by Ws Greer
I nod my head, understanding the tough situation he’s in as the boss who has to make these kinds of calls. I’m sure it’s hard trying to figure out when to flex your muscle and when to back down. It’s not a job I’d want.
“Okay, so how does that work, then?” I inquire as I sit up and lean back against the cherry wood headboard. “That’s a lot of money. Is that from you to him, or what?”
“Well, it was Jimmy’s crew that fucked up, so Jimmy’s the one who has to pay the most for this. Since I’m the boss of the Family, I fronted him a hundred-grand, and he has to pay the other four. It’s a bit of a hit on his wallet, even if he is a captain, but we gotta do what we gotta do. He’s on my shit list, so I told him he had to be the one to deliver the truck and the money. He didn’t like it, but I don’t really give a fuck. He messed up, and he needs to be the one to fix it. Simple as that. So, Jimmy and a couple of guys from his crew went to take the truck and the money to Chicago first thing this morning. I’m just waiting on a phone call that says it’s done. I want the truck and Victor Fronzo in our rearview mirror as soon as possible, because the two of us having to work together is a problem. The more we have to talk, the worse it’s gonna get.”
“I understand. Well, I’m glad it’s almost over,” I say with a grin. “I can tell this whole thing bothers you.”
“Of course it does. I don’t like having to bend at the will of some old bastard. Our family is making money and everyone’s happy, which is what makes what you and I have that much better. Things are simple, and I don’t have to give a lot of my time trying to fix people’s fuck ups. I get to just focus on you.”
Dominic leans over and kisses me again, this one filled with passion as he caresses my cheek with his palm. My body responds with heat, sending warmth shooting from my head to my toes.
“You know I love you, right?” he asks, as he pulls away and pierces my brown eyes with his blue ones.
“I do,” I reply. We stare at each other for a moment. I’m so head over heels in love with this man, I don’t even know what to do with myself. After all we’ve been through, I love him now more than ever.
“What do you say we go get breakfast?” he asks, still caressing my cheek.
“I’d say that sounds like a plan. I’m gonna go hop in the shower.”
“Okay.”
I lean in and kiss the love of my life one more time before finally pushing the covers off of me and standing up. I stretch my arms up in the air and let out a big yawn, and as I step towards the bathroom, I see Dominic staring at me as I walk, with a sneaky grin on his lips. I flash a quick smile before closing the wooden door behind me.
Once I’m in the expansive bathroom, I toss my St. Louis Blues jersey on the double vanity, right between the two marble sinks, and I open the door to the shower to heat up the water. It only takes a second to reach the perfect temperature, and I step onto the marble floor that matches the gray and white ceramic tiles that line the shower. The raindrop shower head cascades down onto me like my own personal waterfall, and the extra shower heads jutting out from the surrounding walls add an extra sense of comfort. I won’t act like I don’t enjoy the life of luxury that comes with Dominic. Being with him has been heaven for so many reasons.
I grab my lavender body wash and get to work, starting with my chest and working my way down. After only a few minutes, though, I hear the bathroom door closing.
“Babe?” I call out to no response. “Babe, is that you?”
I get my answer when the shower door opens and Dominic steps in with me. His naked body makes my eyes bulge as I drink him in. He smiles as he closes the door behind him and places a hand on my hip.
“Well hello, Mr. Collazo,” I say, grinning from ear to ear. “So you needed a shower too, huh?”
“Nah, I didn’t come to get clean,” he replies just before he steps forward and wraps his hands around my ass, pulling my body to him.
Dominic leans forward and kisses me like his every breath depends on it. He sucks my tongue into his mouth, pulling a soft moan from the back of my throat as I reach down and take all of him in my hands. His erection slides between my fingers in the warm water as he moans into my mouth. I use the water as lubricant as I stroke him over and over again, causing his muscles to tighten with my every move.
“Is this what you wanted?” I ask, seeing the pleasure in his eyes as I keep stroking. “Does it feel good, baby?”
“It feels so good,” he replies, “but this is what I wanted.” Dominic suddenly reaches down and slips his fingers between my legs. I gasp at the sensation of him teasing my clit with his fingertips. My breathing becomes harder to control and I have to place my hands on his thick shoulders just to maintain my balance, before he finally spins me around and pushes me up against the tile wall.
No more than a second later, I’m gasping again, this time at the feeling of every thick inch of Dominic sliding into me from behind. He doesn’t waste a moment, as he uses long, forceful strokes to take me to bliss and back. I hear our skin smacking together and the water splashing as Dominic fucks me from behind.
