Listed: Volume VI (8 page)

When Emily King saw
Paul open the front door of Joe’s Bakery, she straightened up from where she’d
been leaning on the counter and went to pour out his large cup of dark roast.

He’d
stopped in the doorway, talking over his shoulder to someone on the street. He
was grinning when he turned back into the shop—the heart-stopping smile that
caused even Emily’s cynical heart to flutter just a little—but his expression
sobered as he scanned the shop, eyeing each customer in turn.

If
their South Philadelphia neighborhood could be said to have royalty, Paul
Marino was it.

Since
he’d been five years old, locals had called him Prince Paul, although always
out of his hearing. He despised the appellation and had been in the habit of
beating up boys in school who were foolish enough to use the nickname to his
face.

Emily
had his regular coffee order ready when he approached the counter.

“Is
that uniform out there all the protection you have?” Paul’s steel gray eyes
narrowed as he looked out the glass storefront to the white car with distinct
blue police markings parked on the curb.

Even
before he’d gone to New England for college, Paul hadn’t looked or sounded like
he was from South Philly—yet another reason he was set apart from the rest of
them.

“Hello
to you too.” Emily accepted the bills he’d handed her and dropped the change
into the tip jar. She’d been working at Joe’s part-time for almost two years,
so she knew the routine for all the regulars., Since she’d graduated from high
school a few weeks ago, she’d started working full-time, trying to save up
enough money for living expenses at college in the fall.

He
ignored her sarcasm, still frowning out at the street. “You’re a witness in a
federal trial and that’s all the protection they give you? Anyone could just
walk in here and—”

“Cut
my throat as I make coffee? Garrote me in front of the doughnut-eating public?”

Paul
had tensed when he turned back to her, holding her eyes in that hypnotizing way
he had. “How can you not take it seriously?”

 “Your
dad isn’t going to kill me.”

“How
the hell do you know what he’ll do? He’s dangerous.”

She
shrugged, trying to hide the way her stomach churned with the low-grade anxiety
she’d suffered for the last five months.

Her
father had worked for decades as a security guard in a research facility owned
by Vincent Marino. Emily used to stop by to visit and bring him snacks when he
worked the nightshift. One night, she’d gotten nosy and had overheard a
conversation she shouldn’t have heard, making herself a target of Marino.

Not
a good position to be in.

Marino
was born into a long-standing organized crime family, but he’d used his
ambition and business acumen to catapult his family’s crime business to the
international level, setting up well-hidden trafficking networks in drugs,
arms, women—anything that could be sold for a high profit margin. He posed
himself as a corporate mogul now, but everyone in the neighborhood knew he was
a criminal. The feds knew it too, which was why they’d jumped on the testimony
Emily offered them.

Paul
was Vincent Marino’s only child.

“What
about Witness Protection?” Paul asked. He had dark hair—now ruffled from the
wind outside—with classic, well-chiseled features and a lean, athletic body.

She’d
had the biggest crush on him when she was thirteen years old and he’d been back
from college for the summer to visit his mother. All the girls in the
neighborhood had been crazy about Paul with his slick cars, sexy
rebelliousness, and obsession with extreme sports.

Emily
wasn’t feeling particularly charmed at the moment. She frowned back at him.
“What about it?”

“Why
aren’t you and your father in it?”

The
authorities genuinely believed that, despite his mob roots, Marino wasn’t
violent, having been taken in by the white-collar persona he’d adopted over the
last two decades. The neighborhood knew better. Marino was just a thug in a five-thousand-dollar
suit.

“Because
we weren’t offered it, and we wouldn’t take it even if we were. We’re not in
any danger, and everyone knows it. We wouldn’t have to be followed around by
that cop if you hadn’t raised such a fuss with the local precinct.”

“I
know him better than you do.”

“He
can be violent, sure, but he’s old-school. He isn’t going to kill a
seventeen-year-old girl from the neighborhood.”

“I’m
not convinced of that.”

She
was silent, wondering if Paul, with his privileged life and innate entitlement
to anything he desired, really believed his own father was so completely
ruthless.

“He
burned down your house,” he added.

“When
no one was in it.” She made the comment offhand, but she didn’t feel that way.
She’d loved the old row house where she and her father had lived all her life.
There wasn’t anything left to salvage after Marino’s men had burned it down as
a warning to keep what she knew about him to herself.

The
irony was, if he hadn’t burned down their house, she never would have decided to
testify against him. South Philly wasn’t what it used to be, but there was
still a lingering community loyalty that Emily would have intuitively fallen
back on. She didn’t like to be bullied, though, and her instinct was always to
resist all attempts to control her.

Marino
had tried to do both.

“You’re
going to testify against him now too, aren’t you?” Emily asked, trying to turn
around the momentum of the conversation. “What about your protection?”

Paul’s
decision to testify against his father had been met with shock and controversy
in the neighborhood, with the locals evenly split between those who thought it
was the ultimate act of betrayal and those who thought it was the only decent,
responsible thing Paul had ever done.

“I’ve
arranged for my own security,” he told her. “What about your aunt? Is someone
watching her?”

“She’s
home sick in bed. She can’t seem to shake this flu. She doesn’t have any
important testimony to offer anyway—she’s just confirming what I say. There wouldn’t
be any reason to kill her.”

Paul
rubbed his chin distractedly, a hint of bristles making a slight scratching
sound. “How can you be so casual about this? It’s your life.”

She
met his eyes evenly. Paul was six years older than her, and until recently she
wouldn’t have dared to give him more than a trembling greeting. “Right. It’s my
life.”

“Anyway,
the point is you need more security. I can—”

“You
can what? Pay a bodyguard to follow me around? Don’t be stupid.”

