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Mafia Chic
Erica Orloff
Goombah to GucciAs the only granddaughter among seventeen grandsons of one of New York's reputed Mafia dons, Teddi Gallo has been surrounded by overprotective men all her life…not to mention those FBI agents tailing her family. But now, determined to live her own life, she has decamped to Manhattan with dreams of making it in the brutal restaurant business.Soon, however, she is finding her dinner plate is more than full as she juggles an old-money, news-anchor boyfriend, a devastatingly handsome FBI agent trailing her 24/7, a nervous accountant concerned her business is failing and her cousin Tony acting as her bodyguard. Toss in bringing her new beau home for Sunday dinner and trying to explain the hundred pairs of stolen Jimmy Choos in her Uncle Vito's living room…and Teddi Gallo's already-chaotic life is made all the more messy. Maybe a few well-hatched plans, a bit of matchmaking and a dose of Mafia Chic will get her out of this jam.
ERICA ORLOFF
is the author of Spanish Disco, Diary of a Blues Goddess and Divas Don’t Fake It (and Nine Other Things I Learned Before I Turned Thirty), all published by Red Dress Ink. She is also the author of the gangland novel The Roofer, published by MIRA Books, and the vampire novel Urban Legend (Silhouette Bombshell). Like the character of Teddi, Erica knows how to score boxing on the ten-point must system, and she is an avid card player. She lives in Florida in a completely chaotic household of family and unruly pets, and she can be reached at www.ericaorloff.com.
Mafia Chic
Erica Orloff
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dedicated to my own special kind of family.
And to Pamela Morrell, honorary family member.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, a huge thank-you to my agent, Jay Poynor. He has always been my biggest supporter.
Thanks also to Margaret Marbury, for her absolutely brilliant eye, and to Jessica Regante at Red Dress Ink. A note of thanks to Laura Morris, marketing genius at Red Dress Ink, who appreciated the heroine of this tale. Thanks to Dianne Moggy (we still have to go out for spaghetti and meatballs), part of the great network of support I have for my books, as well as publisher Donna Hayes, for her vision. I also have to say this cover is my favorite of all my books so far—so a special thank-you to the terrific designers at Harlequin in Toronto.
You can’t write a novel about a special kind of family without having a tight-knit one of your own. Thank you to my parents, Maryanne and Walter Orloff, Stacey, Jessica, extended family members, Gloria and Joey, and the memories of my grandparents, Robert and Irene Cunningham. Wherever my grandmother is, along with my grandfather, they’re likely playing pinochle. Love to all my nieces and nephews: Tyler, Zachary, Pannos, Cassidy, Tori.
To the members of Writer’s Cramp, Pam Morrell, Gina De Luca, Jon Van Zile, thank you for faithfully meeting every two weeks. I know the food and wine are enticements, but it’s also the hard work we do. Your comments are always dead-on.
My friends, Cleo, Nancy, Mark DiBona (my resident bookie and gambling expert), Kathy Levinson, Kathy Johnson and Chris Richardson, for being rock-solid supports.
And last but not least, Alexa, Nicholas and Isabella, for being truly happy and extraordinary little people. And to J.D. For it all.
Contents
Preface
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
Preface
Every other Friday from the time I was born until I was sixteen and allowed to start dating, I slept over at my grandma and Poppy Marcello’s house. My brother slept over, too, and my parents used the free night to go out for dinner and have some time alone.
My brother and Poppy used to go down to my grandfather’s wood shop and make birdhouses. Then they’d watch the fights on cable or would play checkers. My grandmother and I cooked in anticipation for Sunday’s big family meal, hand rolling meatballs with chopped veal and beef and bread crumbs. She taught me all the secret family recipes, passed down from her mother and her mother before that.
After cooking, Grandma and I would go sit in the den and have sweetened iced tea in summer or hot tea with lots of milk in winter. One Friday night, when I was about eleven, I remember dragging out the heavy family photo albums lining the bookshelves. I brought one over to her on the couch and plopped next to her and opened it.
“What’s this a picture of?” I asked on the first page.
“Oh…” Her eyes misted over, and her smile was bittersweet. “My goodness, but the time flies, Teddi. That was your mother’s fifth birthday party. Your grandfather… Every birthday had to be better than the last one. That was the year we had pony rides.”