With nothing to hold onto, my hands begin to slip down the tile wall, but Dominic doesn’t relent, he just keeps pounding with nonstop, long thrusts of passion. Before I know it, I’m bent completely over with my hands on the marble floor. It’s a painful pleasure I’ve never felt before and my screams bounce off the walls throughout the entire bathroom.
“This is what I wanted, baby,” he barks as he spanks my ass and the sting of it radiates down my legs. “I wanted you just like this. Scream for me.”
I have no choice but to comply, because the feeling of it all is too good to hold in.
“Yes, Dominic!” I scream.
“Tell me you fucking love it,” he commands.
“I love it, baby!” I bellow as I start to feel the familiar sensation of ecstasy building up deep within me. “Oh god, Dominic, don’t stop.”
“Yeah? Are you gonna come for me?”
“Don’t stop, Dominic!” I yell again. The muscles in my body slowly start to flex, starting with my feet and traveling all the way up to my face, as the orgasm barrels into me like a head-on collision. My knees buckle, and I let out a guttural scream that burns the back of my throat as my body is overtaken and I lose all control.
As I go limp and start to fall, Dominic grabs my hips and holds me upright as he keeps going, harder and harder with every stroke. His moans grow so loud I’m sure they can be heard on the floor below us.
“Yes, take it Dominic!” I scream just as the orgasm rocks him. His fingers dig into my skin, and I use my last bit of strength to keep my body moving to prolong his pleasure. Dominic’s muscles shake and spasm as the two of us involuntarily slide down onto the floor.
The warm water splashes our faces, mixing with our sweat, and the shower feels more like a sauna at this point. I’d like to get up and move to a cooler area, but my legs are fried, so I just sit there and try to catch my breath.
“Now that is exactly what I had in mind,” Dominic says, smiling a labored smile as he pants, still trying to catch his breath.
“Well then, that was a really good idea you had,” I reply with a giggle. “I can’t even move.”
“Oh yeah? Mission accomplished,” he says proudly.
“You’re a mess,” I reply, stretching my legs so they don’t cramp up. “Hey, is that your phone I hear?”
Dominic turns his head trying to hear better. “Shit. It is. It’s probably Jimmy.”
Dominic musters up enough strength to bring himself to his feet and step out of the shower. When the door opens, a rush of cool air swoops in and feels like I’m being let out of prison for good behavior. It doesn’t last long as the door closes and I’m back in the sauna, so I force myself to get up and rinse myself off.
Still breathing hard, I step out of the shower and grab a towel to dry off. With my hair still wet and water dripping down my back, I open the door to find Dominic tossing his phone onto
the bed in frustration. The pleasure-filled smile from a minute ago is gone, replaced by pure annoyance.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” I ask. When he looks at me, I can see two emotions: anger and worry.
“I gotta go back to the Lumiere,” he says.
“Really? What’s wrong?”
“Remember the truck I told you about, with Victor’s one-point-two million dollars in it?”
“Of course. What about it?”
“It’s missing.”
“What?” I reply as my heart surges and feels like it may explode any second now.
“It’s gone,” Dominic says, his voice low and stressed. “Someone stole it.”
Dominic
The confusion and frustration I feel as I approach the conference room is over-fucking-whelming. How the fuck could Victor’s truck have possibly gone missing? Jimmy had it parked in an alley behind the carwash he uses to launder money. That place is surrounded by wise guys virtually twenty-four-seven, so how the fuck does something like this happen? How could Jimmy have let this happen?
As I push the doors to the Lumiere conference room open, the sight of them pisses me off. There are three captains in this family, and for all of them to have sent their crews out to look for a big ass eighteen wheeler and come up empty sends hot venom coursing through my veins. It’d be less of a problem if I didn’t have to call up Victor Fronzo and tell him that we lost his truck. That sounds so ridiculous to me, so I know how it’ll sound to him, especially when he already thinks Jimmy may have taken the truck on purpose. We already don’t like each other, so this stupid shit might be the last straw.
I bypass the usual greeting and take my seat at the head of the table. Frankie, Tommy “Two Nines,” and the three captains take their seats as I light up a Cuban and puff the smoke towards the ceiling, trying my best to remain level-headed.
“Alright,” I begin. “Maybe one of yous would like to explain to me how this truck went missing, because I’ve been thinking on it, and for the life of me I can’t come up with one good answer that fully explains it.”
