“Yeah, congratulations,” Rock says behind me, but his cheer sounds forced. Like he’s trying to congratulate me and not throw up at the same time. Poor Richard—he never has managed to live up to the nickname Uncle Tonio pinned on him before getting sent west. He pulls out a Marlboro red, and I suspect it’s got more to do with covering his shaking hands than his pack-a-day habit.
Mikey’s still screaming behind the tape. His mouth can’t form words, but I can tell he’s begging for his life from his eyes alone.
“Mikey Deltano, son of Greggi Deltano, father of…”
I pause, not remembering the name of the son that came along about six months after he called it quits with that high school chick he was dating for a while—probably because he knocked her up.
“Frances,” Rock supplies. “But I don’t think Deltano gave him his last name.”
Good. Less chance his kid will come after me, I decide before finishing with, “Frances. This is for what your father did to my father and me.”
Tears are streaming down Mikey’s face now. And the yells have become short and stunted. A bunch of “no’s” and “please don’ts” dumbed down to desperate, muted grunts by the duct tape.
Considering this level of pleading, maybe I should be feeling something other than ice cold intent right now.
But I don’t. I just hold out my palm.
And Stone hands me a gun. A Colt 1911 with a cold metal AAC Evolution suppressor attached. I jolt, recognizing the pistol’s custom ivory handle with a swirly-ass GD engraved into it.
“Is this…?”
Totally in his element, Stone lets loose with another uncustomary grin and nods.
Deltano’s gun. Stone’s given me back the gun I handed to him when I sent him to handle Deltano’s car and any other necessary clean-up duty in that woods in upstate New York. This is Deltano’s old gun, which means I’ll be using the same gun Deltano tried to kill Amber with on his son.
At the sight of his dad’s sidearm, Mikey sinks back on his heels. He’s ugly crying now, and I bet he’s swallowed the dime Stone stuck in his mouth before covering it with tape. We stuff our enemies’ mouths with one-hundred dollar bills, a ritual derived from the late 1800s when the Ferraro family first emigrated to this country. Back then a one-hundred dollar note was the reward we paid out as a bounty when an enemy was brought to us dead or alive. And we use the hundred now to remind both ourselves and our enemies who the Ferraros are, who the Ferraros have always been. But traitors don’t get nothing but a single dime, metallic and bitter under their tongue as they take their last breaths.
It ain’t a pretty scene. And I have a moment of pause, because the thing is, I’m serious about this new leaf I’ve turned over to be with Amber. I’m legit now, no longer on track to become the Ferraro family’s next don. I’m fully committed to Holt’s 8 to 5, no vice. And I plan to put in extra hours on top of that, earning like a regular motherfucker until I make it back to Manhattan, without my family’s money.
Making Amber happy. Keeping her safe. That’s my intention. My only intention in life.
Starting tomorrow.
But tonight, the old feelings surround like a familiar blanket. Tonight, that moment of doubt only lasts a few moments. I don’t forgive, and I don’t forget.
Or hesitate even a second longer. My arm raises, and I stick Deltano’s silencer between his youngest son’s eyes, then pull the trigger. Without another moment of thought.
Mikey’s head kicks back with the impact, and he slumps sideways in a dead instant.
That’s right about when Rock decides to stop faking like he actually has the stomach for wetwork. He loses his fast food dinner right there in the alley, and Stone ends up giving his twin a lecture about not leaving DNA all over the crime scene. But that sermon gets cut off real quick when Greggi Jr, the brother who didn’t want anything to do with his father’s criminal activities, wakes up with a groan.
Wish I could say I hesitated when this little bitch got to crying even worse than his younger brother who maybe knew all along what his father had done and what he planned to do next. But I didn’t. I pulled the trigger even faster the second time and then walked back out to the street with a light step to hail a cab, whistling, “The Best Is Yet to Come.”
“Ugh! You smell like cigarettes,” Amber says sleepily when I crawl into bed with her, still fully dressed in everything but my shoes. “And what happened to you staying at Zahir’s tonight?”
