Queen of Spades Read online

  She would never forgive herself.

  Her secrets had cost her family their lives. And destroyed hers.

  She stumbled through the master bedroom, past the king-sized feather bed and the bank of windows overlooking the deck and Pacific Ocean, past the man cave she’d designed for Matthew that was disguised as a walk-in closet but contained a small gym, sauna, and luxurious bathroom.

  Inside her walk-in closet, behind a row of designer dresses was a small, hidden button. She pressed it and the entire wall slid open.

  Pushing aside the silk, wool, and cashmere garments, she stepped inside.

  The room looked the same as it had when she’d last checked on it six months ago when Matthew and the kids had gone to visit his sisters.

  Eva had successfully avoided the trips to Portland their entire marriage.

  At her wedding, she’d overheard the four sisters talking.

  They hated her.

  They wanted him to get back together with his ex-girlfriend—a woman exactly like them who still lived in the same Portland neighborhood and ran in the same social circles they did. She’d been their best friend for life. There was no competing with that.

  Eva had paused breathlessly outside the door at the church and listened to them rip her apart—everything from her olive skin to the way she wore low-cut tops, high heels, and tight pants. They said she dressed like a hooker and that she flirted with their husbands.

  Eva nearly gasped at that. Like she would ever give those pigs the time of day. They leered at her behind their wives’ backs, and one had even tried to kiss her one night after a barbecue. She’d grabbed his forearm, wrenched it behind his back, and told him if he ever tried that shit again, she’d make sure his luck ran out with his beautiful wife.

  She’d not only rejected his advances, but she’d also defended her future sister-in-law.

  And yet, on her wedding day, they were talking bad about her. They made fun of her accent. They called her a Goomba. A Wop. An Italian princess. It went on until someone else opened the door at the end of the hall, and Eva fled into a nearby room, closing the door and locking it behind her. She slumped against the door, fighting back tears that quickly turned to anger.

  A half hour later, she squared her shoulders and walked down the aisle with her chin held high. She was grateful she’d seen the sisters-in-law’s true colors before she’d given her heart to them any further. From then on, she would always be exceedingly polite but aloof. She’d never let them in to her world. Not one inch.

  And oddly enough, Matthew never argued with her decision to skip the annual trips to Portland. Which told her more than he realized. He’d known all along that his sisters hated her. Her bowing out gave him the freedom to maintain those relationships. She didn’t begrudge him that. She didn’t expect him to draw a line in the sand. She was Italian after all. She understood loyalty.

  But more than that, she would never deprive her children of that big family experience—being doted on by aunts and uncles and forging close friendships with cousins. Because despite their dislike of her, Matthew’s family did dote on their children. And that almost made up for it all.

  Lost in memories of her wedding as she stood numb with grief in her safe room, Eva realized she’d have to call her sisters-in-law and tell them. She closed her eyes. Later.

  Her safe room was well lit by a massive skylight that matched the one over the bed that had given her so many pleasurable nights staring up at the moon and stars—just like when she’d been a little girl in Sicily and fallen asleep on a grassy hill stargazing.

  A desk held a titanium laptop. One wall was essentially a large cabinet.

  Eva stood dazed in the middle of the room, taking it all in, mentally cataloguing what was inside each cubby, drawer, cabinet, and closet.

  One drawer contained burner phones. A large door opened to display her arsenal. Another cupboard held a duffel bag full of cash, and there was more in a safety deposit box at her bank. A locker-sized cabinet held her clothes. Another closet held her bug-out bag.

  Although she knew she needed to hurry, she was paralyzed. Her legs wouldn’t move. Her arms stayed stuck to her side and her feet glued to the ground. Only her eyes darted from place to place.

  Daggers. Swords. Guns. Bug-out Backpack. Laptop. Cell phones. Change of clothes. Boots.

