Lucca: Azzarra Crime Family Book Two Read online

  Lucca

  Azzarra Crime Family

  Kiara Woodson

  Tobann Publications

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  One

  Bianca

  “No!” I shouted at the men who were surrounding me in the alleyway. “Go away! Leave me alone!” I had made the mistake of walking in the streets alone that evening. My father had always made sure that I never walked alone anywhere at anytime. At least, not during this period of time.

  My father’s name is Benito Fattore, and he is the capo famiglia of the second most powerful family on the Eastern Seaboard. The most powerful, currently, is the Azzarra family, but that family had been through several different changes at the top, which had weakened it considerably. The most recent installation at the top of that organization was Lucca Azzarra, who was stunningly inexperienced when he took over the role. He was basically plucked from his home in Palermo, Sicily, where he was working as a low-level soldier, and installed as capo famiglia by his older brother, Gianni, who himself was a relatively inexperienced capofamiglia who had no love for the business, and abdicated when he met his current wife, Grace.

  My heart pounded as the three men kept getting closer to me in the alleyway. One of them had a knife, with a blade as long as my forearm. It curved at the top, like a machete. He got closer enough to put that blade against my neck, tapping my jugular vein. He tipped the point into my flesh. “All I have to do is angle my knife in like this,” he said, pointing the tip so that it pierced my skin slightly. “And then apply pressure, and…” At that, he spread open his arms as he smiled a wicked smile. “Blood everywhere. Believe me, my pretty little Italian girl, you won’t be so pretty once my knife hits your jugular vein and your red blood is all over this pavement.”

  I swallowed hard, not really knowing what these men wanted, yet kind of knowing anyhow. “What do you want from me?” I cried, falling to my knees. “Please tell me what you want from me.”

  “We need your cunt,” one of the other guys said as I sat down on my knees. “And then, we need your cooperation.”

  My breath started coming faster and faster as I saw a van pull up next to the alleyway. “NO,” I shouted as the three men literally dragged me towards the van. I vomited on one of the men’s shoes, and he used that shoe to kick me hard, right between the legs. White-hot pain shot through me, as I attempted to become dead weight. No matter, I was 115 lbs on a good day. It didn’t really matter if I became dead weight or not. These three men, as hulking as they were, were going to get me into this van. I looked around, hoping that there was somebody around. Anybody. But there wasn’t a soul on the streets or the sidewalks. Nobody could hear me scream.

  Once I was forced into the van, somebody threw a pillow-case over my head. There was a hole for my nose, so I could somewhat breathe, but I obviously couldn’t see a thing. I felt somebody unbuckling my jeans, and I struggled against it, but there was somebody who was holding my hands above my head, and somebody holding my feet as well. It wasn’t long before my jeans were pulled down to my ankles, and I shook my head from side to side, feeling hot tears coming as I felt hands all over my body. I was terrified that I was going to be raped, so I started to kick wildly. Thank god, nobody actually tried to jam their dick inside of me, but it was bad enough that they were feeling me up.

  We were speeding somewhere, speeding down the highway, going to God-knows-where. I was breathing harder and faster than I ever had before. The humiliation of feeling these hands on my body was unbearable, so I screwed up my eyelids and tried to think of something else. Something else…I thought about my family, including my older brother whose name is Nico, and who had recently come out as gay. My father banished him, but I still loved him, and so did Isabella, my younger sister. Izzy and Nico were close, closer than Nico and I were, and I envied them that.

  What would Nico do if he knew what was happening to me? What could he do? Nico had refused to join the family business, which was another huge bone of contention between my father and him. He instead chose to go to art school and learn his craft. He currently was living in the Village, just down the street from me, in a loft in a converted warehouse. He lived hand to mouth, and, if it weren’t for his husband, who was a computer genius, he probably wouldn’t have had the money to live at all. Our father was tremendously wealthy, of course, but he cut Nico off when Nico refused our father’s demands that he join the business, and, on the same day, introduced our father to Carmine, who was Nico’s husband.

  “At least you’re dating another Italian,” I joked to Nico after our father met Carmine and threw them both out of his house. “Could you imagine if Carmine wasn’t Italian?” I shook my head as Nico and I laughed while sitting on his fire escape. The night was cool, October in New York, and I had pulled my sweater closer around me as he and I shared a bottle of Two Buck Chuck, drunk straight out of the bottle.

  “Ha ha, little girl,” Nico said. “I guess ol’ Benito could give shit less now if I dated an Italian or not, but you best be getting yourself a Dago, or else.”

  That was true. Our father had impressed upon the three of us the importance of keeping our bloodlines pure. I was barely allowed to date anybody growing up, but I really wasn’t allowed to date somebody whose name didn’t end in an o, a, e or i. If his last name was Sinclair, it was an automatic no-go, but if his last name was Lombardo, he was automatically in. Well, not automatically in, but he sat least got through the screening process.

