Broken Vow: A Dark Mafia Romance (Brutal Birthright Book 5)

Riona and I take an Uber over to Callum’s apartment, with a detour by the Gallo house. I don’t like us hopping in and out of hired cars. I want to be able to drive Riona myself, in a vehicle I know is safe.

So we borrow one from Dante.

It’s the same Escalade he and I drove around in last time I was in town. I sink down into the driver’s seat, into the dent made by Dante’s bulk. Riona seems similarly at home in the car, setting her water bottle in the cup holder automatically before she buckles her seatbelt.

“Drive around in this car a lot, do you?” I ask her.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she says.

“You seem to know where everything is.”

Riona gives an irritated sniff.

“What?” I say.

“There’s nothing romantic between Dante and me.”

“I never said there was.”

She rolls her eyes.

I’m driving us up Lakeshore Drive, the water spooling away beside us on our right. Riona looks out at the lake, which is flat and gray today, almost the exact same color as the cloudy sky.

“I know he was carrying a torch for Simone all along,” I say.

“That’s not why!” Riona snaps. “I mean, I knew he was in love with her. He said he wasn’t, but it was obvious. All I thought was that I hoped it worked out someday. It made me sad to see him hurting like that. There wasn’t anything romantic between us either way. We were just friends. We still are.”

“Alright,” I say. “I believe you.”

“I don’t care if you believe me or not. That’s the truth.” Riona is quiet a moment. Then she says softly, “He respected me. So often men act like you have to prove yourself to them. When I showed up at the jail after they arrested him—you know about that?”

I nod. When the Griffins and the Gallos were fighting with the Polish Mafia, the Polish boss Mikolaj Wilk framed Dante for murder. Riona got the charges dropped.

“Dante trusted me to help him. Even though we barely knew each other. And our families had been enemies not long before.” Riona links her fingers gently on her lap. She has lovely hands—pale and slim with clear polish over the shell-pink nails. “We’re alike in a lot of ways. Disciplined. Hard-working. Unemotional. People respect that in a man. But with a woman, they say you’re cold or harsh.”

“People say that about Deuce, too.”

“They don’t hold it against him, though.”

I think about that. How attributes are viewed in men versus women. How women are criticized for behaviors that might be seen as virtues in men. You see plenty of that in the military—guys getting complimented for their “leadership skills,” and gals getting called “ball-busting bitches” when they give the same orders.

“You’re right,” I say, after a moment. “And you’re right that I shouldn’t have assumed that you and Dante couldn’t just be friends.”

Riona glances over at me, surprised that I actually agreed with her for once.

“People are always telling me what I should want, or what I should feel,” she says.

“Is Dean one of those people?”

That was the wrong thing to say. I can almost see her barriers coming up again.

“You were lying when you said you didn’t like art,” Riona says. “You were laying a trap for him, so you could make him look stupid.”

“For a smart guy, it was awfully easy to make him look dumb.”

“You didn’t like him as soon as he made that comment about the military.”

“Everybody thinks they know what’s it like to be in the army ‘cause they watched Saving Private Ryan.”

Riona nods slowly. “Right. And everyone’s a lawyer because they watched Suits.”

I laugh. “Well . . . that was a pretty good show.”

Riona smiles just a little. “I watched it for the clothes. Donna knew how to dress. Joan from Mad Men, too. They don’t always do the redheads right on TV, but with those two . . . ”

I’m sorry that we’re already pulling up in front of Callum’s place. Right when Riona was actually starting to relax a little. It takes me a minute to be sure we’ve got the right place, because the building looks like an old church, not an apartment complex. But Riona assures me this is the spot.

I never met Callum on my last visit—he was busy watching the birth of his son. I know all about him, though. He’s married to Dante’s little sister Aida. He’s the oldest Griffin child and heir to the empire.

I can tell straight off how much he cares about Riona. He brings us up to his cozy kitchen, which is small but warm, with exposed brick walls and butcher block counters. Plenty of the original church remains, including the long roof beams, and several stained-glass windows.

Despite how late it is, Callum’s still dressed in slacks and a white button-up shirt, the sleeves rolled up. He keeps his voice low as he pours us all a drink, mindful of Aida and the baby asleep in the next room.

