Her Romeo (a Dark Mafia Romance) (Mafia Rogues: The Rossi Chapter Book 1) Read online

  HER ROMEO

  HER ROMEO

  MAFIA ROGUES: THE ROSSI CHAPTER, BOOK 1

  QUINN MARLOWE

  Copyright © 2022 by Spitfire Press

  All rights reserved.

  Spitfire Press and colophon are property of Glass House Press, LLC, and may not be reproduced.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Any names of characters, business, places, events, or incidents are fictitious or have been used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.

  LOC information available upon request.

  paperback ISBN: 978-0-9977461-8-1

  Cover: Natasha Snow Designs

  For my real-life Joseph

  CONTENTS

  Preface

  1. A Day In The Life Of A Girl

  2. Brooklyn. No, Wait.

  3. The Wrong Side Of Town

  4. Things Were Not Going Well

  5. A Perfect Target

  6. Rossi Territory

  7. In Which Things Go Wrong

  8. Reporting For Duty

  9. In Which Things Go Even More Wrong

  10. Invaders

  11. Walking The Walk

  12. Kidnapped

  13. A New Plan

  14. Yet Another Plan

  15. And Suddenly, Italy

  16. Into The Shadows

  17. The Call

  18. The Devil And His Brother

  19. The Skill I Wasn’t Supposed To Have

  20. No Allies Here

  21. Midnight, Food, And Too Much Wine

  22. One Very Bad Idea

  23. I Had One Job

  24. An Ally… Or An Enemy?

  25. A Bargain For A Life

  26. Selling My Soul

  27. Hero

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Quinn Marlowe

  Hey there. Quinn here. I wanted to drop in and clear something up, since every single person who read this book before it went to publication had questions, and I couldn’t figure out how to solve them.

  Yes, I’m taking the easy way out. I’m the author and I never get to do that, so I’m grabbing at the chance when I have it!

  Her Romeo takes place three years after A Very Rossi Christmas. If you’ve read Rossi Christmas, you know it ended on… well, a mood. We’ve skipped a few years, but that mood is still in effect. If you didn’t read Rossi Christmas, you don’t have to… though if you want to know what I’m talking about, you probably should.

  That’s it. Happy reading!

  -Q

  A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A GIRL

  SLOANE

  I didn’t start breathing normally until I got out of the courthouse and onto the front steps.

  Because if there was one thing I hated, it was when my boss assigned me to prosecute someone I knew in real life. Even worse when that someone was a guy I’d had a crush on when I was little and slept with during a very badly advised night three years ago in Malibu.

  A guy who’d then left without a word the next morning. Left before I even fucking woke up.

  I growled at the memory, narrowing my eyes and glaring at the street in front of me. Sure, I’d known at the time why he left. I’d known that it all boiled down to our families and the fact that our fathers were sworn enemies. And somewhere deep inside, I’d agreed with what he’d done.

  That didn’t mean I’d ever forgiven him.

  Joseph. Fucking. Rossi.

  And I’d just spent a full hour staring him down in a courtroom.

  I sank down onto the steps, put my head between my knees—hard to do while wearing a pencil skirt—and focused on breathing.

  Because… Joseph Rossi. I hadn’t seen him in a year, not since the last time I ventured to the side of town where he and his family held sway, but nothing had changed about him. The soot-dark hair full of curls that made you want to run your fingers through them. The shockingly blue eyes that could grow so warm you swore they were going to set your bones on fire.

  That mouth that always looked like it had a smile caught in the corner of it. The dimple in his left cheek that only came out when he was truly amused about something. The way he looked at you when—

  I sat up and sent that thought flying away.

  “Get. A. Grip,” I ground out. This was not the time to remember how sexy Joseph Rossi was. It wasn’t the time to think about how adventurous he’d been as a kid, or how insanely hot he was as an adult.

  I’d just tried the man for racketeering, for God’s sake. You’d have thought I’d be focusing on that rather than the things he did to my insides. Focusing on the danger of the situation, and how this was going to affect the balance of power in the shadowy underworld of New York.

  One did not just try a Rossi for racketeering and expect it to go unnoticed, even when one was a Brennan. Especially when the Rossi in question was the oldest son of the leading family, and the heir apparent to the whole damn kingdom.

  I stood up and lifted my chin, forcing my mind around to what I’d just done. Started a case that might see Joseph Rossi going to jail. That’s right: Me, little old Sloane Brennan, favorite (well, only) daughter of Ricky “Irish” Brennan, had risen so high in my career that I was being handed the best cases. The ones that meant the most—and the ones we had to fucking win.

  And I know what you’re thinking. That I was given those cases only because of who my dad was and what he could do to anyone who disrespected me. And though that might have been a part of it—hey, I was realistic, if nothing else—it certainly wasn’t the whole story.

