by Sienna Mynx
“Hi, yes. I ah...”
“I know why you’re here. Mirabella told me. She thinks I need a shrink.”
“Well, she suggested I help manage the grief for the family and the children.”
Dominic walked into the parlor and took a seat. Sera felt compelled to do so as well. Dominic Esposito Battaglia was a very strikingly handsome man. His dark brown curly hair was tapered low to his long sideburns, and he had eyes that glistened clear like warm honey. He needed a shave, but she wouldn’t deny the appeal of the scruff to his jaw and chin.
“The family is in crisis. Mirabella wants to help manage that crisis. But what she doesn’t need to manage is me. Thank you for coming. We’re done.”
“Signor Battaglia, I’ve been invited to stay.”
“Stay where?”
“Here, in Melanzana.”
“You’ve moved in?”
“For the moment. She’s placed me upstairs with the rest of the medical staff.”
“What the hell is going on with her?” Dominic said through clenched teeth.
“Does it bother you that much that I am here?”
“I’m done with this!” Dominic said.
Sera got to her feet. “Wait! Please.”
“I’m a busy man.”
“We can’t do this. You avoiding me, and me chasing you to no end. Why not have a conversation with me? One? And we can go from there.”
“I have nothing to discuss.”
“How do you know if we haven’t started talking?” she smiled.
“We’re talking now.”
“No, we’re debating now. Talking is ‘hello my name is Sera, what’s your name’?”
Dominic frowned. “What are you really after?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t even know why I agreed to do this. It’s something about this family. About all of you. Mirabella is a fascinating woman, as is her husband. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious.”
“So this is you digging into my family business?”
“This is me trying to understand how a beautiful, rich, American woman could marry a man like Giovanni, suffer a fake death, and deadly poisoning to become the Donna of a southern Italian criminal organization. Why she would invite me into her home, and reject any conversation about therapy if it didn’t involve you. I have to be able to help you, or I wouldn’t be here.”
Dominic scratched his brow.
“How about we go for a drive?” she asked.
“To where?” he frowned.
“You tell me. I hear Sorrento is one of the most beautiful places on earth. And it looks like you were leaving. Indulge me one meeting. If it doesn’t work I’ll tell her. My choice. But, at least give me the opportunity.”
Dominic looked her over. Sera blushed at the way his critical stare made her feel. “A drive? I’ve always wanted to see Sorrento.”
“Let’s go.”
Sera picked up her purse and followed him out.
“Donna, can I have a word?”
“Nico? Yes, come in,” she said. She adjusted the sheets around Giovanni.
“The boss looks well.”
“He looks like he has some color to his cheeks. Doesn’t he?”
Nico stepped over to the bed. He stared down at his boss. “Sì, Donna, he’s getting stronger.”
She beamed with a prideful smile. Nico observed her as she fussed with Giovanni’s pillow. He knew how devoted she was to him. These past few weeks had taken the biggest toll on her.
“What is it, Nico?” she asked as if sensing the question.
“It’s Marietta.”
“What about her?” Mirabella went to the windows and opened up the shutters.
“She’s pretty upset. The boys said you wanted her taken to villa Rosso? By force?”
“And?”
“I... well she’s pregnant. In the car, she told me and Cecilia that the reason she came back is because the baby is at risk.”
“We have doctors here. I’ll send one to check on her.” Mirabella walked over to the chair next to the bed and sat down. She had a stack of mail and envelopes. She started going through them as if Nico wasn’t before her. It made him uncomfortable.
“Something else troubling you?”
“Lorenzo did this to the boss. He’s the one responsible. And I swear on my life me and the brothers will make him pay. But Marietta... she’s your sister. She needs you.”
Mirabella’s gaze slowly lifted from the opened letter she read, and up to the enforcer. In all the years he’s known her, he’s never seen such a chilling expression on her face. He wasn’t sure if he was standing before the right woman.
“Are you questioning my decisions for this family?”
“No, Donna.”
“Good. Then I’ll forget you came to my husband’s bedside and asked me to spare the woman who could be responsible for putting him here. Lorenzo and Marietta are the same. Both guilty. Both convicted. Both worthy of as much compassion as they’ve shown Giovanni. Do you understand me?”
“Sì, Donna.”
“Then that will be all, Nico.”
“Grazie, Donna.” Nico said and left. He closed the door gently. He paused on the other side of the door, not sure what had transpired between him and Mirabella. He was certain that her change of heart when it came to her sister, would also mean a change for them all. He needed to speak to Carlo. He needed to find out what really happened to Giovanni.
***
Mirabella found a plain envelope with her name on it. There was no return address. She turned it over and opened the seal. Inside were several photographs. There was a letter addressed to her. She didn’t open it. She couldn’t. She was transfixed on the images.
The first was of Giovanni getting off his motorcycle. Even with the track suit and cap pulled down on his head, she knew him. The other image was of a woman at a door. She smoked a cigarette. The photographer had a zoom lens. It made her face clear. Mirabella recognized the woman.
The next image was of Giovanni entering the home.
