by C. D. Reiss
“I trust you, I just…” My words fell into breaths when his hands caressed my ass.
“Trust me. Trust that I won’t leave you. Not from being careless or reckless. Not if I can help it. Not for a woman in my past.” His eyes became brown disks warm with a pure decency I’d never seen before. “I will never leave you. I need you. Tell me you understand.”
I didn’t. Not at all. But I believed his intentions. “I trust you.”
He lifted my feet from my jeans and kissed inside my legs, my knees, his tongue waking my skin as if from a long sleep. He spread them apart, pushing me back onto the desk. “You’re going to let me fuck you so hard, you remember me forever. There is no such word as ‘no.’”
My head rested on the wall, and he kissed where I was most vulnerable. The hair on his face scratched my sensitive thighs, but when his tongue reached my center, the discomfort was forgotten.
My feet tingled. My heart went code red. I couldn’t see an inch in front of me. His tongue coursed up and down, exploring every inch of me. He put the tip of his tongue to the tip of my clit.
“I’m so close, I’m so close,” I breathed.
He sucked on my clit in response, and I went rigid, using my arms to lift myself from the desk, mouth open, eyes shut, thinking nothing more than oh god oh god oh god. He slipped two, maybe three fingers in me, and new sensations opened, as if it hadn’t been full enough before, and tears streamed down my face.
My hips dropped back to the desk. He stood over me, beautiful and cruel, and took out his cock.
“Wider,” he said. “Spread them wider.”
I did it, holding my legs open with my hands. I wanted to split myself in two for him. When his dick touched me, I thrust toward him, hungry for it.
“Capo,” I prayed.
“Take it. All of it,” he growled and thrust into me completely in one stroke.
I was so wet he got in all the way, burying himself inside me. He paused there, eyes half lidded with pleasure, and pulled out slowly.
“All of me,” he whispered then slammed back in. “Because you trust me.”
I touched his face, and mouthed, “I trust you.” as he thrust into me.
My fingers memorized his face, the textures and lines, to the tempo of his rising urgency. I love you I trust you I love you I trust you. Warm pleasure spread over my body like spilled milk, until I was covered in it, toes curling, back arching, legs stiffening. I held back a cry and came for him, only him.
When I came down, he gathered me in his arms and kissed my neck while he fucked me until his breathing sounded out in short bursts.
“I’m going to come so hard in you.”
“Yes,” was all I had. No other word would do.
I felt the pulse at his base as he came with a groan. Antonio the invulnerable became vulnerable, and he opened himself to me in his parted lips and slowing thrusts, emptying his violence inside me where it could do no harm.
He pressed his lips to my cheek for a long time, only moving them away when there was a knock at the door. And though I felt the flood of all my previous concerns, including his estranged wife and the shadow of impending death, they didn’t soak through. I trusted him.
He pulled away as if he sensed what was about to happen, the way cats and dogs know when an earthquake is coming. In the restaurant, glass shattered, and Antonio stared into my face, listening. A car screeched away.
“It begins,” he said. “Are you ready?”
“No.”
“Bene. Because I am.”
twenty-nine.
antonio
ene,” I said into Theresa’s neck. Olive trees and fresh air. How she did that in Los Angeles, I didn’t know.
She didn’t have to go to Napoli to make me happy. She brought it with her wherever she went. I didn’t want to leave that room, because I had an idea what the broken window was about, and I knew it meant I might never bury my face in her neck again.
A knock at the door.
“Spin.” It was Zo.
“Due secondi.” I stroked Theresa’s breasts, and her nipples got hard all over again.
She bit her lip and her skin turned into a field of goose bumps. Outside, Zo shuffled away.
“Lean back,” I said, and she did without question. I pulled her shirt and bra down, adjusting them so everything went in its place.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I replied, kneeling in front of her. “I want to give you an option, because you’re a grown woman, and I know you won’t take it because you love me.” I’d intended to pull up her pants, but I stroked her legs because they were supple and perfect and meant for my hands. “But if you need to go, ever, then I will let you go.” I slipped up her pants. “Even right now, if you need to walk out, I won’t stop you. When we’re in the middle of the storm, if you need to leave, I won’t think less of you. Because there is going to be a storm, my love. I think you can handle it. I do. But if you can’t, don’t even say good-bye. Just turn your back and go.”
I meant all of it, and I didn’t. If she left, I’d be half a man. No plan I made would ever work without her. But I had to give her the option as much as I needed to hear her say she’d leave if she had to. I needed her full consent.
She didn’t say anything at first. She let me fasten her pants and straighten her clothes. She let me put myself back together and button up. Then she answered.
“If I can’t hack it, I’ll walk,” she said. “As an act of loyalty, I’ll turn my back on you.”
“Is this your wise mouth? It doesn’t sound like it, but I need to be clear. I am going to make a deal with the Carlonis. Zo has proven it can be done. But I’m not him. I pose a bigger threat, and I have more to lose. It may go south.”
“No sarcasm. I mean it. It’s a promise between us.”