  The whole story was that I was damn good at winning them. I never forgot a detail once I had it in my head, and I’d fucking perfected the ability to look small and innocent so people didn’t realize what I was capable of.

  It was why my boss had assigned me the case against Joseph. It was why I’d marched right into that courthouse and done every single thing I needed to do to make sure we were moving to the next step rather than stalling. We already had an indictment. And now we had a trial date.

  I remembered the smirk Joseph’s lawyer had given me when he saw that I was a woman—and a young one, at that—and smirked myself, then started strolling down the steps. The man had obviously thought he had the case wrapped up. He’d taken one look at me, seen a twenty-something girl who looked wet behind the ears, and figured he was two steps away from getting Joseph off scot-free.

  “Idiot,” I muttered, the grin growing on my face. He’d never seen me coming. If it had been Alfonso Lane, the lawyer Joseph usually used—and big brother to one of my best friends—he would have seen me there and known immediately that they were in trouble. But this guy? This fat, balding man who looked like he spent more time drinking beer than keeping up on current events?

  He hadn’t had one fucking clue.

  And that was exactly how I liked it. After all, it was a whole lot easier to stomp all over someone if they didn’t think you were capable of anything. So much easier to win case after case when people insisted on underestimating you.

  I was just congratulating myself on that when a hand latched onto my arm, closing so hard it was going to leave bruises, and jerked me around.

  I tottered on my heels, not having expected the movement, and was about to go down when
another hand clasped my other arm, steadying me.

  “Careful, Red,” a deep, gravelly voice muttered. “I’m in enough trouble as it is. You fall down while standing next to me, and it’s going to get even worse.”

  My gaze, which had been on the sidewalk below us as I tried to catch my balance, turned into a scowl when I looked up at the man who’d just grabbed me. I wasn’t surprised by what I saw. Dark chocolate curls, messy and unkempt. Electric blue eyes. Full lips surrounded by a 5 o’clock shadow. At 9 in the morning.

  “You didn’t even think to shave before you appeared in court?” I snapped. “And don’t call me Red. It wasn’t okay when we were kids and it’s not okay now.” I jerked my arms out of his hold, my balance restored, and took a step back.

  He followed, maintaining the tight distance between us, and bowed down a bit, his breath hot on my cheeks. “You never used to mind when I called you that.”

  I felt my skin flush at the memory... and at the feel of him standing so close to me, the heat jumping between us like a fucking electric current. And then I pushed that heat down, somewhere into my core, and did my best to ignore it.

  “That was a long time ago, Joseph. Things have changed.”

  He snorted. “They sure have. When we were kids, you never would have dreamed of charging me with racketeering.”

  “When we were kids, you weren’t out forcing people to do your bidding no matter how much it cost them. You weren’t building shell companies so you could steal jewels with one hand and sell them with the other, while looking like you had a legitimate business. In fact, when we were kids, you were full of lofty dreams about how you weren’t going to follow in your father’s footsteps. You were going to be an artist. Or was it a musician?”

  I watched his eyes turn stormy with the memory, his face hardening. And I took another step back.

  “That was also a long time ago. Like you said, things change.”

  I nodded once. “As I said. Leave me alone, Joseph. You’re not going to get anywhere coming around and trying to flirt with me or remind me that we used to be friends. I remember. I remember everything. And it’s not going to keep me from doing my job.”

  I turned on my heel, thanking the universe for all the times my best friends and I had practiced that move when we were younger, and walked away as quickly as I could manage without falling down the steps in front of the courthouse.

  I didn’t have to look to know that Joseph was watching me as I walked away. And I didn’t have to ask to know that he was remembering the last time we’d talked, in my bedroom in LA. The last night we’d spent together.

  He would have had to be an idiot not to remember. And Joseph Rossi was no idiot.

  I also didn’t have to ask to know that those wheels in his mind were already turning, trying to figure out how to get out of this new mess he’d made. Probably trying to figure out whether he could use me and our old relationship to help him.

  I had just hit the street, my thoughts on how I was going to protect myself from any further run-ins with him, when I saw the paper the kid in front of the courthouse was holding up for sale.

  Gangland Shooting, it read. Head of a Family Killed in Drive-by Shooting, His Wife Falling Right After Him!

  My feet froze to the ground, the thoughts that had been expanding in my head popping with a large thwack, and I rushed to grab the paper from the boy, throwing a bill at him in exchange.

  I jerked the paper to my face, my eyes already flying over the text of the story, my heart hammering against my ribs like I might actually be having a heart attack.

  Which could actually be true, some distant part of my brain told me. Or a stroke. It could definitely be a stroke.

