Last Man Standing Read online

  It was late afternoon when Elena worked up her courage and went looking for Summ. She found her in the kitchen putting together a supper tray.

  By the sadness in Summ’s eyes when she glanced up from the tray, it was clear the housekeeper was troubled. Elena said, “I’m sorry, Summ. To understand why I did what I did, you would have had to have known my mother and witnessed her pain. I’m not excusing my behavior, but when you said it was my father who had tried to kill my mother, I—”

  “No, I did not say that. I tell you only what story I hear, not the story I believe. Father, hard man, but good man. Love wife.”

  “Is that tray for him?”

  “Yes. He is in living room by warm fire.”

  “I would like to take the tray to him, if I may.”

  Summ nodded. “I make mistake. Say wrong thing. So sorry.”

  “No. I jumped to the wrong conclusion. It wasn’t your fault.”

  Moments later Elena found her father seated in a leather chair close to the huge stone fireplace. An open book was turned over on his lap and his head was tipped back, his eyes closed.

  He must have sensed that someone was there. He blinked opened his eyes, focused on her. “Your mouth is as beautiful as your mother’s. Your tongue twice as sharp.”

  Elena slid the tray onto the table next to him. She uncovered a plate of pasta and a breast of chicken. Unwrapped a basket of rolls before sitting down on a leather ottoman a foot away.

  After a long awkward minute of silence, she said, “I came to apologize. I was wrong. Misinformed, you could say. It’s no excuse, but I—”

  “Turn your face so I can look at you, figlia.”

  Elena did as he asked, sat quietly while Vito studied her Grace-like features. “Lucky tells me your mother is no longer alive. That she passed away. I am sorry.”

  Elena nodded, played the game, as Lucky called it. “Yes. She never remembered any of what happened to her.”

  “That was for the better,” he said. “I suppose that means she never remembered me, either?”

  “I’m afraid not. Her injuries were extreme, and she never regained her memory. Not that night, or anything before it.”

  “What about her mind? Was she—”

  “Her mind was alert. But she lived with physical handicaps.” Elena leaned forward, took the book titled The Spirituality of Zen and set it aside, then placed the tray in his lap. “Eat while the food is hot. It smells wonderful.”

  “Summ is a good cook,” he acknowledged, then took a bite of pasta. “Lucky tells me that you just recently learned about me. That since your mother’s death, you’ve been living—” he looked up from his plate “—by the ocean.”

  Elena didn’t agree or disagree. She didn’t even blink.

  Vito grinned. “It was a guess. Your tanned skin,” he explained. “It suggests a sunny climate. Am I right?”

  “I enjoy being outside,” Elena admitted. “Lucky warned me to stick to only what is relevant. Please don’t ask me where I’ve been living.”

  “All right.” He turned his head and coughed.

  “So Lucky Masado is your heir.”

  “Yes. But had I known about you, it would not have been necessary.”

  “I don’t expect you to change anything. I don’t want anything from you. I just wanted to meet my real father.”

  “And so you have. What do you think of him?”

  “I think I would like to get to know him better,” Elena confessed.

  “I would like to get to know my daughter, too. But there is not much time. Tell me something about yourself. What do you do when you are home?”

  “I work part-time at a health clinic. I’m a therapist. When I was young I used to massage Mother’s temples and try to make her pain go away. Sometimes it helped, and that’s how I became interested in myofascial release.”

  “Which is?”

  “It’s a hands-on approach to treating physical trauma through massage.”

  “And it can relieve pain?”

  “Yes.”

  “You will have to show me.”

  Elena felt herself relax. “Maybe we could get a massage table sent to the house. If there’s room, I mean.”

  “There is plenty of room, figlia.”

  “All right. Lucky tells me I have a week to spend with you.”

  “A week?”

  Elena wasn’t going to discuss what had bought her more time. Lucky believed she’d manipulated him, and that had been her intention. That is, until she’d fallen under the spell of his lips and hands.

  “Yes, a week. Unless, of course, you can change his mind and get him to give me two.”