  Her eyes traveled down to her feet. She was covered in blood. It triggered something within her, and slowly, she stripped. Standing in the same spot, she peeled the blood-crusted clothes from her body and let them drop at her feet. The blinking green cursor on the black screen of her laptop was hypnotizing. With the press of a button she’d be able to watch the surveillance footage of everything that had happened in her home over the past twenty-four hours. She shook her head as if to clear it.

  She stepped out of the clothes puddled at her feet and opened the cabinet with the large bug-out backpack inside. It contained a change of clothing and a first aid kit, but she needed to add the other items. First, she opened the gun cabinet. She picked out a second handgun—a Sig Sauer P238. Guns were not her weapon of choice, but she also knew better than to bring a knife to a gunfight. She stuck the Sig Sauer and her Ruger in their special slots within the backpack. Then she filled a large duffel bag with ammunition.

  She opened the cabinet where she kept her most treasured weapons—the knives, daggers, and swords she’d grown to love studying Gladiatura Moderna in Sicily. She picked out two of each and placed the knives and daggers in a special padded case and also tucked that into the bugout bag. The swords she slipped into special padded cases that attached to the bug-out bag.

  She was done within moments. She’d trained and timed herself. She glanced at the clock but knew there was no hurry.

  They weren’t coming after her. If they’d wanted her dead, they would’ve waited and killed her when she walked in. No. Her punishment was living with the slaughter of her family. To Luca, her suffering was more important than the price on her head.

  Still nude, she sat down at the laptop and logged off, then stuck it into its special compartment in the backpack. From a drawer, she pulled out a tightly bundled package containing $10,000 in cash. She grabbed four burner cell phones and tucked them and the cash in another pocket of the pack before she set it and the duffel bag just outside the doorway.

  She opened a closet door and pulled some clothes off a hanger: tight black pants, a black long-sleeve T-shirt, and a black jacket.

  Clutching the clothes, she scooped up a pair of knee-high black boots and dipped her head back through the clothes lining the doorway to her secret room.

  She shut the door behind her and rearranged the rack of clothing so it hid the entrance to the secret room. It wasn’t really necessary. Even with the clothes pushed aside, it looked like a blank wall behind them. But she wanted to delay discovery of the room for as long as possible.

  She stepped into her massive shower and cleaned herself as quickly as she could, scrubbing with soap and letting the water beat down on her head until the red swirling down the drain turned clear.

  Eight

  1990s

  Los Angeles

  When she stepped off the bus at Union Station, she was no longer Evangeline White. Nor was she Eva Lucia Santella. She was the Queen of Spades.

  Dressed all in black with her blonde hair tucked underneath a black knit stocking cap, Eva pulled back her shoulders and stepped back into her decade-old persona.

  She wasn’t a rich Malibu housewife.

  She was a mob boss. One of the first women in Italy to be made a donna d’ onore— head of a Mafia family.

  Not only was she one of the first—she was the best.

  She was a legend.

  For ten years, there’d been a price on her head. The Mafia dons said it was because she’d killed her brother, but she knew the truth. They didn’t want a woman leading a Mafia family—especially one who refused to participate in the sex trade.

  When she heard about the
order for her death, she turned to her last hope, a childhood friend who had become a priest. Tomas had risked everything and ultimately gave his life to help her to escape to America.

  As her plane flew over her homeland, she received a text photo of Tomas’s dead body. Her grief and anguish had nearly been the death of her. She’d wanted to hijack the plane, turn it around, and avenge Tomas even if it cost her own life.

  In her grief, she turned toward a flask of wine Tomas had given her, telling her to raise it in a toast when she passed over Sicily. She’d already downed the wine, and now she realized she’d been drugged. She struggled to stand and go confront the pilots, but instead sank into her seat and then into oblivion.

  When she woke, near America, she realized what Tomas had done. He’d known helping her would cost him his life. He’d spiked the wine to make sure she got to America.

  Knowing that Tomas felt it was worth his own life for her to escape, gave her the strength to start a new life in America.

  But now all bets were off.