  Because my dad was head of one of the biggest families in gangland. And I hadn’t heard from him in a fucking week, despite repeated calls, emails, and texts.

  So when I was rushing through the text of that story? Yeah, I was doing it for one reason.

  I was looking for my mom and dad’s names, and praying to God that I didn’t see them there.

  BROOKLYN. NO, WAIT.

  SLOANE

  The first time, I got to the end of the article without seeing anything about anyone I knew.

  I also got to the end of it without having taken a single word in. Partially because I was reading so fast, and partially because I was so freaked out that I was having trouble focusing.

  I paused for a moment, tried to get it together, and then went back to the start of the article. My feet were itching to get out to the street and catch a cab, pronto, but I needed to have at least something before I started walking.

  I needed to know whether I was going to my house… or to the morgue.

  “Right,” I muttered to myself. “Pull yourself together, Sloane. Focus, for fuck’s sake.”

  Focus. So much easier said than done when you thought you might be reading a newspaper article about your parents being shot to death in front of their house or while they were out getting bagels.

  Sure, the more rational part of my mind knew that I was probably hallucinating. Jumping to some insane assumptions. My mom and dad didn’t go anywhere without at least three bodyguards with them and a whole gang of underlings watching for anything suspicious. You didn’t get to be the head of New York’s Irish mob without learning how to make sure you did everything right—and carefully.

  You also didn’t live as long as my dad had unless you’d learned to take the right precautions, and had a truly inhuman amount of luck.

  But that didn’t change the fact that Daddy had enemies. Lots of them. And chief amongst them?

  The Rossi family.

  Fat Jimmy and my father had been at odds for as long as I could remember. I didn’t know where or how it started, or why they’d never found a way to work together, but the war had been brutal and bloody for my entire life. I’d lost count of how many Brennan people—lower-level soldiers, mostly, but some high-level people, too—we’d lost to the Rossi hit men.

  I’d counted how many Rossi people we hit ourselves. Partially because Joseph had told me every time they’d lost someone… and partially because I’d known, somewhere in the back of my mind, that at some point, the Rossi family would come to collect the debt we were running up.

  I’d run to LA before the war did anything more than simmer under the surface of New York’s streets, but that hadn’t meant I didn’t keep a finger on that particular pulse. And when I got back three years ago, fresh out of law school and ready to go to work for the New York AG, rooting the crime out of the city, I’d seen that something had changed.

  Fat Jimmy and my father had escalated things to all-out battle. Hits had taken place on the street in broad daylight and the Brennan warlords—those in charge of planning and carrying out any Mafia wars—had been in constant contact with each other. Always figuring out what their next move was.

  Always trying to figure out what the Rossi crews might do next.

  A year ago, Fat Jimmy and my father—along with at least twenty guys each—sat down together and tried to call a halt to the bloodshed. Both had lost people important to them, and both were growing weary of the constant killing.

  Mostly, I thought, they’d grown weary of the expense. The waste of resources. The loss of people they’d trained personally. They’d needed to end the war. And though those who bet on such things had laid odds against the Rossi and Brennan families finding a way to work together, Fat Jimmy and Daddy had agreed to a contract.

  Stop the killing. Stay out of each other’s way. Look the other way if they saw business going down. Keep that contract, and both families would benefit. Soldiers would stop dying.

  Or rather… Well, they’d stop dying for this particular war.

  I hadn’t been there when they shook on it. I’d told my father that I didn’t want anything to do with the family’s business or the consequences. I was making my career on the right side of the law. And I’d kept my nose clean ever since I got back in town.

>   Joseph, on the other hand…

  I closed my eyes and focused on breathing, trying to follow that thought to its logical conclusion, no matter how much it hurt.

  Joseph, oldest son to Jimmy and Rosella Rossi, had stepped up and become Jimmy’s heir and the underboss of the family. He’d risen quickly, courtesy of his relationship to Jimmy, and though Jimmy hadn’t exactly laid out the red carpet for him, Joseph had his hands all over any operation the Rossi family undertook.

  Joseph had become important.

  And I’d just prosecuted him for racketeering.

  Oh God. Oh God, oh God, oh God. Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, and everyone in between.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  Daddy hadn’t been good at following the rules Fat Jimmy had set for him. He’d been offended at the idea of stepping to an Italian’s tune, and he’d told me so consistently.

  He hadn’t stopped ordering hits on the Rossi soldiers, and Fat Jimmy would have been blind not to see it. He hadn’t done anything about it yet, but Daddy had been asking for trouble. And then his daughter had gone and prosecuted the Rossi golden boy. Or at least… Well, the Rossi heir. Not the favored son—that was his younger brother, Michael—but the one who was earmarked to take over the shop when dear old Dad retired.