by Xander Hades
Michael’s expression changed when he closed the door behind him. He could tell the room was sound-proofed, or at least, sound-deadened. Then he looked at me. I was half laying on the bed, my skirt above my knees, the jacket had come open and I was feeling vulnerable as hell. On the other hand, it put him off balance and I could use that. I let the skirt slip a little higher up and watched his eyes follow the movement, his lips part the tiniest bit. He swallowed hard.
The problem with playing this particular game was it cut both ways. I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. My lips felt dry suddenly. Damned if I was going to lick them and give him that satisfaction.
“Michael…” I said slowly, savoring the distraction until my brain caught up with where I was going with this.
Yet didn’t he have a right to know?
“Tony was…” I don’t know why I was hesitating. Wasn’t I in my own home? There were people around, Daddy’s people to call for help. My eyes went to the heavy tapestries on the wall. But not if they couldn’t hear me. If he went ballistic now, no one would hear. I could scream my head off and no one would know until I was found hours later.
Just get it over with.
“Tony was gay.” The words came out in a rush. I held my breath. Waited for the explosion.
But then Michael surprised me.
He looked at me for a long moment and then threw his back and laughed. It was the most I had ever heard him laugh, and I’ve known him his whole life.
“You’re going to have a child with a gay man that didn’t want you?” He gasped for breath. “Artificial insemination or immaculate conception?”
“Sit down.” I snapped, feeling the fool for worrying. Damn him.
And he certainly wasn’t about to take orders from me. His stance got wider. His arms crossed.
I shrugged, ignoring the way my teeth hurt, I was clenching my jaw so hard. “Suit yourself.” I ground out each word painfully.
“Is that why you dragged me up here?” He had a snarl to his voice, but he was still smiling as though he’d heard the greatest joke ever told. “To tell me my brother was gay? It explains a lot, I admit, but he’s dead now, no one can blackmail him or take anything from him. What’s so vital that I had to come up here?”
“Tony didn’t want me,” I admitted again, finding it hard to look at him. This whole mess wasn’t exactly a source of pride right now. “Daddy wants an heir, a union of D’Angelo and Marcotti.”
He was silent. Did he seriously not get it?
I couldn’t look at him. Yet my eyes crept up on their own. His face went from amusement to curiosity, and then his eyes narrowed.
“You were going to marry my brother and then, what, seduce me? Get me drunk, throw your irresistible womanly charms at me and watch me grovel?”
“No,” I said. “Don’t flatter yourself. I was going to do far worse to you.” It was true.
“Like what?” He visibly steeled himself for the blow.
“Tony was weak Michael. I could have ruled him easily.”
“And through him, The Outfit.”
I nodded. “Not everyone has a child right away. It can take years.”
“Years in which you’ll set up your base, get your supporters.”
“It’s already in motion,” I admitted.
“So why tell me now?”
That was a good question. “Because you’re smarter than Tony and you’re more… commanding for lack of a better word. I won’t be able to maneuver you like I could your brother and I can’t threaten to tell people you’re gay to make you do what I want. But I’m the one to take The Outfit. I have the qualifications and the power base.”
“So what do you need with me?”
I shrugged. “Let’s play it easy, Michael, for old time’s sake. We marry, you stay in your little workshop making toothpicks for all I care. I run The Outfit and we meet once a month for functions, pretending you’re in charge. It’s what you wanted. Tony to take over, you get to play. He told me that. That’s all I’m offering.”
I pointed to the dresser, at the angel he’d carved for me in high school. “You can churn out that crap every day all day and no one cares. We both win.”
“No.”
I hadn’t actually expected this. “No? Isn’t that what you told Tony you want?”
“First off, you’re the last person I would trust for… anything. Secondly, Tony was a bad choice, you’re worse. You want it?” He stepped in close and leaned over me. I could smell his aftershave, something spicy. Sexy. “Fight me for it.”
There was nowhere to go. I’d picked my spot stupidly. He leaned in, one hand resting on the headboard, his entire body blocking out the light from the room. His face in shadow.
My heart thudded painfully in my chest. I felt my legs part, shifting slightly on the bed. Unconsciously inviting him in. “What if I told you I still loved you?” It was a cheap shot.
It was also true.
I waited. Held my breath. My entire body screamed, aching with the need of him, so close that I could feel the heat coming off his body.
Michael stared at me a long moment.
His eyes. Not narrowed. Wide. Vulnerable.
He shoved himself away. Was gone before I realized he was leaving. The door banged shut behind him. Hard.
It had been a costly victory.
But it was still a victory.
Right?
Chapter 5
Michael
I was halfway down the steps before I stopped myself. I stood there, trying to swallow. I really didn’t care that Tony was gay. Of course it bothered me that he never told me. But I wouldn’t have cared. Now I couldn't ever prove that.
I don’t trust her.
All that shit about her still loving me… that was… I grabbed the railing and leaned over it, feeling dizzy suddenly. It’s wasn’t me, it’s the rest of the world that was off. It was out of kilter, running too fast, running backward. Looking up at the door I just slammed, I thought about the girl on the other side, that ravishing beautiful creature.