“Wow.” I wanted a pony. I turned the pages, and each photo brought on a story. I knew most of the tales already, but I never got tired of curling up next to my grandmother and hearing them again. Then I found a page that had somehow gotten stuck to the page before it. Gingerly, I pried the pages apart. There, in black-and-white photos, was a man I had never seen before. “Who’s that?” I asked.
Grandma’s eyes welled up, and she heaved an uncharacteristic sigh. “That, my darling, is my youngest brother. He’s your great-uncle Mario.”
“And who’s that lady next to him? She’s beautiful.”
“Yes, she is. Was. That woman is Mariella.”
“How come I don’t know them? How come I’ve never met your brother, Grandma?”
“He was struck by the thunderbolt.”
I looked up at my grandmother’s face, still relatively unlined, rosy-cheeked, her dark hair, graying at the temples, pulled up in a topknot and secured with bobby pins. I furrowed my brow. “A thunderbolt? He was hit by lightning?”
She laughed, even as she dabbed her eyes with a little handkerchief she kept in her apron pocket. “No…it’s an expression we Italians have. When you’re older, you’ll fall in love and get married. Maybe it will be someone you’ve known a long time…a friend you suddenly see in a different light. Or maybe you’ll go off to college and meet a boy you could imagine yourself spending the rest of your life with. Someone with good values. But maybe…just maybe…you will be struck by the thunderbolt. That means you’ll look across a crowded room, or you’ll bump into someone on the street…and from the very second you look into his eyes and he looks into yours, that’s it. You know. He is the one. It won’t make any sense. People will tell you that you’re crazy, but you will know. There’ll be this voice, this feeling deep inside…you will just know, and your life will never be the same, because none of it will matter until you finally get to be with him. Your love.”
I looked down at the picture of my long-lost uncle Mario. “So what happened to him?”
“He’s in prison, dear.”
“Prison? For what?”
She hesitated, and then said, “He killed a man.” She said it as if she’d said, “He ran a red light.”
I shivered slightly and snuggled closer to her. “Why? How?”
“Oh…it’s a long story.” She looked at me, and I clearly wasn’t going to let the matter drop. “All right, then. Your uncle Mario saw Mariella at a dance. And that was it. They were both struck by the thunderbolt. You’ve never seen two people more in love than your uncle Mario and Mariella. It was like electricity ran between them. When people were around them, it was intoxicating. You could just feel the way they were meant to be together.”
I hung on her every word. “And?”
“Mariella’s father was not a reasonable man. A very over-protective Sicilian. But a little crazy, too. He decided Uncle Mario was not the man he wanted Mariella to marry. He had already decided she should marry Joey Antonelli.”
“The plumber?” Everyone in our neighborhood knew Antonelli and Sons plumbing. Their vans—all a bright yellow—were always on the streets of Brooklyn.
“Yes. The plumber. Anyway, Mariella’s father sent her two older brothers to scare Uncle Mario. They went to beat him up.”
“Oh, no!”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Only they didn’t count on Uncle Mario being so strong and so in love. It was like he was superhuman. He turned around and beat one of her brothers so hard he killed him right there on the street.”
I shuddered. “But…but couldn’t he tell the police it was only because they were going to beat him up?”
“Yes. He did say it was self-defense. But…the beating was so brutal. And Uncle Mario didn’t have a mark on him. And it was around the time that…well…the judge wanted to teach a lesson to our kind.”
“Our kind?”
“The family. It’s too much for you to understand. But it didn’t go well, the trial. They added some other charges—racketeering. Anyway, he got a prison sentence.”
“And he’s still in jail?”
“Yes. He’s eligible for parole next year.”
“And what about Mariella? Did she marry Joey Antonelli like her father wanted?”
Grandma shook her head.
“Well, what happened to her?”
“She stood by Uncle Mario. She had no choice. She’d been struck by the thunderbolt. She was very sad about her brother, but she still loved Uncle Mario. Her family disowned her. She ended up moving away. She visits Uncle Mario every weekend. She dresses all in black. People say she’s crazy. She dresses like a widow. She missed any opportunity to marry like her friends, to have babies. Waiting…waiting…all this time. Like a penance or something.”
“But they’ll get to be together when he comes out of prison. They’ll finally be together.”
