Mobster's Bones: Mobster's Series, #5

By Amy Rachiele

How can things you only glimpse for a moment sear themselves into your memory?
~Alessandra, Mobster’s Bones

Alessandra has a problem. It's not that the Mafia is the only life she knows, her father and best friend being members. 
She's being followed. Her stalker destroys the one thing Alessandra thought they could never touch. She's now forced to flee the only home she's known, Palmetto. 

How can someone be so beautiful? The morning sunlight is coming through the blinds on my window casting a glow around Alessandra. She has been here for a week, and we have fallen into a routine. It is sort of like she has always been here. Imagining her leaving, gives me an unwanted stone in my stomach.
~ Troy, Mobster’s Bones

Troy has his life planned out perfectly; graduate from Notre Dame with honors, get married, live a quiet life with his wife and kids in the suburbs. Just like his parents and their parents before them. 
Things don’t work out according to plan - the scaffolding of his life is crumbling before his eyes. Troy’s plans didn’t include the daughter of a mob enforcer showing up at his door and sleeping in his bed. Are Alessandra and her mafia family worth throwing away the life Troy has always wanted?

This book can stand alone or be read as Book 5 in the Mobster Series.
(Book 1 is Mobster’s Girl)
Mobster Romance (Organized Crime Romance) #mobsterfiction 
ARE YOU READY FOR THE BEGINNING? Follow Antonio and Megan’s Story for free, download Mobster's Girl and get Awakening the Mobster for free. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Amy Rachiele
• Release date: Jan 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9781516878437

Book preview

Prologue

Alessandra

My heels click too loudly on the cement sidewalk. I’m moving fast. My fist tightens around the strap on my bag, and I pick up my already hurried pace. I shoot a quick look behind me. No one is there, but I know they are, watching me. My shoulders tighten like someone threw an ice cube down the back of my shirt. The Saturday night special in my purse should comfort me but it doesn’t; I can’t fire at shadows. I’m too nervous to even pull out my phone.

I know better than to be out on the streets at night even in a town where my dad is a Capo. I have never been afraid. I really haven’t had a reason to be. Best friends with the mob boss’s son, Antonio, my father a bad-ass enforcer for the Delisi family make it a no-brainer. Stay the fuck away from me.

Street and porch lights on symmetrical houses flit by, illuminating the cracked pavement then casting it into darkness. I’m two houses away and the pavement stretches before me like miles of empty wilderness. My breathing is labored. Echoing in my ears are abrupt huffs of air in tandem with rushing blood.

My house!

I run up the stairs and unlock the front door, throwing myself into the living room. I slam it behind me and click the lock. I turn, leaning up against it, exhausted. I kick off my shoes and slide down to the floor.

Why is this happening to me? This is destroying me. A tear pricks the corner of my eye.  It is shredding me to pieces one eerie bit at a time. I realize paranoia is consuming me as I pull my legs up tight to my chest. I wrap my arms around them and bury my head. I have to tell someone. I will look weak, but I have to. I can’t take this anymore.

Chapter 1

Troy

Remind me to never, ever, ever drink again, Jake whines. His arm is slumped over my shoulder. He reeks of tequila and Chinese food. I turn my face away to steal a compulsive look at my watch. Celia should be coming over for our biweekly date.

Your learning curve is messed up, I point out. If you were on track with your age matching college years, you would have been in high school for your first hangover, probably on some cheap ass beer in some pimpled-faced teenager’s cellar. But lucky you get to experience the hard shit at a testosterone-fueled frat party.

Being smart and a prodigy athlete sucks sometimes, he slurs in my face.

Dude, don’t talk, I grumble, turning my head away from his breath. You’re too close to me for that, just walk.

I help Jake down the steps of the frat house and out into the fresh fall air. The glow of large bulbs hovering high above our heads lights up the thick lush green grass that outlines the cement walkways of Notre Dame’s campus. Newly fallen yellow, red, and gold leaves are scattered everywhere.

The fact this hasn’t happened earlier in your academic career amazes me, I mock. You’ve been here for three years.

Why are we leaving? Jake slurs.

We? I came to get you! You’re trashed and you said you feel sick. Don’t talk.

Jake’s legs wobble, making it more difficult to keep him from crumbling to the ground.

Maybe I wanna talk, he challenges me.

It’s not your best fuckin’ moment, man, shut up.

You’ve changed, Jake declares cryptically.

Whatever. He is annoying the shit out of me. I am being a good friend by dragging his ass out of there. If he loses his scholarship, he won’t ever graduate.

Where is the crazy guy I met my first year?

Plans change... people change... I trail off.

Last year changed you.

I’ve had a lot of changes.

