“Your relationship with Cruz presents a challenge. As the treasurer of Sanctum, Saint’s loyalty is with the priests. As a brother of Nero, your loyalty is with…”
“One.” I grin. “I read the fucking book. Nero is very focused on self-survival. Brotherhood comes second.”
“And your marriage to Iris?”
“My marital status will not interfere with my service to Nero, Sanctum, or The Commission, and I promise you this.”
“Do you have any questions?”
“Will I know what they’ve done?” I toss the hat on my head and lift the hood over it as mist starts to fall from the sullen clouds. “Or am I shooting in the dark?”
“You will be provided a case file, and intel desired, in a manila envelope. You must burn all the letters, implements, and any other traces before departing.”
“And the body?”
“Bodies are cleaned by the janitorial crew, not unlike Sibyl. You call in, and things disappear. For the first few months, you call your mentor.”
“… You?”
“Me,” he confirms. “I will show you the ropes, walk you through your first few cases. If you can’t get the job done, call me. I’ll make it happen. At some point, you’re going to falter, and I need you to trust me to pick up the pieces. You hired me to watch over your business, so you should trust me now. And if I were going to fuck you over, I would’ve already done it.”
“You’re a prime target, and not all of the Nero are happy about your supposed presence. There has been much speculation.”
“They know one another…”
“Over time, you learn reactions and profiles when we are sometimes called in. It cannot be helped. But the one thing you do not do is talk to anyone else unless you are certain you can trust them. You can talk to me.”
“How many do you know?”
His expression frowns as he considers the inquiry. “I probably know about twenty of them well enough to pick them out of a line-up.”
“What about Dom?”
“You can talk to Dom because of your pre-existing relationship,” he seriously informs. “But if you see your greatest enemy standing next to you in the catacombs, you do not act on it. If you do, Nero will kill you.”
“It’s a double-edged sword.”
“You got it.”
Suddenly, a black SUV pulls to a stop at the gate. “Come.”
“Where are we going?”
“To Oscurità, to see who Sal Raniero is.”
“… Oscurità?”
“Darkness. Sometimes called Tenebre.” He opens the car door. “L’oscurità si trasforma in luce.”
“Darkness turns to light.”
“And that is exactly what you are about to do.” His natural smile and commanding presence spark my wildest curiosity as he moves closer, bumping into me. With a deep tenor, he whispers, “Our darkness sends souls to the light.”
“My oasis is in the umbra; my armor is in the id,” I mutter as the powerful lure of his words tantalizes, taunting the deepest recesses in my mind. Nero was never in the plans of my deceased wife. The move forges ahead with a loud proclamation that I am my own man.
“Never forget the power you possess, Salvatore.”
His Butterfly
“I want lemon meringue,” I say, laying flat on the bed in my favorite outfit—a pale cream knee-length with floral watercolor print swimsuit cover. The entire piece cinches together with strings. I could never wear it out in public because I like wearing nothing underneath. “Idamae’s with a hint of weep.”
“Weeping in meringue is a flaw,” Deacon points out, beside me. We’ve been staring at the molded ceiling for hours. This is our fourth night without Sal. “An imperfection from too much humidity or undercooking. The meringue is unstable.”
“It isn’t the only unstable thing.” With my hands on my belly, I turn to stare at his beautiful profile. He looks like an angel. “Why did you break up with Rowan?”
He licks his lips once and rubs them together. “Because no matter what, she will never be what we are.”
“You love her,” I argue, shifting onto my side and propping my head up in my hand. His fingers brush against my elbow and wrist as his eyes blink to mine. There is no vacancy in his soul, and how he feels about me is unquestionable. “You loved Cat.”
“I loved Amber, too.”
“Then why aren’t you with one of them?”
“Because for one, I prefer Sal’s asshole to any wet hole, present company excluded. And for two, I won’t risk what we have. Rowan is great, and she’ll be fabulous for someone, but that person cannot be me.”
“Sal keeps your leash shorter than mine.”