I don’t answer. Can’t answer. My dick is hard as steel and raging to be inside of her.
Technically Deltano Sr. was my first kill, but it happened so fast. A simple act of kill or let Amber be killed.
His sons were different. Premeditated. Cold and efficient. For me, it felt like the first time, and I was unprepared for the feeling that came after. Not relief and a need to get Amber home where she’d be safe like with Greggi, but coursing dark energy, that’s demanding release.
I take her mouth hard, swallowing any other questions she might have about my weak-ass bachelor party.
And bless my future wife’s heart. She must get it, because instead of trying to ask any more questions, she takes the kiss, and starts unbuckling my pants.
Normally, I’m knocking away her hands at this point, but this time I let her. I’ve got a lion roaring inside of me, and only a lioness can handle me tonight.
She springs me out of my boxers faster than I probably could have done it myself, but it’s still not fast enough. I can’t even allow her enough time to get out of her panties. I just yank them aside and thrust into her like a man crazed, fucking her hard and raw like an animal. Thank God Amber started popping a tiny pill after we came back from Victoire because if she weren't on birth control, we’d be making a baby we can’t afford tonight.
“Luca!” her hands snake under my shirt, mining for skin. Then she widens her legs, taking me even deeper as her hands grasp my sides.
It’s the night before our wedding. Technically, I was supposed to stay at Zahir’s hotel tonight, to not bring bad luck to our marriage by seeing the bride before the wedding. But tonight, I give zero fucks about luck or tradition or everything I’m giving up to be with her.
Fuck Zahir’s and Holt’s half-ass intervention. I have never been surer of anything in my life than I am of Amber. That night, I claim her like a beast, proving it to myself and her over and over again until she tells me I’ve got to leave her alone.
“I’m not going to make it through the reception if you don’t let me get some sleep,” she mumbles when I reach for her again.
I’m still hard for her, but I settle for pulling her warm body into my arms. “You got any idea how much I fucking love you, baby?” I ask her.
“As much as I love you?” she asks back, and I can hear the smile in her sleepy retort.
“More,” I assure her.
But instead of settling into sleep, she suddenly stiffens and asks, “Is that what tonight was about? Why you didn’t go to Zahir’s hotel like you planned? Because you’re trying to convince yourself to go through with this. That you really do love me enough to give up everything? Because if that’s the case—”
I stop her right there. “Baby, that ain’t the case.”
“I’m just saying I know a one-bedroom in Astoria with the blind girl isn’t exactly what you had planned.”
“Nope, it’s even better than what I had planned,” I answer, meaning it. “Didn’t know how puny my imagination was before I fell for you.”
She never laughs at my jokes. And technically this isn’t one. But she gives me a sleepy chuckle.
“You know what, Ambs?”
“What?” she asks, voice fading fast.
“I already know even if you don’t, you and I are going to be a very good year.”
Maybe she gets the Frank reference, maybe she doesn’t. Either way, I fall asleep with the certainty of those words humming warmly inside my chest.
15
I’ve Got The World
On A String
I’m right about it being a very good year. The next day we get married without a hitch. Naima, Zahir, and Holt show up to the courthouse at the appointed time. None of them are shamefaced or even apologetic, but they keep their fucking mouths shut about my marriage. No last-minute interventions. No call outs during the short ceremony in front of some judge, none of us have ever met before. Holt even manages a toast at the Benton Grand Manhattan reception.
Amber loves it. Not because it’s particularly moving—it’s not. It does, however, give her a touchstone for total insincerity. Holt’s wedding toast becomes her new version of sarcasm. Whenever she disagrees with me, she says, “Yes, you’re totally right.” Then raises her invisible glass to say in a near-perfect facsimile of Holt’s tight New England accent, “Luca is a good friend and Amber…seems like a nice woman. Congratulations to you both and good luck.”
The joke only makes sense to the two of us, and maybe that’s why we laugh so hard whenever she tells it, diffusing any argument before it has the chance to get lit.