 “I’m
not being stupid. I can easily—”

“I
don’t care what you can easily do,” she spit out, suddenly angry at his
arrogant assumption that he had any say at all on her life. “I’m not a spoiled
rich boy who lives on a trust fund and wastes his life partying, sleeping
around, and jumping out of planes. I might have to work here every hour of the
day just so I can pay for things like clothes and college, but my aunt and I
don’t accept charity. We definitely don’t accept charity from you.”

Paul’s
expression grew tighter and tighter as she spoke, and his eyes were cold and
hard when she’d finished. “What have I done to you to deserve that?”

Emily
drooped, letting out her pent breath in a rush. “Nothing. You haven’t done
anything to me. I’m sorry if I was harsh.”

The
truth was she was scared and defensive, and it rubbed her wrong to see how easy
Paul’s life appeared.

His
mouth softened slightly. “I really wasn’t offering you charity.”

“Then
what would you call it?”

“Reasonable
measures to ensure the federal case against my father doesn’t lose its star
witness.”

Despite
herself, Emily snorted at his dry, lofty tone.

Paul
might be irresponsible and entitled, but he’d always been incredibly smart. He
finished college when he was twenty and went on to get his MBA. How he managed
to successfully earn his degree last month while still indulging his very wild
lifestyle she couldn’t even imagine.

“Well,”
Emily said, forcing down her defensiveness since it wasn’t really Paul’s fault,
“It wouldn’t kill you to get a job.”

To
her surprise, he didn’t laugh or shrug her comment off. “Believe it or not,
I’ve been trying.”

Taken
off guard, she blurted out the obvious question. “Where do you want a job?”

“Simone’s.”

Paul
was neighborhood royalty not because of his father’s reputation, since many
thought Vincent Marino had abandoned his roots long ago. His mother’s family
had been equally important in the community—her great-grandfather having made a
fortune by starting Simone’s, a national department store chain, and her father
having been savvy enough to transition to successful online retailing just in
time to keep the company from going bust.

Currently,
Paul lived on a trust fund from his grandfather. His mother had died six months
ago, leaving all she had to her son as well, but he couldn’t claim it or his
share in the company until he’d turned twenty-five.

Emily
could hardly blame the woman for not risking everything her family had worked
for to a reckless bad-boy like Paul.

“What
kind of job are you trying to get? Mail room clerk? Receptionist?”

The
corner of his mouth turned up briefly, as if he were suppressing a smile. “I’m
not expecting to be appointed CEO at twenty-three, but I’m perfectly
well-qualified for some sort of position. The board just doesn’t trust me.”

“Can
you blame them?”

The
smile disappeared. “It’s my family’s company.”

“Yeah.”
Emily thought about it for a minute, surprised and faintly pleased that Paul
was actually serious about his desire to work in his mother’s company. In all
the years she’d known him, he hadn’t appeared to take anything seriously. “Good
thing the press hasn’t caught wind of that. Evil board members heartlessly
shutting out grieving son from his birthright.”

Paul
was leaning on the counter, but now he straightened up suddenly. His brows drew
together.

“What?”
she asked.

He
shook his head. He might have said something else, but just then Chris and
Laura Mason walked into the bakery.

Emily
had been friends with Chris since they both could walk. He’d been the star of
the high school soccer team and had gotten an athletic scholarship for college.
For years, Chris had been her dream guy, but he’d just never been interested in
her that way.

Laura
was his older sister.

She
was gorgeous and built like a model, and she’d dated Paul for almost six months
last year, the longest he’d ever dated anyone. For a while, it looked like he
might have really fallen for her, but they’d finally broken up.

Laura
was smiling as she approached, and she wrapped an arm around Paul in a
half-hug.

Emily
turned to Chris, his square face and brown eyes familiar and comforting.

“How’s
your dad?” he asked.

“Even
worse. He seemed to have gotten better for a while, but then the flu or
whatever just came back.”

Paul
and Laura drifted away, absorbed in their own conversation. With their dark
hair and movie-star looks, they were absolutely stunning together. Like they
matched.

“What
were you doing with Paul?” Chris asked, frowning toward the object of his
question.

“Just
talking. He was being obnoxious, demanding to know why I don’t have better
security.”

“He
doesn’t really think his dad would…”

Emily
shrugged. “Who knows what he thinks?”

“Well,
just be careful around him.”

“Around
Paul? He hates his father. He doesn’t want anything to do with him.”

The
incident that had confirmed Paul as a prince in their neighborhood was when,
during the vicious divorce battle between his mother and father, he’d sided
entirely with his mother. He never accepted a dime from his father, not since
he was thirteen years old.

“Yeah.
I know. But you know how he is with girls. He might try to…try to…” Chris
cleared his throat, adorably awkward at the topic. “Get in your pants,” he
concluded lamely.

Emily
laughed out loud, in genuine amusement, her eyes straying to the corner where
Paul was smiling irresistibly at Laura.

One
thing Emily knew very well.

There
were Lauras in the world, and there were Emilys.

The
Lauras were adored by all who saw them, winning admirers and lovers by doing
nothing more than flashing a smile. The Lauras married rich men and lived lives
of ease and safety.

The
Emilys of the world had to scrimp for every penny. Even though they were smart
and nice and pretty enough, they still made it through high school without ever
having a real boyfriend—since no one of interest ever asked them out. The
Emilys of the world made stupid mistakes, like overhearing a mob boss’s
conversation about drug trafficking and money laundering. And, being too
stubborn to be intimidated into silence, the Emilys of the world ended up in
ridiculously melodramatic scenarios like becoming witnesses in federal trials.