by Renard, Loki
Mark was the one on the outside. And that was why Bobby could trust him, and why Angelo let him help in sensitive matters like these. He wasn’t a threat, because he didn’t belong. He wasn’t a criminal. He was an ex-FBI agent fallen from grace, taking refuge in the criminal world.
“He doesn’t hate you.”
“Then why did he do that?”
“I don’t know,” Mark said, scooping some of the warm water up from the bath and letting it run over the back of Bobby’s thick dark hair, over his shoulders and his back.
He really didn’t know. Angelo was an enigma at the best of times. He could be cold, cruel, even vicious. But he was never sadistic for the simple sake of it. There was meaning in this somewhere, but Angelo obviously didn’t feel inclined to share what the reason was.
“Okay, you can get out of here,” Bobby suddenly snapped.
He was humiliated, just as Angelo intended for him to be. Mark felt for him, even though he was being short and rude.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’m sure I’m okay. I was just cold. Jesus.” Bobby was already acting as if he’d never shed a tear at all. The hurt had been locked away. The pain was festering behind a facade that would only break when Bobby found something or someone to unleash it on. Odds were, it would be Mark who inevitably ended up taking the pain, because Bobby was smart enough not to take Angelo on directly.
“Uh huh, okay.”
“Stop looking at me, what are you, gay?”
“We’re all gay, brat,” Mark snorted, cuffing Bobby’s head gently.
Bobby smirked. “You know what I mean.”
“You’re not supposed to use that word that way anymore,” Mark said with a small grin.
“I’ve sucked enough dick to use the word any way I want,” Bobby grumbled, sinking down further in the bath. “Tell Angelo he’s a fucking asshole.”
“Oh don’t worry, I will.”
“But don’t tell him I said it.”
“I won’t,” Mark snorted.
It was a strange position he found himself in with Bobby. Part lover, part big brother, part disciplinarian. Bobby and Angelo had been together for longer, but Bobby seemed to find his way to the bottom of the food chain regardless. A combination of being younger than the rest of them, more volatile, and more susceptible to dominance. Bobby had potential, a dark, dangerous potential which Angelo was slowly taming into something terrifying.
Mark resolved to hang on to the notion that Angelo had lost control when he put Bobby outside stark naked. If he hadn’t, he was even sicker than Mark supposed.
“Go on, get out,” Bobby splashed.
“I’m going,” Mark said, getting up. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“I need you to stop being so annoying,” Bobby said. “And get the fuck out of here.”
Swallowing down any urge to take Bobby’s attitude back out on him, Mark decided to put the pain where it should be: on Angelo.
* * *
Angelo hadn’t stirred from his office, where he was still shuffling paper which Mark was sure didn’t really need to be shuffled. He was waiting, like he always knew how to wait, for the conflict he’d probably seen coming hours ago. It was very, very difficult to surprise Angelo Vitali. The man’s mind was like a dark chess machine, always a dozen moves ahead. His intellect was the most frightening thing about him, paired with what seemed to be a total lack of conscience and feeling.
“So, you’re an asshole.”
Dark eyes narrowed in his direction. Angelo didn’t speak though. He stayed quiet, calm. Waiting for Mark to make the next move, and the one after that. Waiting for him to catch up on a board so unevenly stacked there was no way he could win.
“Care to elaborate?” The question was purred after Mark let his opening statement stand.
“You could have seriously hurt him today.”
“I could seriously hurt him any day,” Angelo replied casually. It was a deliberate missing of Mark’s point, but it made another.
“You know what? I don’t know what the hell is going on with you, but you can quit taking it out on Bobby,” Mark declared. “I’m not going to let this go on.”
“Is that right, boy?”
“I’m not a boy, Angelo. I’m a man. And I’m more than capable of kicking your ass.”
Angelo’s brows lifted. “Well now that’s an interesting claim.”
“I’m ten years younger than you, and I served in the military,” Mark said. “We both know I can take you if I want to. And you know damn well that Bobby and I together can do what we like with you.”