Not that we argue that much. After we come back from our honeymoon—a four-day music festival in upstate New York, we settle into a routine of working long hours and lots of weekends. Both of us grind harder than anyone else we know to overcome our disadvantages. Her sightlessness and my last name.
But all the extra work starts paying off sooner than expected for Amber. Both Naima and the overburdened Legal Aid Society refer any emergency clients willing to pay her reasonable flat fee to her private practice. And the Legal Aid Society even lets her use one of their cubicles until she saves enough money to rent a small office space of her own, just a few blocks from our apartment.
As for me, I bust my ass at CalMart, and pass the bar myself by the following July—a whole 10 months after Amber, but hey I only discovered true motivation, like, a year ago, so not bad. And even though I don’t have the three years of experience CalMart wants for the job, I apply for an open Paralegal position the week I get my results.
I’m still hoping to move on to a company that isn’t CalMart one day. As boring as I imagined an 8 to 5 might be when I was shaking my head at all the other dudes in the BizLaw program, being a coordinator is even worse. Tedious as hell, and I’ve got no illusions about this paralegal gig being any better, even with the 20K raise.
But just a few weeks after she signs the lease on her office, Ambs starts saying stuff, like “No, we can’t afford it,” when I suggest doing normal shit, like eating out or just making a Starbucks run. She never complains about how little I make, despite my combined degrees. But, I can tell she’s worried about investing in her own private law practice when I’m barely clearing 50K.
She’s still wearing the suits she wore for stuff like mock trials and law clinics back at Columbia. And not to be funny, the suits were kind of raggedy when she first got them. Secondhand stuff, pulled off thrift store racks by Talia and Naima, and some of them are getting more than a little outdated.
I do the best I can. Place the worst ones to the back of the line, so that Amber’s best choice is always on deck, but I hate that she won’t just let me buy her a few new ones.
The old Luca wants to just buy her some new suits, like there. But new Luca’s too afraid she’ll throw a fit when she feels new suits where her old ones used to be, and demand I take them right back, because, wait for it…we can’t afford it.
I’ll tell ya, it ain’t a good feeling.
I’m her husband and supposed to be taking care of her now, but she freaks about money when I suggest a shopping trip. And maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. Hell, over the last year, working in a cubicle while both my best friends enjoy the benefits that come with rich scion status, I understand pride better than most.
But still, something catches in my throat when I walk into the apartment less than a month before our first anniversary and find Naima on the couch with Amber, doing what looks like a bunch of patchwork sewing on her best suit. She’s got a thread and needle, and three of her other suits are lying on the arm of the couch like they’ve called next.
“Hey Naima,” I say, carefully. “What’s what?”
“Hey, Jake,” she answers just as carefully. Then she grabs the suits and tells Ambs she’ll drop them off tomorrow at her office…seriously it’s no problem. Blah, blah, blah.
Before I can ask any questions, Naima mumbles something that only partially resembles her usual sunny good-bye to me, then she’s out the door.
And by the time, I turn around after letting her friend out, Amber’s already in our sliver of a galley kitchen.
“Pork chops okay for tonight?” she calls out. “They had some on special at the grocery store when Naima and I went, and I have to cook them today.”
I post up against the entrance with a sigh and try not to hate on all the laminate 90’s era blond wood going on in the apartment. Obviously, it doesn’t matter to Amber, and it was pretty much the best we could do, with my dad giving me only a few days to move out of the Upper East Side apartment and neither of us having a job at the time.
But Amber said no to upgrading to a better place when our lease came up for renewal a few months ago, and I couldn’t come up with a good counter argument about why we shouldn’t conserve money and stay here.
“You don’t have to go to the grocery store with Naima. Just send me a list,” I tell her, in lieu of complaining about the ugly-ass kitchen.
“You always spend too much,” she answers, dipping down into the fridge. It only takes her a millisecond of feeling around, before she finds the meat drawer and comes back up with the pork chops. “Remember that time you spent over 100 dollars for, like, two days’ worth of food?”
