by C. D. Reiss
The kiss never got soft and only ended when he jerked himself away.
“Talk to me,” I said in a breath.
“The thing I want most is the only thing between me and getting it. You are everything that will destroy me. I should go back to who I was. But you made me dream I could be free, when I’d forgotten I was in prison.”
“Is this about you being honest? Is it about me seeing Daniel? Antonio. If I hurt you, just tell me how. Let me make it right. Let me help you get out.”
He caressed my face with both palms with a tenderness that shouldn’t have been able to contain such intensity.
“Sweet olive blossoms,” he said. “That was God’s message to me.” He stepped away, and the space between us became a sigh. He held his hand. “The only way out is through.”
twenty.
antonio
wanted to kill her. I wanted to worship her. I wanted to fuck her. I wanted to fill her so deeply she broke from the pain, screaming my name.
There would be no end to the trouble. She would cause it then escalate it then make it impossible for me to change my life enough to make it stop. She was dangerous, undefendable, and powerful in her own right.
She was going to be the death of me, and I was suicidal. I would kill for her, or I’d be killed by her, but no matter what, someone was getting anointed in oil and put in a pine box. God willing, it would be me and not her.
I kept the top up and the windows closed after the church. I was still at a rolling boil, and she sat back and said nothing, about that or anything, as I drove her up the hill to my little Spanish house. It was in slightly better shape than when she’d seen it last. The walls were plastered, but there was dust everywhere. The kitchen had been ripped out and the bathrooms were down to the bare necessities, but the bedroom was beautiful in spite of all the mess.
I’d tried to integrate her into my life before, but with half measures. I’d introduced her, thinking it would shield her, and it did, as long as my crew was my crew. Once that broke, she wasn’t above getting hurt for betraying us, nor was she considered one of us. I was back to square one, and only when she admitted to seeing the future mayor did I realize how vulnerable she was.
I’d protected my wife. I’d protected her life, her virtue, and her ignorance. In the end, only her virtue survived, and I knew in that church basement that it was the most useless of her qualities. Only her life had been worth saving, and I’d failed at that.
Had Valentina known about my history, my father, and the world I’d turned my back on, she might have been more careful. She might have known what to look for. But I’d treated her as if she were an amusement park: a separate world, free from reality, where I could pretend I was something I wasn’t.
I didn’t want that for Theresa. I couldn’t leave her. I was not a good man. I wasn’t even decent. But with her, I could find an honest place in the world. Because she was worldly and sophisticated but still virtuous, I knew she could teach me to be the same.
In the seconds when I held my Theresa’s jaw and she kept a firm grasp on my wrist and looked at me without fear, I recommitted to my plan to become a better man. I would have her and leave the life my father had denied me and that I’d rushed into despite him.
She was the only one who could take me there but only if her eyes were open and only if she wanted us as much as I did.
I didn’t even want to think about it, but I had to. Tomorrow. Now, I was drunk on her scent, smelling the orchards of my youth, when I was just a fatherless child and not the end of a long line of bastards.
twenty-one.
theresa
e snaked up a familiar hill. He’d been quiet the whole drive, only acknowledging me by taking my hand and squeezing it. At a red light, he looked at our hands together. I wanted to ask him what had changed, but the light went green, and the car took off.
The only way out is through.
I didn’t know what he’d meant, but in saying that, he’d changed. He got tender. He kissed my lips and said, “Come home with me?”
I didn’t know where that was, but it could have been old Napoli for all I cared. I would have gone anywhere.
“I’m sorry, Antonio. I wasn’t trying to cause you trouble. I was trying to help you and Katrina both.”
He didn’t answer explicitly. He could have said it was all right. He could have shrugged or kissed me again. In the end, I let him take me to his car.
“Why here?” I asked when we stopped at the end of the drive at the Spanish house on the hill.
“This is my house.” He opened my door and led me out of the car and up to the house.
“I thought the place on the east side was where you lived.”
“Before this house, I had the small place for me.” He unlocked the door and swung it open. “I got this because I realized I wasn’t in this country temporarily. I was never going back, so I thought I’d settle in. Act like I really lived here.”
“I like it.”
“Good.” He put his hand between my legs, wedging it. He bunched my skirt in his fist and curled a finger over my crotch. “Because I’m about to fuck you in it. You ready to scream?”
“I think we should talk,” I said, not really meaning it. I wanted him to take me before he could tell me something I didn’t want to hear. My legs opened to take his hand, and my skin tingled.
“After. We have plenty to discuss after.”
“Capo,” I whispered.
“Sei mia.” He got his finger around my clothes until he found where I was wet. “Questa è mia.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. My hair was still a nest of wind, and it stuck to my lips when I spoke.
“This”—he slipped his fingers over my pussy—“is mine.” He put his other thumb in my mouth before I could answer, pressing my tongue down. “La tua bocca è mia.”
I nodded and pressed my lips around it. He tasted like church when he slid his finger from between my lips. When it was out, I said, “My mouth?”
“Mine.”