Angelo’s lips quirked. “You’re threatening me with mutiny, boy?”
“I’m saying I don’t like seeing Bobby sad when he doesn’t deserve to be. I’m saying whatever the hell he did, he didn’t deserve to be put out in the snow.”
“How do you know that, Mark? How do you know what I did wasn’t the most merciful thing I’ve ever done to him?” Angelo suddenly stood tall, his dark eyes aflame with passion. “You know nothing, boy. You are a whelp to me. Do not come to me and argue again, unless you want to share Bobby’s punishment.”
Mark tilted his head from side to side, stretching his neck. “Are we going to do this, Angelo?”
“Do what?” Angelo laughed. “You propose to attack me?”
“That’s exactly what I propose.”
Mark darted forward, reaching for Angelo’s jacket. The idea was to grab him, tie him up in a submission hold and make the leader of the Vitali clan realize that he was not entirely untouchable.
The minute Mark touched Angelo, he realized he’d made a mistake. Angelo didn’t just move. He flowed like a beast, agile and dangerous. He wasn’t old. He was mature. He was more dangerous than any young man ever could be and Mark cursed inwardly, because he had known that before they started and yet he’d made the mistake anyway.
He didn’t give up the fight. He knew how to roll and he knew how to win. Winning against Angelo might be more dangerous than losing to him, but Mark wasn’t going to go down easy. In the end, it didn’t matter. Angelo’s graying stubble and temples belied the vicious power which he was still very much capable of generating. His technique was flawless, arm bar, leg lock, over and out. Twenty seconds and Mark was done.
“That was a mistake, boy,” Angelo growled, pinning Mark in a submission hold, his arm tight around Mark’s wind pipe, his voice gritting in Mark’s ear. “Do I need to choke you out? Or are you going to make this up to me on your knees?”
“Fuck off, Angelo,” Mark growled, just before the world went black.
Angelo
Angelo sighed to himself as he let Mark’s temporarily insensate body slide to the ground. He’d be up in a matter of seconds, which meant Angelo had a moment or two of peace.
He brushed his fingers lightly through Mark’s gold hair. “I love you,” he murmured so softly it was almost impossible to hear. “You’ll never know how much I do.”
The boys were rebellious. After today, Bobby would probably regress, turn vicious and misbehaved again. There would be more aggression. More acting out.
Angelo wasn’t so sure about Mark. Mark had always been something of an unknown property. A good man in a very bad world, a man being forced to survive with instincts which did not come naturally to him. There would be some consequence though, there always was.
They would hate him. They would think him cruel. They might even think him crazy. But they would obey him. They would bow to him. Because it was necessary. Because control, at all costs, was the only way to keep anyone safe. The only way to survive.
Crouched next to his brave, unconscious lover, Angelo’s mind slid back through the years to when he had first learned that brutal lesson for himself.
3
1982
Angleo
Twenty five years old. King of the fucking world - or lower Brooklyn, at least. Angelo Vitali walked down the street with the natural masculine swagger of a you
ng man coming into his prime.
He drew appreciative gazes from women and men alike. Deep dark eyes, thick brows groomed to perfection, a hard jaw and cheek and a head of thick dark hair. Built broad shouldered and powerful hipped, the leather jacket and black jeans terminated in leather boots.
It’s the eye of the tiger, it’s the thrill of the fight…
Music from a boom box held by a bunch of suitably awed teenagers provided a suitable soundtrack to Angelo’s walk. It was good to make sure the streets were the way he’d left them. Running a few blocks wasn’t exactly the big time, but it was already starting to bring in some decent cash, and more than a few guys were starting to show interest in his operation.
For the first time in his life, Angelo was starting to feel established. Respected. Things were finally going his way. Life was good.
“Fucking faggot.”