I believed her, and in doing that, I was free to make any decision I needed to in order to save us. I opened the door feeling like a whole man.
thirty.
theresa
s we strode out to the dining room, I decided I meant it. If things got too hot to handle, I’d walk because he wanted me to. I’d walk because it was the best way to prove I was loyal. I’d leave him behind if that gave him comfort. I’d do it because he didn’t try to force me. Didn’t pigeonhole me. Gave me the choice to do it or not based on what I thought, felt, knew, and expected. He didn’t try to think for me.
When we got out to the front room, the trouble was obvious. A brick lay inside a spray of broken glass. Zia was screaming at Zo, who was trying to soothe her. A man with a broom waited at the edge of the spray to sweep it up, and the waitstaff set up the room as if the broken window was no more than an obstacle to a final goal.
Otto had gone outside to look down the block with his hand on his waistband. He came back in looking sheepish. “Missed them.”
The brick hadn’t been touched. They were more worried about the person who threw it, which made sense. But there was a rubber band around it, and that couldn’t have been a mistake.
Zia turned her attention to her nephew and rattled off what must have been a litany of southern Italian cusses. I thought he apologized, but after only a few words, she threw up her hands and stormed to the kitchen, giving the guy with the broom the go-ahead.
Antonio hoisted the brick, tossing it up a few inches and catching it. The blue rubber band that looked like it had been taken from a head of broccoli held a piece of paper to the weight. He tossed the brick up and down until he had the attention of everyone in the room.
Otto lit a cigarette. Zo leaned on the booth and crossed his arms.
“Come on,” Zo said, flapping his hand. “Presto.”
Antonio took the paper from the rubber band. I took the brick so he could unfold the note. He let me look over his shoulder, and though that meant a lot to me, and seemed symbolic of a real trust between us, it was useless. The short handwritten note was in Italian. He pressed his lips together, and his face tightened.
He was angry. He wanted to vault into action. I knew him at least that well. But he kept it together long enough to read it out loud.
“Shit,” Zo said.
Antonio glanced at me. “The Carlonis. They say they’re going after Valentina.”
“No deal then,” Zo mumbled.
“No deal.” The note disappeared into Antonio’s white-knuckled fist.
“Daniel,” I said. “She left with Daniel.”
thirty-one.
theresa
is look went from red hot to ice cold in the time it took for him to pull me to the kitchen. No words were transmitted between us. We weren’t telepathic. No. We were something deeper.
“What?”
His tongue flicked over his bottom lip. Almost a nervous tic. The first one I’d ever seen on him.
“I can’t,” he said as if he’d made a full statement.
“Can’t what?”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “They could hurt her. Or kill her.”
“What do you want to do?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Antonio?”
“I want you to know I love you. I am yours. Only yours.”
He was trying to reassure me as if he was about to do something that would hurt my feelings.
How sweet.
How stupid.
“You want to go get her. Just say it.”
He said nothing, frozen between his wants and his obligations, or his past and his future, or between his wife and his mistress. I put my hands on his biceps, and regretted it instantly. His body was a warm, automatic friction against mine, and I had to take a deep breath before I spoke.
“We can’t let her die,” I said. “I won’t make you choose.”
He breathed. I hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath, but relief poured off him. Somewhere in the kitchen, the door to the fridge clacked open, waitstaff yelled, stoves flamed, and a shovelful of broken glass tinkled into a garbage bin.
“Grazie.”
“I am beside you.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I can’t bring you with me.”
So that was his conflict. He knew he had to get Valentina but worried about dragging me back into danger. In that moment, I loved him for his loyalty more than anything else. I was relieved he’d never considered abandoning her, and annoyed that he still considered me an asset to protect rather than use.
“If you leave me behind, I’ll follow.”
“No.”
“We live together or die together, Capo. You said it.”
“I lied.” He pulled out his gun, clicking it open, then closed it.
I crossed my arms and leaned on one foot. “She was with Daniel last. Do you know how the Sicilians are getting into his place? They can’t just stroll in and start shooting.”
“Yes, they can. Danny-boy’s worked with them for years.”
My face got red hot. I was ashamed of my ignorance and my naiveté.
He saw the prickly heat of shame on my skin and flipped the gun around. He handed it to me grip-first, blocking everyone’s view of it with his body. “Keep this, and pray for anyone who sneaks up on you.”
“I’m going,” I said, taking the gun.
“You are not. If you die, if you’re hurt, if you so much as cry again—”
“You need me. He’s the fucking district attorney. A mayoral candidate. How are you getting in? Because I’ll tell you how I’m getting in. He fucked me for seven years. I’m walking in.”
When would I stop being surprised at how fast he was? He had an arm carried by electricity, landing at the back of my neck in a fierce grip. “Are you trying to piss me off?” he hissed, his mouth kiss-close, bending my head until my face met his.
He didn’t scare me. Not one bit.
“Yes.”
“It’s not working,” he lied, the lead weight of rage heavy on his voice.
“His security detail knows me. From. All. The. Fucking.”
The dishwashers chattered in Spanish, and I realized our intensity was a lousy shield.