Another showed him leaving her home at daylight. The woman stepped outside to hug him. He kissed her cheek and that kiss landed so close to the woman’s lips she wasn’t sure if it made the target. Giovanni then left on the motorcycle he arrived on. Mirabella’s eyes began to well with tears. She held the image of her husband kissing another woman’s cheek so tightly it shook in her hand. She blinked and the tears stopped. She picked up the letter.
Have dinner with me.
It’s time I explained to you who your husband really is.
A woman like you deserves to know.
Don Tacchini
Mirabella glanced to Giovanni.
He lay still on the bed. Immobile. All of her anger began to melt away from her heart. She felt a desperation to her loneliness that she hadn’t felt since the death of her Me-Ma. The world had changed once again. Everything had changed. Once again. And the love she thought she shared with Giovanni could not have truly existed. Not if he turned to another woman’s bed when she needed him the most.
She got to her feet and rushed to the bathroom. The pictures spilled across the floor She made it inside in time to vomit her breakfast. She dropped to her knees and dry heaved up all of her stomach’s contents. She didn’t weep. She was no longer the woman who cried. She sat there and stared at his bed from the bathroom floor.
When did she lose him?
Was it when she was kidnapped, or before?
Was it when she was so broken she chased him from her bed?
When?
She gripped the toilet and vomited some more. Her eyes were weepy, her nose dripped snot, and she groaned with the pain in her chest now strangling her heart. For the first time in all of her marriage, she hated him. She hated him and she hated their life. She hated what he left behind. A woman filled with anger.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Demons and Angels
The Campania
Adara smiled. She loved it when
he stepped in from behind her. The way his broad chest, and strong-man arms dwarfed her. The complete rapture of security she felt as he squeezed her to his body. That’s why, since they made love, she’s walked around in panties and a cut off t-shirt.
“Smells good,” he said and licked her neck.
“I’m almost done,” she sighed when he squeezed her breast.
“Hurry.” He eased his hand down from her breast and into her panties. He cupped her sex and squeezed it like a person would do a grapefruit to see if it’s ripe. She giggled. Carlo was a supreme lover. Adara never had a man pay such attention to her body, or cater to her needs.
The phone rang. Carlo groaned and walked away. He answered with an erection poking through his shorts. She glanced over at it and smiled.
“What?” he said to the caller.
His smile dimmed as he listened to the other person on the line. “Yeah. I’m here. Come on by. Does it have to be today? Fuck. What time? Okay. I’ll be there.”
Adara’s hand froze mid stir of the sauce. She glanced over to Carlo. He hung up the phone and walked out of the kitchen. She turned off the pot and checked the bread in the oven. She turned that off too. Drying her hands, she went after him.
He sat on the sofa with the remote. The television channels flipped.
“Who was that on the phone?”
“None of your business,” he grumbled. His mood had soured.
“Carlo? Are you leaving?”
“Does it look like I’m leaving?” he snapped.
“What is wrong with you?” she asked. She walked over and sat next to him. “Hey? What is it?”
He pulled her over to straddle his lap. “I have to go back into work.”
“Why so soon?”
“Nico called. He needs to see me. And he wants me back in. It’s done.”
“You aren’t ready.”
“I’m as ready as I can be. I’ll handle it. Will you do me a favor?” He bit her nipple through her shirt and she winced.
“What now?” she asked and smacked his face. Carlo grinned. She kissed the jaw she hit with her palm. “Tell me, what do you need?”
“Shave my head. I might as well go bald since I got this nasty scar to deal with.”
Adara turned his face by a firm grip of his chin. One quarter of his hair was shaved off. His bandaged area where he took the hit on the head concealed the scar. Still it did make him look like a science experiment gone wrong.
“If I do this, what will you do for me?” she asked.
He gave her a sly smile. He looked down at her breasts. “I’ll shave your pussy.”
“That’s for you,” she chuckled. And pulled her shirt up over her head. She shook her shoulders and made her breasts jiggle for him. He chuckled and buried his face between the soft mounds, licking the skin. Adara stroked his head, prepared to have sex with him, or lay beneath him while he ravished her body. Either way, she was happier than she’d been in years. Not just because of the intimacy. She’d found a comfort and security with Carlo, that she’d missed since her family was slaughtered. He reminded her of her uncles, the men that walked tall with her father and were fearless.
Carlo grabbed her by the hips and squeezed. She chuckled. Then his hands slipped under each buttock. With the strength of a weight lifter, he heaved her up. She gasped in fright as her knees were deposited on the top of the sofa, and her hands went to the wall. In this position, he was face to face with her sex. The anticipation of what would come next had her giggling. His tongue did all the work. He swirled it to move the fabric aside and lick at the slit.
“Carlo! I don’t want to hurt you!” She tried to open her knees wider so she didn’t bump the wounded side of his head with her inner thigh. But in doing so, he was able to mouth her pussy fully. She cried out as pleasure ripped through her, stronger than a lightening bolt.
“Carlo! Carlo! Carlo!” she beat her forehead against the wall.
He did it. How, she didn’t know. But someone how he coaxed her clit past the seat of her panties and into his mouth. He sucked and gave it soft lashes until she was biting down on her bottom lip, and pumping her pussy against his face. The creamy delight of her release climaxed unexpectedly. She clawed at the wall and tried hard to not cause him too much stress, or he could possibly drop her.