I couldn’t take it anymore. I unfastened his pants and we kissed. I was at his command, no matter what he wanted, no matter what his plan.
He pushed me to my knees, and I collapsed to a kneeling position, looking up at him when he put his thumb back in my mouth. I stroked his cock, so thick and ready, the thumb a small piece of flesh in comparison. “La bocca,” I said.
“La mia bocca,” he replied. “My mouth. È tua. Is yours.”
“La mia bocca è tua.”
“Excellent. Now I’m going to use what’s mine.”
I opened my lips, and he took them.
He was cruel. He put his cock in my mouth and held my head still while he pushed forward, down my throat. He shoved past my gagging, past my breath, and I let him. When he let me go and drew back, I sucked in air, paused, and then looked up at him.
“La mia bocca è tua.”
I opened my lips to let him take me, let him fuck my throat raw. He took a handful of hair and pulled me forward, sliding his cock in my mouth, stroking the bottom of it on my tongue.
“Sei mia,” he growled between his teeth then pumped down my throat again. The bottom half of my face dripped with spit and throat gunk, but still, he kept his cock in my face. It was uncomfortable, painful, degrading, and yet my nipples hardened and my panties were soaked with wanting more.
When he was as big as I’d ever felt him, and his firmness matched the weight of my ache, he took his cock out of my mouth and held it there, the tip almost touching my lips.
“Apri,” he said, eyes at half-mast. “Open.”
I opened my mouth, and he started to come into it, leaving a bitter trail on my tongue. He pulled out and moved against my face, coming on my nose, my forehead, groaning into it, until he looked down at me and smiled.
“Oh, Dio, Contessa.”
“You like it?”
He chuckled and kneeled with me. I smiled, and semen dripped in my mouth. I laughed. I couldn’
t help it.
“You look like a wedding cake.” He wiped his thumbs across my cheeks.
“It doesn’t really come off.” I licked my lips and wrinkled my nose. “And it doesn’t taste like cake.”
He laughed, rubbing the moisture down my forehead and across. “I anoint you in the name of the father, the son, and the holy moley.”
I laughed so hard I nearly choked, and he laughed too, even as he tried to wipe my face with his undershirt. I put my face up against his chest and wiped it all over him and laughed so hard tears rolled down my cheeks.
“Woman!” He pretended to be angry but wasn’t. Who could be angry while laughing and wearing a shirt covered in spunk?
He picked me up and threw me over his shoulder, singing some Italian song on the way to the bathroom, while I pretended I didn’t love it.
He put me on a pink-tile vanity built in the 1950s and ran hot water over a washcloth.
“What happened before church?” I asked. He opened my legs and settled between them. “You didn’t just barge in because you had a bad dream.”
He wiped my face tenderly with the hot cloth. “I had a meeting with Paulie and the head of the Sicilian family that runs the east side.”
“What was it about?”
“Splitting territory. That’s how it started.” He kissed my damp cheeks, one and then the other, then gathered my shirt at the hem and pulled it up. “Arms up.”
I put my arms up, and he peeled the shirt off.
“Did it go okay?” I asked.
“It went fine. I’m not worried about territory. I only have to make it look like I’m worried.” He unhooked my bra, and I wiggled out of it. “I have to be at full attention. I have to rebuild the shop, take care of my men, and make good decisions.”
“I sense there’s a ‘but.’”
“But I’m preparing to leave. I’m thinking about it every day. Then Paulie announces you’re sitting with your ex, in a room.”
“It wasn’t—”
He put his finger to my lips. “Basta, woman. I know you’re not going back to him. I own you, remember?”
I nodded.
“No one trusts you. They think you’re going to sell me out, and then they’ll be next. So, we hear you’re with him—”
“Gerry,” I said. “He made the call. He’s got contacts with the city council in your neighborhood. I have a feeling you know the politicians pretty well, too.”
He smiled. There was a world of knowledge in the way his face fell into it. “Yes, of course.”
“Well, Gerry doesn’t trust me for the same reasons Paulie doesn’t. He made sure you heard all about it.” I put my hands on his chest. “I know I didn’t grow up with what you did. But you have to know I can keep my mouth shut. I will never betray you.”
“You betrayed me already by being there. By not telling me.” He put his hands under my knees and squeezed them against the sides of his waist. “I know it was done with a pure heart. But don’t do anything like that again.”
I bristled at being told what not to do, and he must have sensed my discomfort because he drew his face close and kissed me with those satin lips, flicking his tongue across mine.
“You realize that you just told me stuff,” I said. “Real stuff about your business.”
“I can’t do this without you. I can’t even protect you unless I put you by my side. It’s the only way.”
I didn’t know how to answer that because I didn’t know what it meant in a practical way, but from his face and his voice, I knew what it meant to him, as a man, as a leader, and as my lover.
“Come vuoi tu,” I whispered.
twenty-two.
theresa
e spent the night in the heavenly expanse of his bed and woke up with the songbirds. The first thing I felt was pain between my legs. How many times had he taken me? Just thinking of it, I felt a familiar ache, and I reached for him, but he wasn’t in the bed.