Angelo swung around to find four men coming up behind him. They were exceptionally, unpleasantly familiar. Short, squat, square shouldered like a pack of angry bulls. The Gravini boys had hated him since grade school. This was a vendetta which had been brewing since Mrs Olson’s class, still brewing because these guys had mentally never left that classroom with its bright colors and alphabet themed walls.
“Fuck off, Mario.”
The young man bristled. His name was not Mario, obviously. It was Marco Gravini. Old man Gravini’s oldest boy. Angelo called him Mario because Marco bore significant resemblance to a certain famous Italian plumber. Short, round, and full cheeked. It was a childish retort, but it fit their abuse.
“You’re going to regret that, fag.”
Four on one. Not good odds. Suddenly the street was deserted. Even the sun had going into hiding behind a cloud. Danger hung in the air. Something was different. Angelo was used to being threatened, but there was more vehemence in Mario’s voice than usual. What were they up to? Angelo narrowed his eyes a fraction, flicked the ash from his cigarette and waited.
“You need to get outta town,” Marco hissed. “Yesterday. We know what you’ve been doing. We know who you’ve been butt fucking. You fucking…”
Angelo turned away. There was no point listening to these threats. They were the same slurs he’d been hearing for years, long before he’d actually become sexually active. Long before he’d known what any of them meant.
Being gay was considered a weakness. Perception being reality, it was as real as anything could be. It was a weakness he’d countered in every way by becoming stronger, and more ruthless than any of the other guys he knew. By the time high school had come and gone, he had a reputation as a brawler. After that, it didn’t matter.
Except now, apparently, it did again.
Turning his back was a ballsy move. If Marco wanted to attack him, he’d just made it easy. But doing it sent a message of pure disdain. Showed that Angelo didn’t give a damn about what they said.
There was tension in his shoulders as he walked, thoroughly expecting to feel something hit him hard.
Nothing happened.
4
“Hey, handsome,” Antonio smiled as Angelo entered the apartment.
The smile returned to his face as Angelo looked down at the love of his life. His messy, disheveled boyfriend who had, as usual, not done a single thing since Angelo last saw him. Sometimes it was more like having a cat than a lover.
He wasn’t dressed. He hadn’t even gotten up out of bed. He was lying there with a bowl of candy cereal, one of many bad dietary decisions which hadn’t yet started to cover his abs with fat.
Antonio Carelli was eighteen years old, maybe a little too young for Angelo, but Angelo took care of him. Made sure Antonio had everything he needed. The young man’s parents had kicked him onto the streets and Angelo had picked him up, put him together.
Antonio had been pretty into glue and alcohol in the beginning, but Angelo had broken him of that. Now they lived in a pretty decent apartment, had their own space. Antonio was thinking of going to veterinary college. Things were good. After an adolescence and youth of chaos, Angelo was starting to feel as though the world might not be a pure realm of hell.
Brushing off the unpleasantness with Marco, he bent down and pressed a fond kiss to Antonio’s lips. The kiss deepened into something more passionate. Antonio’s innocence was precious, but it was fading by the day as Angelo led him into ever more intense sexual exploration. The younger man was eager, and try as he might to not take advantage, Antonio practically insisted on it.
“What have you been doing all day?” Angelo broke the kiss and lifted a brow at Antonio.
The young man sat up and ran a hand through his bed tussled dark hair. God, he was gorgeous. Big brown eyes, the soulful, sensitive kind, hair that needed a cut but he refused to get one. One piercing in his nose and another in his ear. A slim body, not powerful, but still muscled in the way fit young men with little in the way of body fat are.
“I’ve just been thinking.”
“Thinking, huh? What about?”
“You,” Antonio smirked. “And me, and what we’re going to do together.”
“And what is that?”
Angelo thoroughly expected a coarse description of some unspeakable act.
“We’re going to move upstate and open a bed and breakfast.”
Angelo let out a laugh, before seeing how Antonio’s face fell.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I forget you have plans to be a gangster.”
