Sammy pulled back, her breath in pants when I gripped her thigh, half lying across her with her leg over my hip. She was warm over me, that pleated skirt rising higher and higher. The soft, sweet breaths of hers coming closer the deeper I kissed her, the tighter she clung to me.
I could have taken her right there on that window seat. It wouldn’t have taken a lot of effort. But one look and the low, amazed gasp from her when her skirt slipped higher and I grazed the front of her damp panties with a knuckle shook some sense into me. I pulled back, stopping only when Sammy’s worried frown softened.
“Oddio, Johnny Carelli, I…I’m going to go to hell because of you.”
I shrugged, my heart hammering in my chest when Sammy bit her lip again and fingered the top button of my shirt. Her surprise turned quickly to something that reminded me of open, primitive heat.
“Don’t worry, bella,” I told her, shifting our bodies to pull her close to me again, grinning at the low, soft moan she made when I slipped my hand underneath her skirt. I kept her face still, holding back a happy groan when she melted into my kiss. “I’ll keep you company.”
1
Johnny
Basilica of St. Mary’s Cathedral
June 2019
The crowd was quiet but respectful. Even the man at the front of the room, holding his head high with a serious expression, was professional. I did not meet his eyes. I hadn’t met anyone’s eyes since walking in three hours ago.
There was too much emotion tied up in this day. Too many responsibilities that flooded me, that would soon consume me, to be distracted by the glare currently directed right at me.
Fuck him, I thought, relaxing against the plush cushion behind me, slipping my own scowl back to that asshole. Our gazes met, and I tightened my jaw, letting some of my frustration over this day filter out into my glare.
He had leveled a lot of blame at me over the years. It was time I sent some back.
Ahead of him, the children came, their voices low, somber. Then their song began, and the hymn filtered into the rafters, the echo of each note hitting the high ceilings above. I excused myself, torn by the memory of that song and what it had meant to me as a kid. What it meant to me as a man hearing it on this day, in this place.
I called off my guard and my sister as I moved through the crowd, ignoring the stares I got, bypassing well-wishers until I found myself alone. I was sufficiently secluded to let the emotion of the day peek out, just enough that I could breathe and not implode. I needed a release, some outlet that would distract me. Something that would keep me from screaming, cursing everyone in the room who did not feel what I did.
But there was no one. There was nothing.
There was only this sorrow and the blister of loss.
Or so I thought until I laid eyes on her.
The back row was empty and shaded in darkness. There were twenty minutes before it all began, and I had time, plenty of time, to find solace, some small semblance of peace alone in this spot. I would sit there, maybe, when the people moved through the doors, when the ushers cleared the aisle.
And then the group of nuns passed beyond the confessional.
Shock and surprise overwhelmed me.
Of course, she would be there. The children were hers. She guided them. They were her saving grace. They were her absolution for the sin I’d led her to. And the man, that glaring, angry man at the front of the church, he was hers as well. Duty. Honor. These were things that I had not made her forget with my mouth and my tongue, my touch and my taste.
Christ, she was such a temptation. Even now, sitting alone three rows from the back, her body rigid, her posture perfection. She was Sophia Loren made young again, brought into the twenty-first century to tempt and torture me just by being, existing. I could no more ignore her than I could disregard a da Vinci painting.
“You’re a kid. You don’t know what love is, Sammy. You need to forget about me.”
I’d set flame to that perfect piece of art. Scorched it with a lie because I knew she was too perfect, too pure for me.
Even now, all these years later, I saw the look on her face—the devastated expression that told me I’d crushed her.
All that beauty fractured with one lie.
It broke her.
It destroyed me.
The last time I saw her had unhinged me. It had been years, but Sammy had still managed to devastate me with a look. The restaurant had gone silent as she’d faced me, looking perfect, looking fierce, all the rage and hatred of a decade fuming in those beautiful green eyes as she glared at me. Then, she slapped me right across the face.
But today, in this holy place, at this time, she should know I would find her. I was better prepared this time. I could wait. I could watch and see her pristine self. A perfect vision in her black dress and black hat, clutching her red rosary beads as she closed her eyes and prayed.
Not for me. No. Never. But maybe for Cara and her husband or the baby, my infant nephew. Maybe for our father, who’d never learned the truth of his son’s greatest sin.
I moved, motioning to my bodyguard, Angelo, when he approached, motioning toward the rows where she sat, and I knew my man understood.
I wanted silence.
I wanted privacy.
Angelo would make sure that happened.
I slipped into the pew behind her, watching her profile, the long, closed lashes as they fell against her high cheekbones. They’d been dotted with tears the day I broke her heart.
“Why are you doing this, Johnny? I love you. I ache from how much I love you, and I…I could make you happy. I’d do anything to try.”
We could be happy. We loved each other. We could be happy, but we’d never be safe. I knew that. Even as a kid, I knew that much.
Sammy’s perfect, succulent mouth seemed to be in a perpetual pout, moving now in quick time as she muttered prayers under her breath.
“Hail Mary, full of grace…” I heard her pray.
The words pulled a smile from me, the only one I’d had today.