  “Change Lucky Masado’s mind? I don’t think that’s possible. He is a man who rarely changes his mind about anything.”

  Softly Elena said, “I know you weren’t the one who hurt my mother. That the man responsible is dead.”

  “Yes, Carlo is dead. That is true. But that doesn’t excuse my part in your mother’s tragedy. I was there when it happened.”

  “To watch?”

  He paused. “No, I believe I went to kill her that night. I was very angry. But when I saw her, I knew I couldn’t do it. Even knowing that she had betrayed me with my best friend, I could never hurt my Grace.”

  Elena watched him closely as she asked the next question. “You loved her even then?”

  “Yes, figlia. I thought she loved me, too. But time changes things. Feelings. Needs. Frank was around a lot after his wife died. I was busy. Grace was very beautiful.” He smiled. “Like you, she was a pleasure to look at. There is no question you are her daughter. My daughter.” He sobered. “It was no one’s fault that she and Frank…that they fell in love. I say this today, having had years to ponder the situation. But back then, when I learned what was going on, I was furious. A man in disgrace. I became a mafioso out for blood.”

  “You hurt Frank.”

  “Yes. Frank understood why I had to do it.”

  “Even after you took his eye?”

  “Better his eye than his life, huh?”

  “If he had died that night, Mother would have, too. And I would never have been born.”

  “All day I have thought of this. I am grateful to Frank for taking Grace away to someplace safe. Grateful he raised my daughter for me. We will send out for one of these massage tables, huh? Then you will show me how you helped my Grace. We will have it brought today.”

  He was having trouble cutting the chicken. “Here, let me, Papa.” Elena reached out, took the silverware from Vito’s hands and began to slice the chicken into bite-size pieces.

  Chapter 8

  Elena pulled the soiled sheets from the massage table and stuffed them into the laundry hamper. The same day she had made peace with her father, he had asked her to make a list of the things she needed to set up a therapy room in the house. By evening the equipment had arrived and within an hour the room across the hall from the study had been transformed into a state-of-the-art massage-therapy room.

  What Elena learned in the next three days was that as gruff as her father sounded and as dangerous as his reputation claimed him to be, Vito Tandi was a good man, as Summ had said.

  A man who’d survived an emotional tragedy that still haunted him.

  Because they both knew their time together was short, they’d spent nearly every waking hour in each other’s company. If Elena and Vito weren’t in the therapy room working to relieve a degree of his pain, they were seated next to the fireplace, talking. And when Vito’s voice gave out, Elena would read poetry to him. He was a great fan of Robert Service.

  “Shujin’s spirits are high.” Summ’s voice revealed her delight. “Massage and tea, make him sleep all night. “It is all because of you, musume. You are miracle.”

  Elena spread a clean sheet over the table, then draped a second sheet on top. “He’s still in pain. I’ve been able to reduce the intensity, but I can’t make it disappear.”

  “He wears a smile for the first
time in years. Very important medicine.”

  “We’re a good team,” Elena acknowledged, giving Summ her share of the credit. The housekeeper was as dedicated to her father as a wife. Maybe more.

  Summ blushed. “Yes, we are good team.” She patted the therapy table. “How do we get wakai shujin on table? He not smile much. Very bad pain in back.”

  “I know he’s in pain. But he’s not interested in what I can do to help him.”

  “Maybe we trick him,” Summ suggested.

  “Trick him? I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s possible.”

  Elena hadn’t spoken a dozen words to Lucky since he’d kissed her in her bedroom three days ago. He was avoiding her. Even his meals had been eaten in the study. She knew that because she’d seen Summ taking them to him.

  “I think on it.” The housekeeper tossed her braid off her shoulder. “He need miracle, too.”

  Elena was still pondering Summ’s intentions hours later when she arrived—via Summ’s insistence—at the therapy room and came face-to-face with Benito Palone, looking extremely uncomfortable.

  “Benito, I thought I was meeting Summ here.”