Antonio let me go. “Dio mio, woman. When this is over, I’m going to take you to a place no one knows, and I’m splitting you in two.”
“Take me,” I whispered, pausing before I finished… “with you. You’ll never get past security without me. And they’ll just walk in and take Valentina into a field and shoot her, if they haven’t already.”
He pressed his lips between his teeth as he always did when I was getting to him. “You are to stay with me at all times.”
“All right.”
“You do not let your attention wander.”
“Yes.” My god, every command turned me on.
“You do not use your weapon unless we get separated.”
“Yes.”
“I am your weapon.”
“Yes.” I was barely breathing.
“Say it. Say I’m your weapon.”
“You are my weapon.”
He put up his finger. “I don’t like this.”
“Yes, you do.”
thirty-two.
theresa
hen Daniel and I had moved in together, he rented out his tiny condo a block from City Hall. Once the tenant’s lease was up, he returned to it. The proximity to the civic center made campaigning easier. He needed security, and he needed a place that was easy to care for. Antonio held the building’s brass-and-glass front door open for me. Zo came in after me.
“You sure you don’t want to wait in the car?” Zo asked.
“We’re going in together,” I replied “You don’t need to watch me.”
The lobby was a stark study in white and wood. Everything was in its place, but nothing was exactly right. I didn’t know what I had been prepared for. Nothing and everything. I was prepared to see his wife, alive and beautiful, a cinderblock wall shaped like a supple woman between Antonio and me. I didn’t want to meet her and I didn’t want to save her, but she was important to him, even if he wouldn’t admit it, and I didn’t know how he’d bear losing her again because of his actions. He carried things around. He held grudges and pain. I walked into Daniel’s building for Antonio, for his health, for his peace of mind. Because I loved him, and it wasn’t about me.
That aside, it was too quiet. The security detail I’d promised to get Antonio through was absent.
Zo lumbered behind me like a loyal puppy while Antonio moved like a cat, as if he was only checking territory he already owned. The front desk wasn’t manned, so all my talk of getting Antonio past it was for nothing. I stopped him with a tsst sound. He turned, eyes everywhere, and I indicated the closed circuit monitors behind the security desk.
They were off.
He nodded slightly, paused.
“I know what you’re thinking, and forget it.” I moved my lips but no more sound came out. Live together. Die together.
His eyes lingered on my mouth. I didn’t know if he understood me, but my thoughts went dirty, and a weight of wetness dropped from my spine to the space between my legs.
“Let’s go,” I said and went toward the elevator. “We have a nice Italian woman to rescue.”
I didn’t have the key to Daniel’s place, but as we walked down the soft white hall upstairs, I saw a keypad outside his door. Zo checked his watch. Antonio touched his jacket under the arm, where his gun sat in its leather holster.
It was up to me. I didn’t know how many digits, and Daniel didn’t have a commonly used password for the daily business of getting into the easy stuff.
I put in his birthday.
Red light.
His childhood address in City Terrace.
Red light.
His social security number.
Red light.
His phone number.
Red light.
His mother’s phone number.
Red light.
His phone number backward.
Red light.
“Contessa,” Antonio said, “let me shoot it.”
I held up my hand. If we wanted to get in and out, we had to make as little mess as possible, and I wanted to prove my worth. Had to prove he’d brought me here as more than a burden, and I factored into the situation as more than a dead weight with a murderous streak.
I put in my birthday, just to keep my fingers moving.
Green light.
“Excellent,” Antonio said, pushing the door open. “What was it?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to lie, but I didn’t want Antonio to get distracted by the fact that my birthday was the code to Daniel’s loft.
Zo pulled out his gun and held it up. Antonio reached into his jacket. I still had the hunk of metal in my waistband, and it was staying there. If this went down the tubes, I didn’t want to kill anyone else.
Antonio put his other hand on the knob. “You ready?” His voice was couched in a tenderness I sometimes forgot he was capable of.
“I’m fine, Capo. Let’s just get her and go.”
He swung the door open.
I smelled gunpowder. Antonio tried to hold me back, but I beat him into the big room. My footsteps echoed. Zo closed the door. Antonio checked the corners then leaned against the doorjamb to the bedroom. I swallowed, wondering if she’d be sleeping or naked. But he shook his head. There was no one.
The kitchen was open to the larger room, with a bar creating a psychological barrier. I touched the shiny marble surface. I heard a creaking sound. I looked around. Didn’t know where it came from.
I pressed my fingertips together. There was a white powder on the pads from touching the marble.
The creaking came again.
Antonio came toward me.
Zo checked the bathroom. Nothing.
I rubbed the powder on my fingers and listened to the interminable creak.
Slap. A shoe clonked down onto the counter, and I jumped. I looked up to where it came from, and Antonio followed my gaze.
I screamed.
Daniel was hanging upside down from a beam in the ceiling, ropes around his calves, feet free but squeezed enough that his remaining shoe dangled from his toes, the other foot covered in just a sock. He moved back and forth slightly, the rope creaking against the beam. A silver rectangle of duct tape covered the bottom half of his beet-red face, and his hands were tied behind his back.
