before he could engage me in another argument. It was important I stayed as diplomatic as possible. With my father's temper, there was no telling what he was capable of. There had been more than one capo who took out his own son in the past. I didn't want to be added to that statistic.
Sure, from the outside, the simple answer would be to take out my old man, get Biblical and shit. But if I did that, the other bosses would take me out. Because you didn't get to take out a made man in the mafia unless you got the approval of all the other bosses.
So for the time being, I had to adapt, accept, work things behind the scenes like I had been doing for years.
Back at my place, I packed a bag, had a couple drinks, tried to tell myself that it didn't bother me that I was heading out of town to fucking kidnap a woman—something that didn't go against my father's moral code, but did go against mine.
I consoled myself that this leg of the job would be easy, just a quick snatch and grab. Not too much of a hassle. No one would get hurt.
Then, hopefully, it would all be over quickly.
I had never been more wrong about anything in my life.
Chapter Two
Giana
"Gigi, you're here," Penny, the housekeeper of the Cape May house, greeted me as I made my way in the door.
"Oh, Jesus," I hissed, hand flying to my chest as I whirled around to find the woman sitting in the rocking chair my grandfather used to occupy every summer of my childhood.
"Didn't mean to startle you, dear," she said, giving me a sweet smile.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, no edge to my words. I loved Penny. Even if she was only supposed to be in the house to check the mail, make sure the air, in the summer, and the heat, in the winter, were working properly. As well as the very occasional dusting or general upkeep. If there was any sort of heavy lifting, there was no way we would have continued to employ Penny, who was somewhere in her mid-eighties, though she was spry enough to pass as a full decade or so younger.
She was a sturdy, average-height woman with a shock of long white hair and bright blue eyes that shined out of her well-lined face. As always, she had on a dress in plain white, adorned with about half a dozen necklaces and stacked bangle bracelets that went nearly to her elbow.
"Oh, I come now and again. Enjoy the silence. Let the strangers see that someone is around. I like it here. It has many fond memories."
Penny had engaged in a short and—at the time —tawdry affair with my grandfather just weeks after my grandmother passed. While my grandfather never got serious about a woman after his wife's death, Penny clearly carried a torch, even after his passing. "I would have cleared out had I known you were coming to visit."
It almost sounded like she was chastising me for visiting my family vacation home. Had I loved her any less, I would have been offended. As such, she was like a kooky great aunt that I couldn't help but adore.
"It was a spur of the moment idea. I needed to get out of the city for a little while."
"I don't know how you live there. It gets so loud and packed."
"And Cape May doesn't, in the on-season?" I clarified, putting my rolling suitcase beside the door, moving to sit down on the hideous floral armchair across from Penny.
"Yes, well, it passes," she said, waving a hand.
It wasn't passing right now. Which might have been why she was in my family home instead of her own. Penny lived in a beautiful Victorian on the corner of the main street in downtown where the shops and restaurants and nightlife were crazy all through the summer.
My family home was a small ranch-style white structure with black shutters that was a fifteen-minute walk to downtown, but only two blocks from the beach. I wasn't here for the beach. I would go, but at sunrise or sunset. I wasn't a fan of the nearly shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, of crappy music blaring from someone's portable speakers, or shrieking kids. I liked kids, but I was here to unwind, and I knew that would put me on edge.
I'd had a rough month.
I needed some space to breathe.
And since there was no extra money