“Yes. But…well, they’ll never be those two young people so in love.” Suddenly, Grandma seemed to think better of telling me the story of Uncle Mario and Mariella. “Oh…what am I telling you this sad story for?” She patted my knee. “It’s in your blood, you know. The passion. Maybe you’ll be struck by the thunderbolt yourself. Maybe you will have that kind of love.”
I looked down at the picture of my uncle Mario and the beautiful, tragic Mariella. And I knew one thing. I never, ever wanted to be struck by the thunderbolt.
Chapter 1
“Jackson is going to take a dive in round three,” I said, glancing at the television as I passed through the living room, where my roommate sat with her boyfriend of the moment, a boxing buff.
Dave eyed me the way men do when they assume a woman doesn’t know the first thing about sports or the difference between a Phillips head and flat-head screwdriver (for the record, the Phillips head is shaped like a cross on the end). “Jackson? A lot you know about boxing. He’ll go all twelve and take the decision.”
I stopped in my tracks and whirled around. “Wanna bet?”
“I hate to rob you of your hard-earned money, Teddi, but you’re on. Five bucks says he’ll go the distance.”
“Then let’s make it interesting. Hundred bucks…and the loser cleans the kitchen.” I stood in the doorway of the living room and cast a backward glance to the kitchen, where a porcelain tower of dishes was precariously leaning in the sink.
“A hundred bucks?” He was handsome, I’d give Diana that. Nice biceps. But then Diana always had handsome men following her around. I called her Lady Di, and her British accent, Paris fashions and catlike eyes made her stand out, even among New York City’s trendsetters. However, something about this guy annoyed me. He was too cocky, a trait I was certain Lady Di would discover very quickly. She tolerates fools and assholes less than I do.
“Yes. A hundred bucks and the dishes. Unless you’re afraid a woman will beat you,” I said, emphasizing “woman” as if I had said “herpes” or “vomit.”
“You’re on.”
I strode across the living room and stuck out my hand. “Then shake on it.”
Dave shook, firmly I might add, and I sat down on the love seat to watch the boxing match. “What round is it?” I asked.
“Second.” Lady Di spoke up, her smirk barely contained. She knew that, other faults aside, I never took a sucker bet.
The bell signaled the end of round two. Jackson looked to be in terrific shape. His muscular back and coffee-colored skin glistened with sweat, but he wasn’t even breathing heavy. His opponent, “Rocky” Garcia, was nine years older—a lifetime in boxing years, sort of like dog years—and he already looked tired. The guy was known as a “bleeder,” sustaining cuts above the eye that would pour down his face, blocking his vision. If you’ve never actually watched a boxing match, then you might not know cuts like that entail sticking a Q-tip directly into the gash. Boxing is not for the squeamish. And though Garcia was the champ, no one expected him to win against Jackson.
Dave leaned back on the couch and stretched. “I’m going to take Diana out to Whiskey Blue with our hundred bucks—which we’ll blow on a bottle of champagne. And we’ll tell you all about it in the morning.”
I rolled my eyes, then focused on the television set. When the bell rang, Garcia came out with a flurry. Left, right, left jab. Uppercut. The announcers were getting excited, shouting into their microphones. The crowd in the MGM Grand in Vegas rose to their collective feet. Jackson shook his head from side to side, as if to clear it from the small pounding he took. Garcia came at him again with a series of body blows and then—wham!—Jackson hit the canvas like a man who’d just had a safe fall on him in a cartoon. He was caught square on the jaw.
Dave leaned forward on the couch, in shock, screaming at the television set. He stood up and leaned still closer to the TV, not believing his eyes. “Get up, you loser! Get up!” Dave was willing the fighter to climb the ropes and stand again, in the way men have of believing the athletes on television can actually hear them through some miracle of technology. But Jackson just lay there, as I knew he would. The fight was called, the champ held up the belt he retained with the victory, and I stuck out my palm.
“A cool one hundred, please.”
Stunned, Dave pulled his eel-skin wallet out of the back pocket of his beautifully cut pants (Italian, no doubt). Lady Di tried to look appropriately sad that he lost, but she couldn’t look at me for fear we would both dissolve into gales of laughter.
“Here,” Dave said through his teeth, seething. He handed me five twenties.
“Fastest hundred I ever earned. Thanks…and Dave?”