  But Nico, in shoving my father’s rules down his throat, and coming out as a proud gay man, upended the whole thing. He would be allowed to date anyone he pleased, mainly because our father refused to speak to him ever again.

  I successfully managed to displace myself while these men were doing these vile things to me in the van. That was something that I had managed to do since I was a young girl. After all, I had to go to places in my head, because this wasn’t the first time that something like this had happened to me. It had happened to me at least twice before, both times by men who were my father’s associates. They fondled me just like these men were doing. Both times, the men ended up burned alive in a car. My father don’t play that shit, to his credit. The fact that those two creeps got theirs, however, was small comfort to me.

  Our mother, Rafaela, was much more modern than our father, and mom not only accepted Nico, but also was a member of PFLAG – Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. Needless to say, she and my father are at odds. They were divorced and they rarely spoke to one another.

  I silently prayed that these two men would end what they were doing while the van bumped along. I felt violated, humiliated, degraded, as if I were simply a piece of meat that these men were playing with. I swallowed hard, feeling the warm sensation of vomit entering my mouth, and then the feeling of acid going back down my throat. This taste made me gag, causing me to make gagging noises while the three men in the back just laughed
.

  Suddenly, the van had stopped, and I heard the van door open from the back. “What the fuck?” A voice, deep and sonorous, yet smooth as velvet. I detected no accent, Italian, Brooklyn or otherwise. The men in the van had distinct New Yawk accents, but this voice had none. “What the fuck is going on here? I asked you to bring her here. That’s all that I asked you to do.”

  “But boss…”

  The words were cut off by gun shots. Three gun shots. I sat at the back of the van, my jeans around my ankles, and I scooted to the wall. My hands were free, so I immediately tried to take the pillow-case off my head. I was stopped from doing so by two massive hands. “Don’t,” velvet voice said. His voice was smooth and masculine. Although he said very little, I could tell, just by the cadence and tone of his speech, that he was much more educated and intelligent than the three goombahs who had brought me here. “I’m very sorry, but you can’t have this pillow-case off just yet.”

  Velvet voice grabbed me by my forearm, but he was gentler than the other guys were. “Come on,” he said, trying to force me out of the van. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  My jeans were still around my ankles, and I felt another man pulling them up. I tried not to think about the humiliation that I was experiencing having this happen to me. It was bad enough being fondled and played with, but, somehow, this was even worse. I had one man holding tight to my wrists while another man tugged my jeans up, buttoned them and buckled my belt.

  “Let me go,” I said while I struggled against these new men. “Goddammit, you let me go, and you let me go right now.” I wasn’t used to such little respect. My father was feared, perhaps one of the most feared men alive. People didn’t fuck with him, and they certainly never fucked with me. Yet these men were doing just that.

  “Take off the pillow case,” velvet voice said. “And put on a blindfold. She’s probably having problems breathing right now.”

  “Oh, you think?” I asked, my words spitting out of my mouth. “Why would you think that? I mean, there’s so much breathing room in a pillow case.”

  I felt my arms being forcibly put behind me, and a very strong hand was grasping them while they were behind me. Then I felt somebody taking off the pillow case and, in one motion, slipping on a blindfold. I took a deep and cleansing breath, still feeling disoriented, but at least I could breathe easier. A scent hit my nose, that of spice and sandalwood. High dollar cologne. Cheap cologne had the unfortunate effect of making me want to puke, but this scent was almost soothing. I had a splitting headache anyhow, because of what had happened in that van, so I certainly didn’t need one more thing to make it worse.

  As I was hustled along, I felt the saliva in my mouth pool, and it gave me an idea. I made a sound and hocked a line of spit down towards the ground. I was aiming for one of these men’s shoes, but I had no idea if I hit my target or not.

  “Bianca,” velvet voice said. “You don’t have to do that. I’m not your enemy.”

  “You’re not? You’re not?” I felt the fury build up from my core, and it spread from there, encapsulating every single cell in a kind of viscous ball of white-hot fire. “You’re not my fucking enemy? Listen, I don’t know who you are, or where I am, but you have some fucking nerve to tell me that you’re not my enemy. If you arranged for this to happen in any way, then you are my enemy. Just so you know.”

  I started to drag my feet, so, to my dismay, I felt myself being picked up. I was unceremoniously being carried over somebody’s shoulder, which sent my blood rushing to my temples. This, of course, made my headache feel that much worse. I gritted my teeth, and started to pummel whoever this was with my fist. My fist met hard muscle, rock hard muscle, so I knew that I was hurting myself much more than I was hurting this guy. In my fury, I didn’t feel one thing.

  “Stop!” Velvet voice said to me. “You don’t want to make this harder than it has to be.”

  “You have some fucking nerve. You arranged for this to happen, made this happen, and you probably got your goombahs to do that to me in the van, too. Now you’re literally carrying me with a blindfold over my fucking eyes, and you’re asking me to behave myself? Well, you can go and fuck yourself.”