“Buon giorno,” he said from the side of the room. He was already dressed in slacks and jacket and was pulling his cuffs from under his sleeves.
“How can you be up?”
“I have a lot to do.”
“Such as?” I said.
He sat on the side of the bed. “My shop is a wreck. Zo needs to rebuild it. I need to make sure my territory is secure. And I need to prepare a way for us to leave.” He slid the sheet off me, exposing my nudity to the morning sun.
“Where will we go?”
“Where do you want to go?” He smirked, running his hands along the length of my thigh.
“With you,” I groaned.
“Men die trying to leave because they make it public. So this is our secret, even from your sisters and your friends. Do you understand? It’s a matter of life or death.”
“Yes,” I said.
“You’re with me. You’re in the life. You are mine for everyone to see. One day, we’ll be gone.”
“I have a family, Antonio. I can’t disappear.”
“I know. For now, you’re beside me. No one will hurt you.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I mean it,” he said.
“Good. I want to go to Zia Giovanna’s. I want to look at the books.”
“No.” He cut the air with the flat of his hand. “Assolutamente, no.”
I sat up straight, naked from the waist up and not caring a damn. “You say you want me to be integrated. You say you know you can’t keep me locked up. You say you want to share with me.”
“Not in the business. If you do something you can be accused of, your consequence is on me.”
“I know Daniel’s been looking at Zia Giovanna’s. He told me it’s part of a fraud investigation. And I know you lost your accountant to that motherfucker in the Ferrari.” His eyes widened in shock. I was a little surprised at my language, as well.
“The books are clean,” he said.
I got down on my knees, letting the sheet fall from me. “You have no idea what Daniel’s people look for. You have no idea what they miss, and you don’t know what they catch. I know it inside and out. It’s wasteful to not use me.” I got up and stomped to the bathroom, turning before I got to the door. “I can fuck a felon, but I cannot fuck a fool.”
Lightning fast, with criminal agility, he picked me up and threw me on the bed. I landed on my back with my legs spread. I opened them farther.
“So, felon or fool, Capo?”
He kneeled over me, hands between my legs like he owned everything there. Two fingers in. Out. In. His lips covered gritted teeth.
“You’re going with Otto,” he said, taking his slick fingers up to my clit.
“Yes, Capo,” I groaned as he drew his fingers across it. “But I miss my car. Can he follow me?”
“Agreed. But about the books, you look; you don’t touch.”
“Fuck me.”
“You’ll wait.” He pinched it and I cried out. “That’s punishment for calling me tonto.”
“Oh, you bastard.” My smile belied my words.
He laughed to himself. “At least that. At least.”
twenty-three.
theresa
felt energized for the first time with him. Embraced. Accepted. Maybe it would even work. Maybe the solution really was to go deeper in. Dante and Virgil needed to go to the deepest circles of hell in order to find the way out.
I bounced out of bed and got ready. Otto waited outside, smoking with his four-fingered hand.
“Miss Theresa,” he said.
“Hi, Otto. Can you take me to my car?”
“I’m taking you,” he said. “And no running for food. We go; the car moves, and it stops when we get there.”
“I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t get you into too much trouble.”
He opened the back of the Lincoln. “Enough trouble for one man in one day.”
I got in. He didn’t talk much on the way to the west side but just asked where we were going. I breathed as the city went by. I breath
ed deep into my chest, inhaling relief and a sense of belonging, if not with Antonio’s world, then with him.
I opened the door to the loft I shared with Katrina. The air smelled stale and the surfaces had a fine layer of dust. It hadn’t been that long since we’d been there, but the lack of activity had a psychological effect on the space. It felt forlorn and empty. I went right upstairs and showered and changed. Forty minutes later, I was back in Otto’s car, then I got into the car I’d renamed the Little Blue Beemer and headed east to Zia Giovanna’s. The Lincoln followed. I had at least the impression of freedom.
I touched my St. Christopher medal, pinching it between my thumb and second finger. Antonio could guarantee my safety from many things, but he couldn’t protect me from derision and dislike. I’d have to turn that around myself.
The restaurant was packed with a lunch crowd, hipsters and businessmen who must have been from the media center down the street and a few moms with strollers parked alongside their tables. I went right to the kitchen. Zia Giovanna scuttled between the row of hanging tickets and the stove while waitresses filed in and out with heavy dishes.
She looked up, saw me, and went back to scanning her orders. “La Cannella. He said you’d be back.”
“You know why I’m here, then?”
She plucked a ticket off the rail and put it under a plate. “In the office.”
I paused, waiting for more, but she continued managing four burners, two other chefs, and a line of waitresses. I went to the office.
There wasn’t much in the room, just an ancient beige computer and a few dozen sticky notes with bits of Italian scrawled on them, some with curled, greasy edges and rectangles of bright color where another note had been on top for too long. On the desk, which was actually a shelf with two filing cabinets under it, were two bank boxes of documents.