“Oh hush,” Angelo waved Antonio’s sulking away. “I’m working. Building a base. Getting us enough to live on.”
“Doing fucked up shit with fucked up people.”
“The world is a fucked up place, Tony. Haven’t you heard the news? The earth is cooling. In a few hundred years, we’re all going to be icicles. I’m going to be a rich one.”
Tony picked up a pillow and threw it at Angelo. “You’re a cynical fuck.”
“I might be cynical,” Angelo laughed, catching the pillow. “But you’re my fuck. Come here.”
He pulled Antonio into his arms and they made the kind of free love which only the young can have, the love shared between two hearts as yet unfettered with the cares of the world, or the weight of real responsibility. Antonio was soft and compliant, his erection stiffening as Angelo covered his body. Angelo was so much larger, more muscular, more powerful. There was something delicate about Antonio. Something that cried out for protection - and desecration.
There were advantages to having a lazy boyfriend who never got dressed or got out of bed, for that matter. A drawer full of condoms and lube at hand was also convenient. Angelo stripped off his jacket and shirt, opened his pants and pushed them down just enough to let his cock spring free. Another ripped condom wrapper joined the collection forming like fall leaves next to the bed.
Antonio let out the most perfect sigh as Angelo parted his hot cheeks and found that dark little hole which belonged to nobody in the world besides him. They’d been together for six months now, long enough for that hole to become accustomed to him, to relax for him while still staying so deliciously, youthfully tight.
Being inside Antonio was hot and perfect. Angelo wrapped the younger man in his arms and surged inside him over and over again, his cock finding that perfect place where they were both so satisfied it felt as though the world itself was melting around them.
His hunger for Antonio was like no other. It was as if the boy called to every part of him; his lustful side, his nurturing side, even the darker side he battled against daily.
Antonio’s hips rose against him, urging him deeper. The boy was starving for affection, and for cock. The sounds he made were ones of pure unrelenting pleasure, an almost constant moaning growl emitting from his throat. Angelo’s hands slid from their embrace, one finding the stiff rod of Antonio’s dick, the other closing lightly around the front of his neck, holding him in a possessive, sexual grip which became the catalyst for the final pounding, writhing crescendo of their love.
As much as Angel
o wanted to last longer, the two of them together were pure fire and in minutes twin geysers of sperm marked the climax of their tryst. Angelo’s found the barrier of the condom. Antonio’s made the bed sheets that little bit more sticky and crusty.
“Fuck yeah,” Antonio breathed.
“Good boy,” Angelo rumbled in return, making sure the condom didn’t slide off inside his lover as he withdrew, put a knot in it and tossed it into the trash across the room.
Afterwards, they sat in bed, finished off the last of the pizza Angelo had ordered the night before. It was cold, but that was fine. The food didn’t need to be good. The apartment didn’t need to be tidy. He had his boy, and that was all that mattered.
At some point they must have fallen asleep together. Angelo started awake, finding the room dark aside from the television flashing bright images across their bed.
“Whaddareyoudoing?” Antonio mumbled the question as Angelo started to stir.
“I gotta go,” he said. “I’ll be late.”
“You’re going out again?” Antonio’s sweet features fell into a very sulky pout as Angelo got up.
“I have to,” Angelo said, dropping a kiss on the top of his head. “I won’t be too late. It’s just a pick up and a drop off. I should be back by two or three in the morning at the latest.”
Antonio sat up, glowering. “I’m hungry.”
“Order pizza.”
“I want proper food. I want to go out with you. Have dinner. Let’s go to the village.”
It was like he didn’t understand Angelo’s work, except of course he did. He was trying to distract him with alternative options, but there could be no distraction from tonight’s work.
“I’ll take you out to dinner tomorrow night,” Angelo promised.
“No, you won’t,” Antonio sulked. “You always say you will, but then you’re always busy.”
Angelo leaned down, cupped Antonio’s chin and looked dead into that sweet pout of his. “Tomorrow. I promise.”