  Velvet voice simply sighed and continued to walk with me thrown over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes. Like I weighed about 25 pounds. He wasn’t even breathing hard, the bastard.

  When I heard him whistling, my fury went from Defcon 2 straight to Defcon 1, and I once again started to pummel his back with my fists. Then I started to scream, and velvet voice stopped in his tracks.

  “Listen, Bianca, you don’t want me to put that pillowcase back on you, do you? Do you? I don’t want to put a ball gag on you, or put a scarf around your mouth and nose. You won’t be able to breathe. Now, you have two choices. One, you shut up, or two, I stop right here and shut you up.” He finally seemed to be breathing heavily, but not because he was exerting himself, but apparently because he was well and truly pissed.

  I bit my lip, not wanting to be gagged and really not wanting there to be anything that would impede my breathing. “How much longer until I can get to whatever prison you’re going to put me into?” I asked him. I was feeling sick by then, like I was going to puke. I started to swallow hard, trying to overcome the feeling that vomit was going to spew out of me at any second.

  Truth be told, I was now afraid of this dude. He might have had a beautiful voice and his scent was soothing, yet masculine, but the fact remained that he had me kidnapped and was threatening to smother me with a pillow-case. I might have never been a person that others fucked with before, but he clearly was willing to fuck with me, and that made him unpredictable to say the very least. At this point, I was afraid that I was going to die.

  “Not much longer.” He sounded extremely annoyed. Then he started to speak Italian to his buddy, whoever that was. I had almost forgotten that there was another man on the scene until that point.

  The things that he was saying in Italian weren’t necessarily things that I worried me, because they were just making small talk at that point. Not talking about the weather, but they were talking about other things. They were laughing and joking, and I started to feel my bile rising once again.

  “You know that I can understand every word you say, don’t you?” I asked them.

  “I know, Bianca,” velvet voice said. “I know that you speak fluent Italian. I would expect nothing less.”

  That much was true. Although I grew up right here in New York City, in the Lenox Hill area, I was not exposed to much English until I started my private school at the age of four. My father and mother only spoke Italian around the house, so Italian was really my first language. My father told me that it was important that I knew Italian because there might be a time when I would be forced to live over there.

  I wondered if that time had come.

  After what seemed to be about a hundred years, I heard the unmistakable sound of this velvet voice turning his key into a lock. I squeezed my eyes shut tight as he continued to carry me into an elevator that went up about three floors. Then, he opened up a door and laid me down on a bed. “There,” he said. “You’re home.”

  “What? I’m not home.” I knew that for a fact. For one thing, although I didn’t see anything, I also couldn’t hear anything. Namely, I couldn’t hear my dog, Daisy, who no doubt would have been barking and whining when I came home. I also didn’t hear my roommate, Adelaide, who probably would be home right now. She was a bartender at night, but I knew that she had this particular night off. She was a bit of a homebody when she didn’t work, so I knew that she probably would have been home at this moment.

  “You’re in your new home.” At that, he shut the door and left me there with a blindfold on.

  My new home? My new home? How dare he say this to me? This wasn’t my new home, no fucking way. My home was my home, and this place, wherever it was, wasn’t it.

  I was able to take off my blindfold at that point, and I looked around. There was
a window, but there were bars on this window, and there was a black cloth covering it, so there was no way that I could look out and try to orient myself. There was also a bathroom, thank god, that was connected to the room. Other than that, however, there wasn’t much to see. A wooden armoire that was filled with women’s clothes. A walk-in closet that was also filled with clothes and shoes. A smallish bed that was more like a day bed. It had a wooden frame and was built like an enormous box, with the mattress stuffed inside of it. Other than those few things, though, there was nothing in this room.

  Oh, crap. I wasn’t in the mood for this at all. Not that I lived in the lap of luxury, because I didn’t. My father might have been wealthy and feared, but I was only his daughter, and my father didn’t exactly make sure that I was living in the manner to which I was accustomed growing up. I made a living, such as it was, as a sous chef for a high dollar restaurant. I had a bad spending habit, so my $50,000 salary didn’t go very far, which is why I needed to have a roommate. I did live in a beautiful little pre-war brownstone in the Village, with hardwood floors and crown molding throughout, and I loved my little apartment. My room was just how I wanted it, decorated with blue walls with white trim, a blue and purple floral bedspread, and white shelving behind my bed where I put my fake flowers, pictures, and knick-knacks from around the world. Adelaide and I also decorated our living room and dining room with funky art work that was painted by my brother Nico, and we painted our walls a pleasing shade of yellow.

  But this place…it was spare and ugly. I think that I knew why it was, too. I wasn’t supposed to feel at home here. Velvet voice wanted information from me, or something of that sort, I didn’t quite know what, and he was going to get it. If he made me feel comfortable, then all bets would be off – I might not ever give him what he wanted. But put me into this stupid little room with nothing to entertain me…I could already see that I was going to go stir crazy.