He stares back to the ceiling, and his jaw pops. “Maybe he does. But I do it to him, too. He isn’t alone in possessiveness.”
“He’s your one obsession,” I huff, flopping back as he lifts on his forearm. His hand glides on my skin, raising my shirt and resting his hand on my round belly. “Deacon…”
“No, Iris, you are.”
In an instant, our clothes peel from our flesh as he kneels between my thighs. He undoes his belt and rips the zipper down.
“Come here,” I lustfully beg. “Lay on me. I need your weight to ground me.”
My fingers sweep over his biceps, inked and scarred. His heavenly blue eyes shine, and I clutch his ass, urging his erection to press against me. “If we start this…”
“We’re gonna fuck for six months?”
“Yes,” he insists with sharp breaths. “God, I want to make love to you for days, baby.”
“So do it.”
I spot the sparkling ring on my finger, but it doesn’t matter as much as it should. I am sick as a dog, pregnant, and Sal left. Not only did he go, but he also left me in the hands of Deacon-fucking-Cruz.
Is he a fucking idiot?
Or a brilliant mastermind?
I don’t know, and I don’t care. All I know is Deacon’s engorged cock is concealed with too much fabric. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, Cruz. Fuck me.”
He pulls his jeans down, setting his shaft free, and I arch up to feel his crown on the precipice of the plunge.
Dive, Deacon.
My goddamned phone goes off with Masa’s ring. “You want that?” he asks, leaning up and tossing his hair back. “It could be important.”
Nothing is as vital as your fat cock inside of me.
Reluctantly, I murmur. “Answer it.”
“Cruz. Yeah, she’s resting right now.”
I’m about to fuck your dick til kingdom come is what I am about to do.
His glowing ethereal quality diminishes, replaced by an obfuscated reaction. “I will tell her, Masa. She will call you on the way to the airport.”
“… Deacon?” I sit up in bed as he flurries through the bedroom at lightning speed. In minutes, my suitcase is sitting on the chaise as he starts packing my things. “Deacon, what’s going on?”
Am I going somewhere, or are we getting it on until dawn?
Still, I hear nothing from him but the sound of a problematic, almost panicked breathing. “... Cruz?” I say with zero results. I slowly get up from the bed, leaving the ties undone on my dress and hanging on my shoulders. My breasts, baby, and neither bits are all exposed as I chase after him. “Deacon Vincent Cruz! Tell me what the fuck is going on right now!”
He stops, and his eyes hold enough emotion to bring me to my knees. “There was a shooting in Gifu. They believe the Goro gang was aiming for The Chairman, but the bullet hit Baba.”
“Oh, my fucking God!” I scream frantic. I sprint for the dresser, throwing things into the suitcase. I hold Sal’s favorite pair of black lace panties when I lose my shit and crumble into Deacon’s arms. “I want my husband…”
I beat against his chest and arms, and he welcomes my blows. “I know you do, baby. Baba is alive and in surgery.”
“I have to go.”
“You need to,” he agrees. “And I will
see if I can get word to Sal through Dom.”
“What does Dom have to do with any of this?”
“Shit,” he says, breathing hard. His nostrils expand as his eyes dance away. He is caught, and I won’t let it go. “Dom is in Italy with Sal.”
“… Now?” I gulp back the white lies and gather my gumption. I chuck the panties in the drawer as my fierceness softens. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. You will tell his wolf pack—Marshall and Tai—to stay here. We’re merely going for a midnight drive. You and me.”
“Iris…”
“And tomorrow and all the days after, you will make excuses for my absence. Cite that I’m sick or heartbroken, I don’t fucking care!”
I toss a few things into a bag as he stands dumbstruck by my diva behavior. “Yes, Ma’am. Anything else?”
“The Lotus Queen is leaving for Japan in fifteen minutes.”
Cruz doesn’t just bend over for The Capo.
He’ll do ballet in bunny ears to please me.
