do my makeup?"
Arwen blinked and then nodded, "yeah. Of course."
"Just a little. I don't want to look like a clown or completely hide who I am but just smooth out the rough edges?" Deidre blushed at her own request.
"Your edges aren't rough. You are beautiful just as you are. If you didn't believe me because I'm your parental figure, then there is a big-a's bouquet of flowers downstairs from a guy who got a chub-on the minute he met you."
"Arwen!" Deidre' blush deepened incredibly at her cousin's teasing as she moved to sit in her vanity chair and Arwen began looking at the bottles of products Deidre had laying there.
"When are you going to see him again?" Arwen asked as she began smoothing a light moisturizer over her cousin's ragged skin.
"I don't know. He lives in Boston. We live here." Deidre sighed looking up to the ceiling. "He's really nice and he's funny. He likes to read. He's reading Wuthering Heights right now at my suggestion and he tells me he loves it." "Really?" Arwen pulled a face. "I hate that book. Nobody needs a Heathcliff being a total douchebag in their life."
"You miss the romance and the never-ending-love of a man who felt he was never good enough for the love of his life. Catherine was a b***h refusing to marry him because of his social standing." Deidre argued as Arwen dabbed a product on her skin with a sponge. "He was an abusive twat."
"He had an anger problem from being abused as a child."
"Doesn't make it okay to be mean to a girl."
"She married someone else."
"And he sulked and moped and married another woman completely out of revenge." Arwen straightened up and examined her handywork. "A little bit of this product goes a long way. I think the key next time you try it on your own is just to do a tiny bit. You don't need much."
"The key is not to do in the school bathroom where the lighting is s**t," Deidre rolled her eyes. "It was only when I got to the library staff bathroom, I saw how much I'd used."
Arwen grabbed a mascara and undid the container, "look up." Arwen continued their conversation, "so if you were with some brooding man who could never confess his love for you because he felt he wasn't good enough, you would make excuses for him?" "f**k no. My cousin would kick my a*s," Deidre giggled as Arwen nodded emphatically at her accusation. "I'm just saying, I kind of get Heathcliff's point of view. I'm a little bit damaged and I'm working on it and working through it, but I get what it's like to not think I'm good enough. It was like when the guy from the library saw me on Monday and then ran off."
"He's your Catherine?" Arwen mocked.
"I don't know. He wasn't at the library yesterday."
"Well f**k him," Arwen said with a shrug. "Mathis is probably hotter anyway."
"Mathis is an entire state away, signed to a four-year deal in a sport I know nothing about."
"Talk to Ruiz," Arwen suggested. "She knows the sport inside out. I'm sure she'd even take you to a Ranger's game."
"Oh yeah, I forgot how much she likes hockey. I'll call her." She sighed after smacking her lips together as Arwen suggested, "won't this lipstick come off as soon as I eat?"
"Nope," she held up the tube for examination, "it's some kind of kiss proof, waterproof stain thing and it should last all day. Take it with you just in case you need to touch it up, but you should be fine." Arwen motioned to the mirror. "Light foundation, mascara, eyeliner, and lipstick."
Deidre blinked, "this was how Portia did it too. How the hell did I get so off track when I did it?"
"You were trying to hide your face, not emphasize the beauty of it," Arwen tapped her nose with a brush.
Deidre nodded, "maybe you're right." The sound of Addy calling to them upstairs made her giggle, "okay, what's going on with the mob boss? He spent the night and he's cooking breakfast. You really are giving him a shot?"
"I am," Arwen smiled. "It's kind of nice to have someone who can keep up with my shit."
"He kind of reminds me of dad," Deidre said quietly as she fiddled with her stuff. "Not like dad was what the internet says Addy is, but he just takes care of things. He just gets it done and it's no muss and no fuss and I know I don't have a lot of memories of dad since he was gone when I was just seven, but I remember him just being straight forward and no bullshit."
"He was definitely a no bullshit kind of guy," she hugged Dee after pulling her into a standing position. "You're okay with him being around a bit?"
"Yes," Deidre nodded emphatically, "he's good for you Arwen and I think he's good for me too. Did you know Enrico has a daughter my age? He's going to introduce us. He just moved them all back from Vegas last weekend and she's annoyed he didn't let her stay behind with her friends. He thinks having a new friend will help her. I'm going to introduce her to Portia and Miley." Deidre shrugged into the sundress she had put at the top of her bed.
"He moved them here?" Arwen asked curiously. "I wonder why?"
"He mentioned something about being head of Addy's IT security. Santino is the head of all security. Enrico reports to him. They both report to Addy. Since Addy had to move here, they had to move here."
"Wait, what do you mean since Addy had to move here?" Arwen stared at her cousin. "When," she grappled for words. "What are you talking about?"
Deidre c****d an eyebrow at Arwen, "He had to relocate. Taking over the full scope of the family business mean he had to move back to New York." She shook her head at her cousin, "do you two just bang and not talk?"
She slapped at her cousin's question and scowled at her mocking laugh, "Why wouldn't he tell me?"
"Because he probably thinks you'll panic if you think he's not a short-term fling considering how much you've been fighting dating him." Deidre commented as she slipped into boots and laughing as Addy called up to them again. "Come on, apparently pancakes are better eaten hot."
Arwen let her cousin pull her downstairs to the kitchen and found herself studying the man laughing with Santino in her kitchen. He had moved to New York permanently. He hadn't told her. Why? Was this not just a fun fling for him like she had expected it to be?
As he slid a plate in front of her and kissed the top of her head, stroking her bicep tenderly she watched him puttering around the open concept of her kitchen and dining area and considered for the first time, maybe she really did want to know what was going on in his brain.
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