  The same people who’d murdered her lover, Giacomo, and her oldest friend, Tomas, had now massacred her entire family. She was certain Luca was behind it all. She would not rest until he’d paid with his own life.

  Fired up with bloodthirst, Eva stood before the woman at the front desk of the Little Tokyo motel and thrust a wad of one hundred-dollar bills at her. She’d never paid attention to what a hotel room cost before. Matthew had always taken care of that sort of thing.

  Eva had scoped out this motel a few years ago. It was nearly buried, practically invisible within the windowless walls of a rundown mall in Little Tokyo.

  The woman at the front desk didn’t speak English but plucked a one hundred-dollar bill out of the wad Eva shoved at her and held up two wrinkly, age-spotted fingers. Two nights. Which probably meant that Eva actually had paid for about a week, but that was fine.

  Two nights was all Eva needed to get the ball rolling in reestablishing her new life.

  The room itself smelled like mold and urine, but Eva didn’t care. After she locked the door behind her, she took out her laptop and set it up on the small dresser, pulling the bed close enough to sit on. But before she logged on, she took a deep breath and flicked on the TV.

  The volume was overly loud, but she remained frozen, listening and staring.

  The well-coiffed TV reporter with the orange bodycon dress stood in front of the iron gate leading to Eva’s driveway and home. How the fuck had the news gotten word so quickly? How did anyone even know about the crime yet? She swallowed the word down. Crime. Massacre. Slaughter.

  She shook it away. She didn’t have time to grieve. Not until she had avenged her family’s murders.

  The screen cut to an aerial shot. A news helicopter’s camera footage showed her home surrounded by emergency vehicles. Three ambulances. A firetruck. Five squad cars. All with lights off. There was no hurry.

  A blue sedan pulled into view. A man with silver-streaked dark hair, aviator sunglasses, and a black blazer stepped out of the driver’s seat, and the uniformed officers at the front door parted to let him in.

  A detective.

  Mesmerized by what she was watching, Eva was jolted when the screen cut back to the newsroom. A TV anchor with cheekbones that could cut glass was talking earnestly about the scene.

  “Investigators aren’t releasing specifics about the crime scene, but said that multiple bodies were found inside the home. They also are asking for information on this woman.”

  Eva gasped when her picture appeared on the screen. It was a photograph taken by Matthew when they were on their honeymoon in Cabo San Lucas. She had been on the beach laughing, and the wind had blown her hair partially in her face. It was the only photograph she’d allowed taken of her since she had come to America. Matthew had not questioned her aversion to cameras, but he’d begged to take this one. She’d been so in love and in such a good mood that day, she’d relented. He’d promised to never post it online.

  She’d allowed him to print it as an 8x10, and he’d put it in a Tiffany frame and kept it on his dresser in their bedroom. The frame had cost a small fortune.

  At the time, Eva wasn’t used to her TV producer husband’s extravagant spending and deep pockets. As she stood staring at her own picture on the TV screen, she was jolted back to the present by something the reporter said.

  “Investigators have just released some new information. They say the woman in the photo lived here with her family. And now she is missing.”

  “Belinda,” said the man in the newsroom. “Are they saying she is a victim, say of a kidnapping?”

  “They aren’t saying.”

  “Is she a suspect?”

  “Again, they haven’t said.”

  “Okay, well thank you, Belinda. Folks, we’ll remain out on the scene until we find out more about this horrific situation. Stay tuned.”

  The screen flickered to a commercial for an air freshener. Eva stayed standing, staring, the remote control at her feet.

  A suspect.

  Well, that bullshit would be dispelled as soon as investigators reviewed the surveillance footage.

  As the broadcast ended, Eva turned away from the screen and caught a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror. There was no shortage of mirrors in the room. There was even one on the ceiling that was hazy and black from the silver backing oxidizing over decades.

  Her appearance was a far cry from her soccer mom getup. There were no pressed white Capri pants with kitten heels and a pink cashmere sweater.