17
oscurità
The Master
A good hour from the Basilica where I’ve been staying, Oscurità sleeps on a hill under a darkened sky, electrifying with purple shades. I imagine a haunted house full of ghosts and ghouls, chainsaws, and wet, cold spaghetti noodles. I snicker at the memory.
“Stick your hand in this corpse,” Stella baited. “Feel the guts!”
Guts don’t feel like that, Mom.
And she’d know that if she were anything more than a figurehead for Raniero Enterprises. She isn’t. And she never will be. The thought nags in my brain like a hangnail stuck in a sweater.
Stella doesn’t deserve the business Old Poppa built or the one his son, Cesario, tried to destroy. The only reason RE is standing is that Iris significantly invested after her crazy stunts in the spring, but I don’t know that it will matter.
RE had a period of sustained growth during my Emily-phase when I was in Boston and always tending to the business’ needs. Cesario doesn’t possess the skillset to double the size. The silent standard amongst our kind—the sons should double what was left for them, and their children should do the same.
Marcello Campanelli is a prime example of this. He took what his father, Antonio Campanelli, built and managed to more than double the size of the Campanelli outfit with the absorption of Angelo Gennaro’s business.
Not only will Cesario fail, so will Stella.
Cesario isn’t Luca Raniero. Old Poppa cast a massive shadow of magnetism, almost a star quality. Everyone knew him, drawn in by his captivating charm, and eagerly opened their wallets for the pieces of pie he deemed worthy of eating.
Cesario should’ve been a shark, but he is more like a slippery eel, finagling his way into places where no one wants him. He went to Brazil to meet with Muerte, but that fell through because Cesario has nothing to offer. And he isn’t desirable enough to warrant deals based on name alone. The Raniero name can only carry him so far, and that limited capacity is a source of stagnation, bottlenecking every acquisition he dips his greedy sausage-sized fingers into.
I could snag a deal with Muerte, even before my joint venture with Iris. I know Gabe Herrera quite well. I’ve had dinner at Muerte and Salomé’s table. She adores me, and he is a helluva golfer. Ignore the immoral chessboard we play on; we’re humans. Chicken mole and half-dressed caddy girls are a universal language.
But we don’t talk about these things because I’m sitting back, watching Stella—my mother—flounder like a fish in polluted waters. She’ll wash up on a disgusting landfill of a shoreline, amidst discarded soda bottles and beer cans, and be shopping at the thrift store in less than five years.
I happen to love thrift stores, but for a woman like Stella, it’ll be like digging her own grave after a culmination of years spent wasting time. Her natural business acuity is far more impressive than a deal signed in her stink hole, but her inability to be human is a fault no backhoe or hoe-ing can fill.
I am the product of a hitman and a whore. Once a whore, always a whore. It’s a mindset, not an absolute. I hear the mutterings in the back—I married a whore, a tension relief specialist, a hot Asian chick working in hospitality. Iris played a strategic game.
I hitched up one hell of a competitor.
Totally different.
Did she play me? Maybe, but I played her too.
Do I care? I don’t fucking give a damn.
When the company goes so far down in the hole, no amount of money can save face. Stella is scraping by, trying to find someone to offer a hand, and that is why she is determined to partner with Torrente or Herrera’s Immortal. She believes the answer resides in spreading her thighs, and it might if she was worth it. She’s not. And she’s not Iris.
Before our marriage, Iris would’ve opened wide, and droves of eligible mafia would’ve lined up. She brings Nakamura’s Lotus in her dowry, and the value of that is incomparable, but her real selling point is in just being Iris.
Stella doesn’t have shit.
She is a middle-aged Italian-American woman with the personality of cardboard and a dying outfit. That’s about as inviting as a six-child deep, crack whore mother with no teeth and bad skin jonesing for a Sugar Daddy. No man in his right mind wants to get involved with that. More bluntly, no smart investor will want to stick his dick in that for a long-term merger. She’d be better off if she’d stop whoring around, hoping to find the proverbial needle in the haystack, and refocus her efforts on sustaining what she has.
I can’t run Raniero Enterprises.