“How’s Miles?” Riona whispers.

“Getting more stubborn by the day.” Callum smiles.

He pours us each a glass of red wine.

“To family,” he says simply.

This time, I take a sip. The wine seems especially good after the ribeye. It’s funny eating and drinking like this. The two months before I hardly had a single good meal. Now I’m in the lap of luxury. I’ll have to be careful not to let it go to my head. Hunger gives you an edge.

“Alright,” I say, setting down the wine. “What do we know about the diver?”

Callum opens his laptop and plays the security video for me.

Even though I can see that it upsets Riona, she watches the whole thing over again without taking her eyes off the screen.

“How did you get away from him under the water?” I ask.

She explains about the hairpin.

“That was lucky,” I say. “And smart.”

As the diver climbs out of the pool I say, “He looks about six-two, two hundred pounds. Does that sound right, Riona?”

She nods. “He was strong. Young, probably—less than forty. Dark eyes.” She pauses for a moment, remembering. “I think he was left-handed,” she adds.

“Why do you say that?”

“When I was laying on my back, his arm came over my neck this way . . . ” she mimes it crossing her throat from left to right. “I think that was his dominant arm.”

“Good.” I nod.

“Not much of a description,” Riona says skeptically.

“It’s better than nothing,” I say.

We all watch the diver pick up her phone after he gets out of the pool.

“Have you tried tracking the phone?” I ask Callum.

“Yes,” he says. “It turned on briefly in Greektown. Then it disappeared again.”

“What kind of info is on that phone?”

“A lot of things,” Riona says. “Personal and banking info. All my work emails . . . it’s password-protected, but you know that doesn’t mean shit to somebody who knows what they’re doing.”

“Could the phone have been the target?”

Riona shrugs. “Seems like there are easier ways to steal it.”

I turn to Callum again. “Do you know who brokers hits in Chicago? If this guy was hired locally, a broker could tell us who the diver was. And maybe who hired him.”

“I know someone.” Callum nods.

I want to go along with Callum for that. So I say to Riona, “Can I take you over to your parents’ place tomorrow? Just for a couple hours.”

“Sure,” she says, without much enthusiasm.

“Alright,” I say. “Now what about enemies. Who has a grudge against you at the moment?”

“Against Riona specifically—nobody,” Callum says. “Against the Griffins—a whole fuck of a lot of people. Top of the list are the Russians. My father killed their last boss, Kolya Kristoff. The new one is an old-school gangster out of Moscow. His name is Alexei Yenin. He worked as an interrogator for the KGB, so as you can imagine, he’s as vicious as they come.”

“Drowning isn’t the Russian’s usual style, but I could see a former KGB officer being a little more subtle than most,” I say.

“Right.” Callum nods. “Still, it’s weird if they targeted Riona.”

“Who else?”

“Maybe the Hartford family,” Riona pipes up.

“Who’s that?” Callum asks.

“A couple of months ago Enzo Gallo asked me for help. Or, more accurately, one of the other Italian families needed help,” Riona says, with an expression of distaste. “Bosco Bianchi was driving drunk and high with a couple of sixteen-year-old girls in his car. One of them went through the windshield. She was put in a medically-induced coma. Bosco’s toxicity test went missing, and I got his confession thrown out. The DA settled for eight months in medium-security. The girl never recovered.”

I can tell Riona feels bad about the girl. And she’s embarrassed that she facilitated Bosco’s deal, but she doesn’t shrink away from admitting it.

“Virginia Hartford was taken off life support last week,” Riona says. “She’s got a father and an older brother. If I was them, I might want revenge.”

I write that down, same as I did the information about the Russians.

“Okay,” I say. “We’ll check that out too. Anyone else?”

A longer pause, and then Riona says, “Maybe Luke Barker.”

“Who’s that?”

“He was a senior attorney at my firm. He got handsy with me at the company Christmas party and Uncle Oran fired him.”

“Where is he now?”

“I have no idea,” Riona says coldly.

“Alright,” I say, marking his name down, too. “That’s a good start. We’ll run down those possibilities starting tomorrow.”