And all that history.
Later I didn’t remember deciding to do anything. I didn’t remember moving. I just was there at the door, one second looking at it, the next standing at it, my nose nearly pressed against the wood.
It was another test. Not from her, it was my test. I could leave and keep the hurt close to my chest. I was familiar with it, comforted by it. I knew what it was like. Or I could knock and ask permission to come back into her life.
Unless of course I just I just opened the damn thing and walked in pretty as you please.
So I kicked it, my foot crashed down on the fucking door as hard as It could. Wood splintered and shattered, the door fell off the top hinge with a resounding CRACK and slammed against the far wall. Deanna jumped to her feet and stood in front of me. There was a vein in her neck pulsing, her breath was fast and shallow. She was scared, but she wasn’t going to back down. If I wanted to hit her, shoot her, cut her, she wouldn’t so much as cringe. Claw my eyes out maybe, but she was no scared bunny looking for a bolt hole.
“You did what you did!” I screamed it at her. Years of holding it in, of beating on logs and planks and pulling creatures from wood instead of getting this out blew up in a single sentence and my throat ran raw from bitter catharsis. “That doesn’t change.”
I stood there, chest heaving, knowing that my words weren’t pretty. And that forcing my way into the bedroom of a mafia boss had to be one of the stupidest things I’d done in my life.
But I was in control. I was here because I wanted to be here.
Not because of her father. Not because of her.
Because I needed to do this.
And that felt right. The rest of the world could go fuck itself.
“No.” she agreed, shoulders slumping a little. Not beaten…just acknowledging that she wasn’t in the right. It surprised me. “It doesn’t. I can’t change that. If you need to hurt me, then hurt me.” She stepped closer.
“I’m tired of being the villain, I’m tired of everything being about you. You’re not fit to run The Outfit any more than Tony was, and most of all, I’m tired of not even being considered just because I don’t have a penis.”
Her tone was bitter. Agonized.
“You’ve certainly borrowed enough. And not just once.” I said hoping I was wrong. But the rumors had run rampant. Dinky’s Slutty Little Mafia Princess. It had almost become legend.
Not that anyone who wished to live to tell about it had informed Dinky D’Angelo of that.
“You don’t know the full situation,” she said stubbornly raising her chin. “And really it’s none of your business.”
It hurt. It shouldn’t have but it hit me in the gut and I couldn’t think of another thing to say.
Thankfully Hudson came running which would have been hilarious in different circumstances. As it was, he was a welcome distraction. A realization that my world and her world were very close to being at odds.
That what she’d proposed earlier was completely and wholly unacceptable.
I lifted my chin. Met her gaze with narrowed eyes. “You want to lead? Then fight me for it. Marcotti and D’Angelo. We’ll see who comes out on top.”
“Really, Michael?” She laughed. “I’m giving you what you want! In a year to two, you can divorce me with an, ‘Oops, one of us can’t have children, nice try.’ You get wealth and freedom.”
I closed the distance between us and heard a CLICK behind me. Seems the old butler had been packing. I didn’t care. “You want to beat my time, sister? Try it.” I spun and grabbed the gun from the old man’s hand and threw it on her bed. “You’re on.”
I pushed past Hudson. To tell you the truth I had to steady him, he damn near fell. It dampens something in the irate huff when you have to help your attacker to stand. Making the best of it, I ran down the steps to the door, only now it was barricaded by a half-dozen of Dominic’s men. They looked at me and I saw the confusion in their eyes. Each and every one knew me, knew I was a Marcotti.
We were supposed to be allies.
“I see you’re catching up on old times,” Dominic said from somewhere in the back. The men visibly relaxed, now that there was someone to tell them what to do.
“Yeah,” I said and bounced down the final steps like I just fell in love. “It’s been a while.”
“Remember,” Dominic said pushing forward until he was in front of his crew, waggling his finger at me in a chiding manner. “We don’t have time for a long engagement.”
“I remember,” I said and chanced heading for the door. The crowd parted.
They actually let me leave. Wait till they saw Deanna’s door.
I was sweating by the time I got outside. Rico was waiting for me at the car. He’s one of mine, one of my father’s really, and for a brief shining moment, one of Tony’s. He held the car door open for me. I stopped and looked back toward the house. “Rico, who do we have in New Orleans?”
“No one,” he said flatly.
“What?” I turned to him. Rico was older than me by about ten years, a tall skinny guy that’s serious as a heart attack. He doesn’t make jokes. “My Father had men all over.” I searched his face, hoping he’d developed a sense of humor in the last week. He hadn’t.
“Sure, your father’s men I can find. You don’t have anyone yet, but me and Nicky and Rich.” He gestured to the inside of the car. I climbed in. He came in after me.
“Just three?”