Wait…can’t is wrong…I won’t.
I could get their head out of the water, bring the business right side up, and revitalize what Old Poppa dreamed. The problem with that is even though a start-up—Sal Raniero—presents a particular challenge; I don’t have to deal with the mess of shit Cesario and Stella are littering the lands with. I get to make my own little disasters and clean them up. The entire underground is watching how I handle those things, and with each one, I’m building rep. Cookies stack up nicely in the jar while the milk stays in my cock.
And while a few of my peers may believe I need to run a Hail Mary…
Let’s not underestimate long-term strategies just yet. The big picture is where it’s at. Everyone is into immediate gratification. Maybe it’s my Dominant-driven impulses, but I like kicking back and waiting. I want them to dance for me, not the other way around.
And eventually, they’ll dance like no one is watching for the punk ass Dark Prince from the Boston racket. I’ll be wearing ripped jeans and a t-shirt, rocking in the high-back red leather chair, and chewing on a straw when they nervously cower in my presence.
What’dya want, asshole?
This will occur after months—years—of me busting my balls to make a name for myself. It won’t start with any of the bigwigs in the confines of my office.
It will start with flowers.
Or chocolates. Or cookies. Or nuts.
A small token of acknowledgment for a job well done will unexpectedly arrive. Enough to say, we’re watching you, Salvatore. They’ll then send a crate of alcohol or cigars, quickly followed by a phone call. “Let’s have lunch.”
We’ll pleasantly meet, all the while, scoping one another out to see if there is even a remote possibility for a mutually beneficial relationship. After this, we either part ways as acquaintances or follow it with a dinner date at an upscale eatery as colleagues.
I’ll have to wear a tie.
My sidekick Double-D’s may or may not be in attendance for this. That all depends on if there are scantily dressed women walking around at the bar we may go to after dinner. If we dine alone with nothing but security and part ways, then Double-D’s aren’t necessary. However, if strippers get involved, it shifts to a collaborative, relaxing evening where we both know the deal will get signed. He’ll bring his people, which will become my buddies, and I’ll bring mine to do the same for him.
It’s mafia networking 101.
And we all learned it in diapers with our tomato juice bottles in one hand while learning to be expressive with the other. He-with-the-best-hand-gestures wins the motherfucking game.
Eventually, the partnership turns to picnics on the Fourth of July, and vacations shared onboard a yacht in the South Pacific, and ski trips to Aspen and Les Saisies. We’ll send presents to one another, and each other’s kids at Christmas and for birthdays. We’ll have a running chat.
And everything will be great until…
We bring in another as a pair.
Lines will get crossed. Bullets will get shot. Funerals will occur.
From there, we will reunite with skepticism, or war will break out until the next interested party shows up, but we will never be the same after the first thread of trust severs.
Now, keep in mind…that was an example for one partner. We are in that process with well over forty now. It’s a lot of fucking balls to juggle.
And there is a reason my dirty cohort is as organized as he is. He cannot be any other way or threads loosen, and the whole Sal Raniero quilt falls apart. That’s bad. We don’t want that to occur.
So I must—or the Double-D’s must—hire people we trust to keep our shit together, which is why I am staring at my gorgeous new secretary (that I really should’ve boned) on the way to Oscurità.
You may know her.
Her name is Hannah Beth Cruz. She’s sitting with two computers open and papers shoved everywhere as we review the current state of Sal Raniero’s affairs. Snicker.
I took almost two weeks off (for the most part) to celebrate my winning merger with the most coveted flower from the East, trusting everyone else to run my shit.
I smile at Nonna’s ring on her finger and the diamond choker collar on her neck. Between Mass and I, we closed the deal on Hannah Cruz. With her last name, it wasn’t a hard sell. She wanted to be a part of my team; it was just a matter of deciding where to use her skillset best.
In the spectacular, admiral blue dress with the divine plunging neckline, I can think of plenty of ways to use her—as my dick twitches.
A Dark Place (a Tomb of Ashen Tears Book 5) Page 14