No, he garbles with force. I’m not talking about losing Megan to the freakin’ Mafia; I’m talking about after the casino last year... After all the bullshit went down with them coming here: Erin, Megan, Antonio, Vito, Jake lists, swinging his head back and forth. I know you can’t talk about it. But it made you a fuddy-duddy. Jake stumbles; talking lucidly and walking at the same time is a struggle for him.

Who says that?

It’s a saying, Jake insists.

Yeah, if you’re ninety years old... Anyway, maybe I’ve matured.

That’s only part of it, he comments.

Well, you’re the double F.

What the hell is that? I catch a direct whiff of his breath.

Fucking funny, I tell him, wrinkling my nose and turning my face away.

Jake laughs but stops, stiffening next to me.

Oh shit... I feel sick.

I steer Jake off the path and toward the bushes.

Hold it for two seconds. Jake doubles over, clutching his stomach while letting go of me. He wobbles over to the evergreens and pukes violently. My own stomach lurches watching him.

Jake flicks a thumbs-up at me after fertilizing the bushes with tequila and Kung Pao chicken.  I lead him to the parking lot and we hobble over to my sedan, and I fold Jake’s tall body in.

Watch your head, I warn before closing the door on him. I hop in and drive the short half-mile to our dorm, which is the most deserted I have ever seen outside of summer break.

I roll into a parking space in front of O’Neill Hall and get out. I pull Jake out of the passenger seat.

Come on, big guy, I say, hauling him to his unsteady feet. I sling his arm over my shoulder again and make it to the elevators. The steel doors slide open when I press the up arrow. Inside, I jab the number three. You have a game this weekend, I remind him, sounding like a nag.

Shit! Jake spews. It smells like something fuckin’ died in here.

"That smell would be you, I inform him while plastering him against the elevator wall to keep him from tipping over. It’s congesting into a stench in this small space."

Oh, man, I’m foul, Jake proclaims, swaying.

Gears grind and clink together.

I have never heard that noise before in all the millions of times I have ridden in this elevator. It rocks violently; the lights flash in rapid succession three times and go out. I brace myself with my hand on the wall in the pitch-blackness.

What the...? I curse.

Tha-thump! A silent second of what the fuck passes.

Troy! Jake shrieks in panic. I’m blind!

You’re not blind, I shoot back. The lights went out. I step toward where the panel should be and hit something with my foot.

Ow!

Are you on the floor?

I think so, Jake mumbles.

Dumb-ass, I mutter, while beating buttons and feeling around for an emergency switch. Shouldn’t back-up lights come on? I wonder aloud.

Snorting and hissing emanate from the floor; Jake is snoring. Great. I didn’t expect a response but he’s sleeping. Really? What a fucking night this is turning out to be! I glance down at my watch like I would be able to see it in the dark confined space. Celia is going to be waiting for me. I hate being late.

No matter what I press or push nothing happens. The elevator is totally dead. I scrub my hands over my face in frustration. Now what?

I go to reach for my phone but from outside the doors of the elevator is a scratching noise. I lean closer to listen. Someone is out there.

I rap on the metal. Hello! I yell. We’re trapped in here! I pause, listening.

No response.

Hello!

Rattling and the doors shift, letting in a beam of light. Thank God! Someone is going to get us out of here. I put my fingers in the opening and push, helping the doors to open. Gradually, they separate and slide back. I am ready to thank whoever is out there but the hallway is empty. I survey the length, and the area is deserted. Stepping out, I lean down to pick up Jake’s arms. I drag him out into the hall, afraid the doors will close and seal him in.

He is totally out; the movement doesn’t wake him. I stare down at him snoozing on the carpet of the dorm, deciding on how to get him to his room.

As I lean over to hook my arms in his to lift, something sweeps against my back. Rough cloth scratches my cheek and then everything before me goes dark. My arms automatically flail, punching at the air. I can’t see. Through the blood pounding in my ears, a muffled laugh echoes around me. My blood runs cold as strong hands grab my arms and wrench them behind my back, straining at the muscles of my shoulder with a bitter sting.

What the fuck? I yell. Get off me! I struggle, but my assailant shoves me, forcing me down the hallway. I wobble and trip but stay upright, keeping up with the pushing. I am shoved into a room; the door slams with a sickening crack. My hands are free. I rip the bag off my head ready to pummel on whoever grabbed me, except I see who it is, and I am stunned.

What the hell are you doing here!?

Alessandra

The sensation of being stared at haunts my insides. I should not be going out tonight. I run a flat-iron through my hair, gazing at myself in the mirror over my dresser. It’s a small comfort to know I’ll be with a bunch of people. If I keep repeating to myself that there is safety in numbers, it helps a little, but somehow, it doesn’t make any difference. A room full of friendly faces doesn’t change this. This thing is tearing away at me a little at a time.

My newly applied makeup is going to be ruined because of the tears welling up in my eyes. I snatch a tissue out of the box on my dresser to dab them and knock over some of the many stuffed animals