Rico shrugged. “There’s a lot of your father’s men around,” He explained to me patiently, the way one would to a particularly slow child. “They’re yours by default, but if Dinky called them back…”
“It’s just us.” I nodded. So a frontal attack on New Orleans was out of the question. How many are Dominic’s and how many are Deanna’s?
“What happened in there?” Rico asked after a minute. “You look like someone took a shot at you. Your eyes are narrow.”
I looked at him Did everyone know about my tell?
“Did Dominic declare war on the Marcottis?”
He was worried. So were the other guys in the front seat. I caught the driver looking back at us in the rear view mirror. He was frowning a lot.
I cleared my throat. Awkward suddenly. “Worse.” I said and paused, letting that hang there a minute. “I’m getting married. To Deanna.”
We rode together in silence all the way home. As we pulled into the drive way it was Rico who broke the silence. “Shit.”
“Yep.” I agreed. And in all likelihood it was about to hit the fan.
Chapter 6
Michael
There was a time in junior high that I let my family go to my head. I had been sent to some prestigious private school, where uniformed brats of the rich and famous tried to stuff algebra and chemistry into heads already stuffed with designer drugs. Most of those supplied by the Outfit. Not that I was dealing. That was someone so many rungs below my world I couldn’t have told you names if I’d wanted to. No, I was the only one there from The Outfit, which gave me a sense of smug superiority to them, because that meant I owned them, dirty little expensive habits and all. I hadn’t really figured out what that meant in the real world. In eighth grade, I threatened a kid with getting his entire family killed right down to the family dog for some imagined slight. It was vain and foolish, but I was a vain and foolish kid. When I got home, my old man beat the crap out of me.
It was some art teacher in ninth grade that took pity on me, though God knows why. She saw me drawing in the quad one day and invited me into the art room, giving me the tools to express myself. Maybe she thought it would help. By that time, I was getting into fights real regular like, and that particular day I was sporting a black eye and an attitude you couldn’t sink in Lake Michigan. I started out in clay but it proved too fragile for what I was feeling. Maybe someone somewhere would have thought handing a kid with my issues a knife was just asking for trouble. But she saw something no one else did.
I found a way to carve out frustration and anger and dove into with both feet. Back then I used chisels and knives and all sorts of delicate tools. These days, I preferred to use an ax. Sometimes a chainsaw if I was feeling particularly lumberjack like and had something that could only be expressed in a chunk of wood fifteen feet high. Believe it or not, I have a lot more anger now than I used to.
To think back then I used to make little animals. I’d even carve out angels and so on. Now I generally make kindling. Oh sure, I still made shit now and then, but I liked the exercise.
I once created an angel with folded wings and chains that ran down her arms and legs that bound her to the ground. I was pretty proud of that piece, gave it to a girl. It was a promise, it was a gift in lieu of a ring. It was the only time I tried to really let someone get close to me.
She still had it on her dresser. She pointed to it when she called my work crap.
Maybe it was. She’d seemed to like it enough at the time. Back then Deanna had been headed for Ivy League, same as Tony. Father could have bought my way there. I think he tried, but I had my heart on Arizona State. Why? It’s a party school. Everyone there is drunk, hung-over, getting laid or just gotten laid. I did the booze and a few other things. I met some good people and some not so good.
But I never strayed. I never wanted anyone but her.
I was a sap. Apparently, being in college meant that we were supposed to sleep around a lot, get a feel for other people. I didn’t know about that rule, but obviously, Deanna did. She informed me when I tried to go see her that next summer. Thank god she’d written that letter, it’d saved me a trip north.
She’d said she wasn’t sure how many boys there had been. A lot. Enough. She’d done it to get back at her father, she said. Great. I told her I hoped it hurt him as much as it did me, for her sake. I hadn’t even bothered calling her. What the hell was there to say? I’d wadded the letter into a ball and had nothing more to do with her. Simple as that. For three years.
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Now I’m supposed to be marrying her.
So, I went out to the shop and hung my shirt neatly over a chair and grabbed an ax.
I had a large log – a telephone pole to be exact - I had been saving for a special carving. It was laying out on the grass next to the shop on some blocks. I took an ax and tore it apart, splinters flew in every direction. There was no carving, no artistry, I just brought the ax down again and again until my shoulders started screaming.
I thought to call an old friend of mine in New Orleans, have him and his friends check up on Fingers for me. I decided to wait it out, see what happened. Another chunk of wood spun off into the trees as I thought about it. Hoodoo was a guy I’d met when I was at ASU. I liked to think he was a good man, so I did. He was good to me. He was someone I could count on.
I rested, let the ax take a break and surveyed the damage. I had about broken through the post in several places. Thinking about Hoodoo and Rocky always made me smile. They’d helped me when I got that choice little letter from Deanna. It was an easy cure, a drunken brawl with a biker and a cage fighter will lift anyone’s spirits.
And I thought about the letter. I thought about the last time that Deanna and I made love, the night I gave her that carving. The sappy shit I said, the way I fawned on her. The pole slit in half lengthwise with a loud report that sounded so much like a gunshot, Rico burst through the door with his piece drawn.