“My sister thanks you,” I told her, looking forward, over the crowd, knowing she heard me.
Her prayer stopped, and Sammy tilted her head to the left. A silent acknowledgment that she knew I was behind her.
“And I thank you for your prayers,” I told her.
“Your father was always very kind to me,” she whispered.
I nodded, remembering how much my father thought of Sammy. How concerned he’d been when she’d chosen not to enter the order.
“And my uncle,” she finished, pulling the smile from my face.
“You disgusting, vile, filthy boy! Taking advantage of my niece! Stealing her virtue!” her uncle had screamed at me long ago.
The old priest hadn’t been wrong.
I had taken advantage of her.
I’d let her take advantage of me over and over again, but I couldn’t make it right.
Not like he wanted me to.
Not like she wanted.
What kind of husband would I have been to her then? She was supposed to go to St. Agnes, go into the order, not become some capo’s wife. In the end, money settled it. Money that wasn’t mine, but money that kept the priest sated and Sammy off to a private college in Maine. But the priest hadn’t let me go unshamed. He never told my father what happened, but he cursed me just the same.
“You are no son of this church, Johnny Carelli, and a bad Catholic. You shame your father’s good name and your blessed mother’s sweet soul.”
I looked to the front of the church, spotting Sammy’s uncle. Thankful his eyesight was too weakened with age, that it was likely he could not see me sitting so close to his niece. The old man might refuse to perform the service if he knew I spoke to Sammy.
“My father loved you both very much.” I tightened my grip on the pew and leaned against it. “He thought highly of the work you do with the children and the…”
“What do you want?” Sammy no longer tilted her head tow
ard me.
What did I want? What a loaded fucking question.
In a word? Her.
All of her.
Again.
Always.
I wanted a do-over.
I wanted her to see me and not be disgusted, but I knew that was a pipe dream. I’d settle for civility, but even that would likely be a stretch.
“Sammy…”
“Today is a sad day for our community, and I know you must be hurting.” She turned her head, looking toward Cara sitting in the front pew closest to our father’s casket, Kiel next to her, holding their baby. “Your sister will need your guidance and comfort. I would think you’d want to give her that today instead of trying to torment me.”
“Torment?” My voice cracked.
At that, she turned, gaze moving up to look at me. “It’s what you are best at.”
A flood of memories came back to me. A thousand lost moments I held deep inside my heart when I needed them. Sammy’s head bent in prayer the day I first saw her, wearing a white dress and gloves as she knelt on the prayer bench and black streaks stained her perfect face.
Then later, years later, that day in the library, her breath heavy, her bottom lip wet, plump like a grape on the vine, her scent fresh, hot as I leaned closer, wanting her so much, having her want me, but knowing it was a sin.
God, how I’d wanted to be a sinner that night.
“You should leave,” she said, pulling me from my memories, reminding me where I was and why.
“I will,” I told her, tired of the distance that my guilt and her anger had put between us.
Her uncle was old and mean. He’d be dead soon, and Sammy would be left with only her grief and rage. If I didn’t intercede, there would be nothing left of her but bitterness. I knew firsthand she held too much fire for that to happen.
“On one condition.”
“I don’t need to meet your conditions,” she said, not bothering to look my way when she answered.
I sent Angelo a grateful smile. It was a blessing to have such diligent staff. He unraveled every secret, gave me every advantage I needed. “Your lease is up next month on the children’s center, correct?”
Sammy jerked around, finally showing me her full face, more beautiful than I remembered. Even more striking than it had been when she screamed at me on the street outside Così Buono weeks ago. “What did you do?”
I leaned forward just to get a whiff of her scent. It had been too long. “Trying to make amends.”
She stiffened when I reached for her, my courage failing me when Sammy squeezed her eyes shut as though the idea of my touch would be torture.
“Believe it or not,” I told her, leaning back against the pew again. “I’m trying to help.” I pulled out a card from my jacket pocket, offering it to her as the choir at the front of the church began to sing another hymn, this one calling congregants to their seats. “We have a lot to discuss. When this is over.”
She didn’t take the card, just stared down at it.
I placed it on the pew next to her leg before standing, offering a nod to my sister when she turned in her seat, her gaze searching for me. “Thank you again, Sammy, for paying your respects. It’s always good to see you.”
“I wish I could say the same.”
I leaned down, grinning when she looked away from me. “Don’t worry, amore mia. You will one day very soon.”
2
Sammy
Parasites are bloodsuckers. They latch on to you, sinking beneath the surface of who you are, and hold tight. They don’t loosen their grip. They don’t allow any separation from the host until they’ve gotten their bellies full or their needs met.
The particular parasite wrecking my life was the most dangerous kind. He came in a well-constructed package—chiseled cheekbones and full lips, a perfect, straight nose, and dark, impossibly black eyes. Strong, supple shoulders and strength in every movement. Worst of all, my little parasite had a mission, one he didn’t seem eager to relinquish… Me.
Johnny Carelli came with my uncle’s job. He was the legacy of the man Uncle Patrick considered a dear friend, and I had stupidly been duped by his smile and charm.