  Awkwardly he rubbed his hip. “Summ says you can make the pain in my hip go away. I told her it’s not important, but she insisted that you can ease it.”

  “It’s likely,” Elena agreed.

  He glanced around the room, his dark eyes darting to the table several times.

  Elena had no idea why Summ had sent Benito to her, but it didn’t really matter. She was willing to do what she could for him. “I’ll step outside. Undress and crawl under the sheet. It’s your left hip?”

  “Yes.”

  “Lie on your back. I’ll return in a few minutes.”

  Lucky emptied one bottle of Scotch and immediately started on another. All day he’d been seated behind Vito’s desk making phone calls, while his back grew stiffer and the pain in his back and hips grew more intense.

  He’d been in a great deal of pain from the moment he’d climbed out of bed, and it had only grown worse as the day progressed.

  Tandi Inc. was a complex conglomerate, and from the beginning Lucky had known it would require a major commitment. Daily he was putting in the time, but never far from his thoughts was the current situation surrounding Elena.

  Elena. Lucky’s mind returned to the kiss they’d shared in her bedroom. Just going there in his mind sent a rush of heat straight to his groin. He was still damn angry with her for conning him into that kiss. He should have expected she would pull something like that. He’d already seen the lengths she was prepared to go to that first night at the Shedd.

  A virgin with a fetish for knives into hardcore manipulation. His mind had been playing with that scenario for days.

  Aching inside and out, Lucky carried the bottle to the window and stood staring at the pine trees weighted down with snow. He’d chugged half the bottle by the time the phone rang. It was his cell phone, and he pulled it from his pocket and flipped it open. Recognizing the number, he answered with, “You’re late, Frank.”

  “I lost track of time. I was working with Grace on her therapy. The time got away from me.”

  “How’s that going?”

  “I’m getting the hang of it. Grace is improving. The doctors are pleased. I’m pleased, too. How’s Elena?”

  “Trying to squeeze a lifetime into a week,” Lucky admitted.

  “Meaning, they’re getting along?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will he last the week?”

  “I don’t know. He’s slipping. I can see it. Elena does, too, I’m sure. Still, when he goes, he’ll die a happy man. I rarely see him when he’s not smiling.”

  There was silence on the line, then Frank said, “I never believed this could work out. You’ve managed to pull it off, and I’m grateful, Lucky. I should have faced this sooner. I was a coward and—”

  “Don’t go there, Frank. You did what you thought was right.”

  “When you told me you were going to let her stay a full week with Vito, I thought you were crazy. But everything has worked out. I owe you for that, son. How does Elena seem?”

  Lucky wasn’t sure how to answer that. He’d been keeping an eye on her from a distance. “She’s determined to make Vito’s last days happy. That’s about all I can tell you.” He checked his watch. “Time’s up, Frank. I’ll call you if anything changes.”

  He returned the phone to his pocket just as a knock sounded at the door.

  “Come in.”

  “Time for your tea.”

  Lucky watched Summ carry in her bamboo tray with a pot of tea on it. Before she set it down, he said, “I don’t feel like tea tonight. Take it back to the kitchen.”

  “Need Matcha.” She motioned to the bottle in his hand. “Drink too much poison. Smell like drunk.”

  He glared at her and she headed for the door, but before she left, he said, “Is Elena with Vito?”

  “No, he’s sleeping. Musume with…”

  “With who?”

  “She’s across the hall with Benito.”

  Lucky scowled. “What the hell is she doing in there with Palone?”

  “He has pain.” Summ touched her thigh. “Here. Drink Matcha, wakai. Good for pain.”

  “Then maybe you should brew Palone a pot,” Lucky grumbled, then tipped the Scotch bottle to his lips.

  Summ glared at the bottle. Sniffed loudly, then left.

  You smell like drunk. She’s across the hall with Benito. He has pain. Here.

  Lucky unbuttoned his shirt, then pulled it from his jeans, kneading his back with one hand as he emptied the bottle with the other. He paced and drank. Opened bottle number three. Drank, and paced some more.