And then the licks turned to swirls of pleasure, and she lost control. She worked her hips until every ounce was experienced to her satisfaction.
With masterful expertise, he brought her back down upon his lap. Somehow his dick was freed. She didn’t know when. Carlo positioned himself at her opening. She eased down his length, and cried out again with ecstasy. She grabbed his face and kissed him, deep tonguing him and tasting her essence on his lips, tongue and teeth. He squeezed her ass and forced her to work her hips back and forth. When pleasure became too much, she’d freeze. But he knew how to squeeze and lift her to keep her riding him the way he preferred. Adara came apart several times, as orgasmic waves broke down all her defenses. In the end, her face was buried against the side of his neck, and her body was rigid and shuddering as he exploded inside of her. She clung to him long after it was over. She never wanted to let go.
Carlo chuckled. He forced her to let go of her tight embrace, and cupped her face. “You okay?” he asked her.
“I think so,” she said after a few soft pants.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said and locked lips with her again. “I could stay with you all day, all night.” He said between deep kisses.
“Then stay. Don’t go, you aren’t ready,” she panted and turned her mouth away.
He chuckled. “I think we just proved I’m back to my old self.”
“Then stay for me. I... I’m afraid for you.”
“Afraid?”
“I mean, I worry. I just don’t want you to get hurt again.”
“Listen to me, cara, I was hurt once. Only once. It is me that does the hurting. Capisce?”
She nodded.
“I want to do it again,” he brought her face to his. And to her shock she could feel his member getting harder and longer. It wasn’t humanly possible. But when Carlo flipped her on the sofa and pinned her there as he drove a renewed erection into her quaking core, she realized one thing to be true. With Carlo, anything was possible.
Lorenzo wheeled the iron chair he was confined to past several open doors, past empty parlor rooms, and past an indoor courtyard that separated one part of the estate from the other. As he did, he felt a shadow—he was being followed and watched. It was not the eyes tracking him from the cameras in Mancini’s mansion. This was a person. A young man no more than fifteen. He’d seen him before. Entering rooms to do some menial task. Looking his way when he thought Lorenzo was sleep or not aware.
The kid had a purpose. And it didn’t take him long to remember who he was. Months ago Armando had told him about a surviving Calderone kid he took in. He kept him around as an errand boy and treated him like a pet. Considering Lorenzo’s hatred of the Calderones he had no use for the little shadow. He had his own purpose today. Lorenzo circled back to a hall he left unexplored. It had to be where Armando could be found. He wheeled his chair to a closed door made of heavy wood with the carvings of a lion to the front, above the family seal. He smirked. When he took over Mancini, this door would be one of the first things to go. He tapped it with his fingers. Lorenzo cast his gaze left. The young man following him pretended to be watering a plant at the far end of the hall.
“What?” Armando spoke from beyond the door.
“We need to talk,” Lorenzo said.
“Make an appointment.”
Lorenzo turned the knob and pushed the door open rather hard, so it could swing inward, and then he rolled inside. It proved to be a mistake. Armando was in the middle of a meeting. Two men he didn’t know were seated before him. The others in the room sprung into action, with one man leveling a gun at him.
Armando stared at Lorenzo.
“We need to speak.�
�
“Scusi, gentlemen,” Armando said and stood. He walked around the desk. The man with the gun in Lorenzo’s face stepped back. But he kept the gun trained on him.
“You’ve tested my patience. There is no meeting between you and I unless I want it. Now go to your room like a good little boy, and I won’t take away your dinner.”
The other men in the room smirked. He thought he heard one of them snicker. Enraged, Lorenzo clenched both fists and resisted every fiber in his sinew that wanted him to launch an attack. Instead he wheeled back from Armando and turned to the door. It wasn’t opened for him. It had been closed once he entered. Since the door swung inward it was difficult for him to pull it forward in the chair.
After the men watched him struggle for an uncomfortable few minutes, he heard Armando speak. “Get the fucking weakling out of my office! Now!”
A man shoved Lorenzo’s chair aside. He bumped the other door with his knees. It hurt a bit, but Lorenzo masked his discomfort and embarrassment. The door was opened for him. He wheeled his chair back and then forward, and heard the door slam behind him as he left.
If there was one thing he’d see done before all of this came to an end, it was Armando’s complete annihilation. He just had to keep his cool a little longer. As he went down the long hall to return to the room he was confined to, he had to once again pass through the open courtyard. It was there he caught a passing glimpse of Catalina. He’d know his piccoletta anywhere. She rushed by in a blur, to what he thought might be the kitchens.
Lorenzo went in pursuit. He needed to make peace with her. With Marietta gone and dealing with their plan, he needed leverage in the Mancini household. As much as it sickened him to think of Armando fucking with his little cousin, it could be used for his advantage.
When Lorenzo went inside the kitchen, he found a disheveled Catalina at the sink. Her hair a tangled mess of knots. Her sheer white robe, over her white nightgown, looked wrinkled and worn over. He wheeled in closer. The stains looked like blood.
