An Offer He Cant Refuse - By Christie Ridgway Page 0,2

lemon sherbet.

"I'm sorry," the woman continued loudly. "But did you say your last name was Caruso?"

Tea tightened her grip on the strap of her purse. Usually, strangers never dared more than whisper about her family behind her back. She managed a stiff turn anyway. "Excuse me?"

The woman smiled. "My maiden name is Caputo. Caruso, so similar, leaped right out at me."

Tea's clenching hand relaxed.

"You're right," she replied. Noting again the woman's expensive outfit, she considered her current tower of bills and her ever-present need to drum up business. The smile she tacked on was full of warm good will. "The names are very much alike."

"Not only that." Apparently encouraged, the woman stepped closer. "But ever since we moved to Palm Springs I've been hearing story after story about the infamous Carusos."

Tea's smile dropped away. Heat washed across her skin. "I'm not - I don't... " We're an ordinary family! All her life she'd wanted to say that.

Since she was twelve years old and her father had gone missing, presumed dead, she'd been unable to believe it.

The woman waved her hand. "Oh, no need explaining to me! I understand perfectly. People think if your last name ends in a vowel, then you're automatically in the Mafia. Ridiculous, right?"

Ridiculous, right. Women were supposed to be kept well clear of the illegal activities, and could never be members of La Cosa Nostra. The secret she kept hidden, the things she'd done, weren't that usual, even for a mob boss's daughter.

The stranger warmed to her subject. "The idea that an organization of brutish Italian thugs has power in this city, let alone the state, why that's television, not..." Her voice petered out as her attention strayed somewhere over Tea's shoulder.

The entire restaurant went quiet too, voices stilling, silverware and ice cubes ceasing to rattle. Through the glass entry doors in front of her, Tea saw a gleaming black limousine slither up to the front entrance.

Hadn't she successfully avoided her grandfather and all those who surrounded him for years?

The question mocked her now as instinct commanded she sidle closer to the foyer wall. The action provided no real protection. As they approached from behind her - presumably from the restaurant's private room in the rear - their scent reached her on a rustle of the air. The faint yet distinct scent of expensive colognes. The citrus tang of shaving soap bladed away with a straightedged razor.

When they drew nearer, she swore she could even smell the silk of their subtly patterned ties and the tropical-weight cashmere of their suits - never black, never gray, but putty or khaki or even celery, as if the lighter colors could disguise their dark reputation. The soles of their shoes - Italian leather, of course - murmured like rumors against the parquet floor.

Her father's memory came to her, unbidden, unwelcome. Unresolved.

Passing Tea, her grandfather and his cadre pretended not to see her, though she knew very well they did, realized they would have been told of her presence the instant her sling-back pump stepped through the restaurant's doors. But they followed her wishes, and she followed the six of them with her gaze as they exited.

"Who was that?" The other woman found her voice just as the limo crept away.

The men of my family. My ordinary family. As if anyone, upon seeing them, would believe that.

Though they weren't your stereotypical organization of brutish Italian thugs, either. As head of a successful gourmet food company, the legitimate part of the world had crowned her grandfather the Sun-Dried Tomato King. To its underbelly he was known as the Cudgel. But to Tea's mind, he and the others were much more like stilettos. Elegant, sharp, lethal.

They were the ones she'd been successfully avoiding for years. The ones who, until this moment, she'd believed she could continue successfully avoiding for years to come.

They were the Carusos... a.k.a. the California Mafia.
Chapter Two
"Luck Be a Lady"

Frank Sinatra

Guys and Dolls (1963)

Johnny Magee reached for the phone on his desk, paused, then drew back his hand. "Who said 'revenge is a dish best served cold'?" he asked idly.

With the rest of the tech team at lunch, the only other person in the large Las Vegas penthouse office was Johnny's right-hand geek, twenty-five-year-old Calvin "The Calculator" Kazarsky. Cal continued peering at one of the three computer monitors crowded onto his desk. "Eaten cold. Ri-cardo Montalban to William Shatner, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan."

Johnny frowned. "Not Shakespeare?"

"Then there's a line in Les Liaisons Dangereuses. French novel, written