It’s getting close to midnight. I can see Callum trying not to yawn. He gives his sister a hug, telling her, “We’ll figure it out, Ree. Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried,” she says. “I just want to know, one way or another.”

“Say hi to Aida for me,” I tell Callum.

“I’m sure I’ll get the chance in an hour or two when Miles wakes us up,” Cal says.

Riona and I get back into the Escalade and head back over to her apartment building.

“We can park in the underground parking,” she says. “I have an assigned spot, even though I don’t have a car.”

I can see why Riona picked this condo—it’s a lot like her corner office. High and lonely with a stunning view. I can tell she likes things that are aesthetically stark, and completely within her control.

It’s only once we’re alone in the apartment that Riona seems to realize I’ll be sleeping here, within the bubble of her personal space.

“I’m fine on the sofa,” I tell her.

“Right,” Riona says, with an expression of discomfort. “I’ll get you some clean sheets.”

I unbutton my shirt and shuck it off, planning to wash up and brush my teeth at the sink like I usually do.

Riona comes back surprisingly fast, carrying a stack of fresh bedding. Her eyes flit across my bare torso and I’m surprised to see her blush. I didn’t take her for the modest type.

“Here,” she says, shoving the bedding at me and not meeting my eye.

“What’s wrong?” I say, not able to resist teasing her a little.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she says brusquely.

I’m pretty sure I got the honest Riona to tell a fib.

“Do you need toothpaste or anything?” she mutters.

“Nah. I brought my Dopp kit.”

“Alright. Goodnight, then.”

“Goodnight, Riona.”

She retreats into her bedroom, and I hear the muffled sounds of water running, and light feet padding around as she readies herself for bed.

Because I’m a nosy fucker, I poke around her living room a bit.

It’s alarmingly clean. Unlike Dean, Riona would do just fine in the military. Her books are lined up with soldier-like precision. I couldn’t find a speck of dust with a hundred white gloves. Even her remote is set at a perfect ninety-degree angle on the television stand.

All that order makes me wonder. In my experience, when somebody clings that tightly to a sense of control, it’s because something happened to them at some point in their lives that made them feel powerless.

I think of Riona describing Luke Barker and how he got “handsy” with her at the Christmas party. Her voice was as calm as ever. But I don’t feel calm, thinking about it. I feel a stab of something very like anger. I want to put Luke at the top of my list of people I plan to talk to.

I lay out a crisp, clean sheet on top of the sofa to protect the cushions. Then I lay down and slip into a light slumber. A soldier’s sleep—the kind you wake from easily.

Riona’s scream jolts me right off the couch.

Before my eyes are even open, I’ve jumped up and I’m running to her room.

I rip open her door and flip on the light.

She’s tangled up in her sheets, ripping and clawing at them where they’re wrapped around her throat.

I pull her out of the bedding, wrapping her up in my arms instead. She’s only wearing a light silk camisole and shorts, and she’s shivering, from cold or from fear.

“Shh,” I tell her. “It’s alright. I’m here.”

Embarrassed, she tries to pull away from me. But I keep my arms around her, pulling her against my chest. I can feel her heart hammering away against my bare skin, and her slim frame shaking.

“I thought I was drowning,” she gasps out.

Again I feel that flood of anger that a man put his hands on this woman. Riona is desperate to seem strong and independent. But the truth is she’s fragile in the way that all women are fragile—smaller than men, and vulnerable to violence.

I have a sister. I’d fucking kill anyone who tried to touch her.

And I feel that same drive to protect Riona. To keep her safe. Not just because Dante asked me to. Because she needs it. She needs my help.

“I’m here,” I tell her again. “No one’s going to hurt you.”

I can feel her heart beating wildly against my forearm. It feels like a bird caught in a cage, struggling to get out. Riona’s whole body is shaking.

But after a minute, she stops fighting and she sinks down against my chest, allowing me to hold her. Allowing me to warm her with my arms, so her shivering stops.

I don’t think she’d ever allow this, if she weren’t exhausted and terrified. In fact, she’ll probably be embarrassed in the morning.

But right now, she accepts my comfort.

I hold her like that for almost an hour, until her body goes heavy and warm with sleep.