Yeah, I do remember…mainly because she brings it up every time I offer to go to the grocery store. “Oh my God, you’re the worst at living on a budget,” she had said with a laugh when I’d read the receipt back to her earlier in our marriage.
It’s been a very good year. It feels like my love for Amber doubles every day. I haven’t thought about another woman, much less regretted marrying this one. But some days, she makes me tired with this. Acting like I’m still a rich kid incapable of doing anything beyond washing dishes.
“If you need your suits patched up, I can take them with me when I go to the dry cleaner on Wednesday.”
“Naima’s got it, and she’ll do it for free,” Amber answers. She puts the pork chops on the patch of counter next to the stove, then plucks three different spices from the nearby rack hanging on a wall, which she places next to the stainless-steel S-shaped salt dispenser and the P-shaped pepper dispenser. I’m still not exactly sure how she cooks so easily without ever messing up or burning anything when I can barely make eggs for myself in the morning. But she has a system that works every time as long as I don’t do anything stupid, like touch any spices but the salt and pepper, and put things back exactly where I find them in the fridge.
“Are those HanoverFest tickets we got for next month refundable?” she suddenly asks.
I jolt, surprised by the subject change. “You want to cancel our wedding anniversary trip?”
“No, I’m just saying we could do something else for our anniversary. Like stay in all weekend and not spend over a thousand dollars to freeze our asses off in some tent. I mean, I liked the music, but it rained last year….”
My brow lowers, because fall in New York isn’t that cold, especially after this out-of-control summer we’ve been having this year. And besides, me keeping her warm in that tent while the rain was beating down on it is one of my favorite memories. Of all time. And until this moment, it didn’t occur to me that it wasn’t one of hers, too.
Amber turns on the right-side burner, only to curse and wave a hand over the flame. “What the…”
“Sorry,” I say, wincing when I realize that she probably wants the cast iron pan she usually keeps there. “I made the last of the eggs this morning,“ I said.
“In the cast iron pan?” she ask
s. “Why not the non-stick?”
This must be a rhetorical question because she doesn’t give me the chance to answer, before she’s complaining.
“Plus, you didn’t put eggs on the Alexa Shopping list. I could have gotten some more at the grocery store, not to mention, cleaned the pan before I got everything out.”
I grimace, feeling like a piece of shit because I know Amber doesn’t just want an orderly kitchen, she needs it to get anything done.
“Sorry,” I say again when she starts feeling along the counter for the pan I left for tonight because I’m the one who does the dishes. But usually, after we’re done eating since the kitchen’s not big enough for both of us to be in there at the same time.
“Hey, let’s just order takeout,” I say. “I’ve been craving Thai.”
“Yes, don’t just clean up after yourself like a normal fucking person,” she snaps back. “We should just throw money we don’t have at this dinner problem.”
I still, because for the first time, since we moved into this apartment together, this isn’t Holt toast sarcasm coming out of her mouth.
“Ambs…I’m sorry,” I say, feeling useless and lame. The complete opposite of the confident guy who pledged his forever troth to her in a courthouse wedding a little less than a year ago.
A few beats of silence and Amber brace her hands against the sink, before saying, “No…I’m sorry, baby…I had a weird day, and then Naima was already here when I got home, and I felt bad for keeping her waiting. I’m sorry I'm being so bitchy tonight. I think…I think I just need some time to myself. Do you mind? I love you. But could you just…”
She doesn’t finish that sentence, just asks the Alexa device Zahir sent me for my birthday, to play some Amon Amarth album, which I only know because she listened to that Swedish death metal band non-stop when she was studying for the bar last year.
I watch her back, tight underneath her short-sleeved blouse as she washes out the pan. It’s another dog of a New York summer, and our AC’s not even trying to act like it’s up to the job. I can see beads of sweat already pooling on the back of her neck as she handles the heavy cast iron, and it makes me curse out loud.
Ruthless Tycoons: The Complete Series (Ruthless Billionaires Book 3) Page 54