  Dressed all in black with her blonde-streaked hair tucked under the cap, Eva knew her disguise wouldn’t be enough. The monthly trips to the salon to make her black hair a light brown with blonde streaks had made her fit in.

  But it was time to return to her roots.

  She pulled out two boxes of hair dye from the bottom of her bugout bag. They were crumpled and several years old, but she assumed they would still do the trick. She laid them out on the bed. Redhead? Black?

  She picked up the box of black dye. She’d gone blonde simply to disguise herself from those in Sicily who’d known her with black hair.

  That was no longer necessary.

  Now she had to disguise herself from the police who would be asking too many questions. She needed to stay under the radar until she avenged her family’s deaths.

  And she had to hurry. Once police viewed the surveillance video, they’d be looking for the killer. She had to beat them to it. She wondered whether Luca had come to America himself or if he sent someone else to do his dirty work. Either way she would take her revenge. Kill the murderer and then Luca. If he was the killer, it would be that much easier.

  The governor had recently rescinded the death penalty in California. Life in prison was too good for the monster who’d taken her family away from her. Even execution at the hands of the state was too easy a way to die.

  She needed to exact her own form of revenge.

  Then, with her enemy’s blood on her hands, she’d be happy to talk to the authorities. She’d be relieved to turn herself in. Because at that point, she’d have nothing left to live for. She’d sworn an oath of vendetta. Exacting it would be her last act.

  Nine

  1990s

  Los Angeles

  Eva woke early. Before dawn.

  The night before, she’d lain on top of the motel’s sheets in her underwear and a large T-shirt, staring at the ceiling until she’d realized sleep was impossible.

  Only then had she rummaged into her first aid kit and taken two sleeping pills.

  As a result, she’d had soul-wrenching, gutting nightmares. She tossed and turned amid images of blood and her family’s bodies coming to life blaming her for their deaths.

  When she woke, her hair was soaked with sweat and tears.

  Within an hour, she was blow drying her new black hair. The sink was filled with four inches of blonde hair she’d cut off with scissors from the first aid kit.

/>   She had only one goal—to stay underground until her vendetta was fulfilled.

  Now, lying on the motel room bed in the dark, she quickly worked through her plans and what she had to do next.

  She’d taken the first steps of her escape plan years ago. While Matthew and the kids were in Portland, she’d taken three trips. She’d flown to New Mexico, Nevada, and Wyoming and set herself up as a limited liability company. In those three states, corporations were not required to record the name of their owners.

  Then she opened bank accounts and credit cards through her LLCs using some of the money from her offshore account. She wanted the accounts and cards just in case, but mostly she planned to use the accounts to withdraw cash or purchase prepaid debit cards.

  She’d also learned how to program her five burner phones with throwaway phone numbers. She could create one right before she made a call and then delete it after.

  Now, she planned to buy a house outright in Los Angeles using a cashier’s check and the LLC’s identity. She needed a secure home base while she hunted.

  Because, make no mistake, she was hunting. And she wouldn’t rest until she had killed.

  As soon as it grew light, she’d contact a luxury real estate agent and explain her situation. A cash deal. Property bought through a corporation. No face-to-face meetings. Photos, video, and blueprints of the property would be enough.

  With her new black hair and wardrobe—along with ubiquitous, massive black sunglasses—she’d hopefully be unrecognizable as the blonde-streaked Malibu housewife who’d dressed in designer clothes and carried a Louis Vuitton bag.

  Her laptop wasn’t a problem. She’d long ago created a VPN, a brand new feature in the hacker universe—a virtual private network, that redirected her internet traffic, bouncing her supposed location at destinations around the world.

  Her Mercedes was a thing of the past. She’d use the LLC to buy a “sleeper car”—an innocuous, common car with some under-the-hood get up and go. After she did a little research on her laptop in the Little Tokyo motel, Eva picked out a used, white Subaru Forester on Craig’s List.