  By the time he left the study a half hour later, he felt no better. In fact, he was feeling worse. He walked across the hall, and without knocking, swung the door open. His sudden unannounced entrance had Elena gasping in surprise, and Palone damn near jumping off the table.

  Lucky eyed the situation. Palone’s naked chest. His bare feet—size eighteen at least—hanging a good ten inches off the end of the table. He angled his head and stared at Elena. Noticed her flushed cheeks.

  She said, “What’s wrong? Is it my father?”

  “No. Nothing’s wrong with him. Something’s wrong with me.” He leveled Palone a look. “I have a pain.”

  “That’s not really anything new,” Elena said, ignoring his sarcasm.

  His eyes locked with hers once more. Stared her down.

  Her chin went up. “I’m almost finished here. If you want to come back in an hour, I can—”

  His eyes never left Elena as he said, “Get out of here, Palone.”

  “He can’t get up,” Elena objected. “He’s…” She hesitated.

  “He’s what?”

  “He doesn’t have any clothes on.”

  Lucky’s nostrils flared. His eyes still on Elena, he said, “You have ten seconds, Palone, to get your ass off that table and disappear.”

  It took less than five for Benito Palone to grab the white sheet, wrap it around his middle and head for the door. Lucky opened it and Palone ducked his head and left with the sheet outlining his ass.

  The sight fueled Lucky’s anger, and he slammed the door hard behind the guard. When he turned around, Elena had moved back to the table and was stripping off the bottom sheet. He watched her for a moment as she rolled it into a ball and tossed it in a hamper.

  Her back was to him, and he studied her narrow hips and long legs. She was wearing the same black outfit she’d worn that day in her bedroom. Those damn shiny pants and that slippery shirt that outlined her nipples and reminded him that he knew firsthand what she looked like underneath. That sheer blue bra he’d uncovered days ago had been permanently branded into his memory.

  He waited for her to turn so he could see if her nipples were visible. Waited, then said, “So what’s wrong with Palone?”

  She spun around, nipples perky as hell.
“He has an old injury that gives him pain in his thigh in the wintertime. I think arthritis has set into his sacrum.”

  “His what?”

  “The coccyx region.”

  Lucky shifted his eyes from her chest to her face, tried to block out the vision of Elena touching Palone’s…coccyx region.

  She started to spread a clean white sheet over the one already in place. He watched her hands slide over the smooth cotton, envisioned them moving over flesh. Palone’s flesh.

  “It’s late, Lucky, and as I’ve already said, your pain is nothing new. So what is this all about?”

  “Palone gets paid to be on his feet, Elena, not lying on his back.”

  Her hands stilled on the sheet. She looked up. “What does that mean?”

  He didn’t know what it meant. Yes, he did. He didn’t want her touching Palone. “In Key West you worked at this sort of thing?” He motioned to the table. “This was your job, touching men?”

  “Touching men? Mostly I concentrated on my mother’s therapy. But it’s true, when I’m home I work a few days a week at a health center. And yes, some of my patients are men.” She tucked the corners of the sheet.

  “Did you like touching Palone?”

  She looked up again, her attention shifting to the bottle in his hand. “You’re drunk, Lucky. Go sleep it off.”

  “I don’t get drunk anymore.”

  She started for the door, but before she reached it, he blocked her exit. She backed up, rounded the table. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you acting like this?”

  He followed her and set the bottle down on the table between them. Slowly, he pulled off his shirt and tossed it in the direction of a lone chair in the corner. “I’m here to be touched.” He reached for the bottle once more, but she grabbed it away from him.

  “You’ve had enough to drink. Too much.” She set the bottle on a high counter behind her.

  “I’m in pain, Elena. Isn’t that the magic word for you to go to work?”

  She stood there, not saying anything. Just looking at him with her chin high. He reached across the table and gabbed her wrist. “Come on, Elena. I thought you wanted to touch me. That’s what you said a few days ago. You said you wanted my mouth on yours.”