As a naïve kid, I’d fancied myself in love with him. Back then, I’d convinced myself I’d never feel that way about anyone else in the world, and then, not long after he’d wrecked me, I did.
Over a decade later and I was still seeing shades of that bastard everywhere I looked.
“Your uncle called,” Indra said, slipping into my office with her arms weighed down with a stack of bright-green T-shirts. She laid the bundle on the corner of my desk before she flopped into the chair next to the door. “For the third time. What gives?”
“He found out Johnny talked to me at the funeral.”
Indra sat up, her dark eyebrows curling up her forehead until they disappeared behind the bangs that fell into her black eyes. “The Johnny? Not the one who…”
“The same one,” I said, waving a hand to silence her before she started asking for details. Indra always wanted details. “And before you start, he was just trying to mess with my head. He owns this building.”
She opened her mouth, her eyes widening further, but she didn’t ask whatever question bubbled on the tip of her tongue.
I leaned on my elbows, slumping against the desk. “He was teasing me like he always does. He’s working an angle. He’s always got an angle. When I find out what it is, I’ll tell him no, maybe smack him across the face again like I did a few weeks back. And then he’ll get bored and be off harassing some other poor woman.”
“But, Sammy…” Indra had the same look on her face she got when she was working a theory. Those never led me anywhere good. That look, in fact, frequently led to tequila nights at some karaoke bar in Chinatown with Indra screaming Alanis Morrisette at the top of her lungs and ended with me holding back her thick hair while she puked in a toilet. “What if he’s genuinely sorry about you and all that…stuff.” I cocked an eyebrow at her, not bothering to lower it until she made that ridiculous grin leave her mouth. “I’m just saying. People change.”
“People can change,” I told her, picking up a few of the T-shirts as a distraction. “But Johnny Carelli is not ‘people.’”
She fiddled with the collar of her striped button-up as she watched me closely, her attention sharp and penetrating. She was always looking me over, watching for slips and cracks in the veneer she swore I wore. But there was nothing around me except for the tightly constructed wall time and discipline had created. Johnny had begun to lay the first bricks. I finished the rest the longer the hurt he left inside me grew. My defense was solid by now. Nothing would crack it.
“So, if he’s not people, then what is he?” she asked, still watching me.
“Proof that I’m not perfect.”
“That’s not proof. Besides, I don’t believe that for a second.” Indra stood, stretching her arms over her head before she turned to leave. A small sliver of brown skin peeked between her untucked shirt and her fitted designer jeans she likely picked up at a consignment shop. “Well, Miss Not-So-Perfect, call your uncle. I’m tired of taking his messages. He already thinks I’m corrupting you with my bad Indian juju.”
“He does not.”
“Sammy, he sends me a book of novenas and rosary beads every year for Christmas.”
“He sends everyone the same gift,” I said, folding the shirts into a small pile that I stuffed on top of my filing cabinet. “He’s just being polite.”
“Every year for six years, even though he knows I’m a Hindu and don’t celebrate Christmas?”
“He’s senile?” I tried, laughing when Indra rolled her eyes.
“He’s petty,” she shot back.
“That,” I told her, not holding back a laugh, “I can’t deny…”
We both toward the crashing sound that came from the hallway outside of my office. There was the twist of metal and a booming rattle, followed immediately by the thunder of
running feet and the screaming voices of our kids. Indra and I darted from my office and made it to the activity room just as the double doors flew open and students from both of the afternoon summer classes descended. Thirty or forty preteens ran straight for us, screaming about the falling ductwork crashing to the floor.
“Calm down,” I tried as a few of the volunteers organized the kids into groups.
Indra followed me into the large activity room, both of us stopping short. My stomach dropped when I spotted the panels from the ceiling lying on the floor, along with several feet of ductwork. “Shit,” I whispered, wondering how the hell this had happened. I pulled out my cell, thumbing through the contacts until I found the contact for Mike, the super, but I stopped scrolling when I heard Indra’s small laugh at my left. “What?”
“Ten minutes ago, you said Johnny owns the building.”
“Yeah? And?”
“And…Mike told you two weeks ago he’d be on a cruise for most of June. It’s on your calendar.” She grabbed my phone, scrolling herself, but she didn’t seem to find the number she looked for.
“He’s not in there.”
“Well, you need to find his number, boss.” Indra looked over the damage in disbelief. “Because this is one time you might have to take advantage of whatever angle that man is working.”
3
Johnny
Everything about Sammy told me she wasn’t here to impress me. From the way she curled her arms tight to her body as she waited inside my office, her chin lifted, still wearing her sunglasses, to the casual jeans and black spaghetti-strap shirt she wore. But even that, she managed to make look classy.
I stood observing her just outside my office, watching Sammy stare out of the large window next to my desk. I needed a second to get my head together. It was a surprise that she showed. I never expected her to. But there she was, stepping out of the hot June temperatures in jeans, a thin black shirt, black heels, and that devastating face like she was ready for the fucking runway and not some run-down community center that needed a complete overhaul.
Nailed Down: The Complete Series Page 53