They all stare at each other like they don’t know how to speak English all of a sudden, and it makes my blood boil.
I slam my fist on the glass table, startling every man in the room. “Wake the fuck up! What the fuck is the matter with all of you? I told Victor we’d settle this by paying interest on the stolen truck. Frankie and I just went to Chicago and dealt with Victor and that fucking ogre, Giovanni, and now you’re all looking around like there’s a fucking alien in the room. Pull your head out of your asses and tell me what the fuck is going on. Jimmy, you had the fucking truck, so how did you lose it?”
Jimmy seems to look at everything in the room before he gets to me.
“I don’t know what to say, Dominic,” he replies. “We had it behind the carwash, and everything was ready to go, but when I went to put in the extra half-a-mil and drive to Chicago, it was gone. There was broken glass on the ground where the truck had been, and whoever took it had to break the glass because I made sure the doors were locked. There’s no way I would’ve just left the truck unlocked knowing it was Victor’s. And I had my crew look everywhere. We all did, and nobody could find it. I’m sorry, Dominic.”
His words don’t help me feel better, they just make me even more pissed off. I don’t have time for apologies. Victor isn’t going to want to hear any soft ass apologies. Losing this amount of money means war between the families. In one big swoop, everything we worked for is about to go up in smoke.
“Do you hear how that sounds?” I ask, looking around the room at everyone. “Does that not sound like bullshit to any one of you? Because if I’m that fucking senior citizen, Victor Fronzo, and you took my truck and found out it had over a million dollars in it, it sounds like bullshit to me. It sounds like you stole my fucking money, and that’s exactly what he’s gonna think.”
“Dominic,” Tommy chimes in, “we had everybody look everywhere before we even called you. We tried to find it. We scoured the whole fucking city and couldn’t find it. Whoever took it may have ran with it outside the city.”
“Oh wonderful!” I yell, faking excitement. “That makes me feel much better, Tommy, thank you for your fucking input!”
The room goes silent, because they all know this is about to get bad. They all have looks of worry on their faces, but worry isn’t what I feel. It just looks to me like the war between us and the Chicago Outfit is unavoidable now. I’m not afraid of it. In fact, if Alannah had never come back to St. Louis, I’d welcome it. But she is here, and I never forget that it’s her I have to protect. I have to live for her.
“Frankie,” I snip. “Call Giovanni.”
“Okay. Now?” Frankie asks, looking unsure, which bothers me more than it probably should.
“Yes, now! We have to buy more time, and the longer we wait, the more it looks like we’re just making this shit up. Right now, it’s early in the day, so tell them something important came up and we can’t spare the bodies to make the delivery today. Tell them we have the extra money, and we’ll bring it as soon as we resolve our problem.”
“Okay, but what if he asks what the problem is?”
“Don’t fucking tell him. This is Giordano family business.”
Everyone in the room looks anxious, but it’s our only option right now. We have to make Victor believe that we’re ready to bring the truck and money, but we can’t because we have important family business going on. If he calls our bluff and drives up here himself, then so be it, we’ll go to war. If he shows up in my city, I’ll put a bullet in his brain through his ear.
Frankie goes over to the bar where our landline is and dials Giovanni’s number. The rest of us sit at the table in anticipation listening to the conversation, and it doesn’t sound like it’s going well. Frankie tries to explain that we have an emergency that requires all of our attention, and I can tell Giovanni asked what it is, because Frankie is stumbling over his words like he has a stuttering problem. He apologizes one too many times, and the next thing I know, he’s looking back at me, holding the phone in my direction.
“Victor wants to talk to you.”
Everyone in the room looks at me like I’m being sent to the principal’s office as I stand up, set my cigar in my marble ash tray, and saunter to the phone.
“Victor,” I say as I place the phone to my ear. I don’t sit on the stool at the bar next to me, because I don’t expect this conversation to last long.
“Where’s my money, Dominic?” Victor inquires in his low, raspy voice.
As soon as I hear his tone, I’m immediately reminded of how I felt when Frankie and I were at his warehouse. I hear the same condescending tone I heard yesterday, and it still pisses me the fuck off.
“I’ve got a problem that requires my attention, Victor,” I reply, feeling my defensive walls going up. “It requires our attention, so the delivery will have to wait.”
“I’ll have to wait,” I hear him repeat as if he’s telling someone who’s not on the line. I can just see the smug look on his face as he repeats my words to Giovanni. “Tell me, what is this big issue that requires the attention of everyone in your family, including the people who stole my truck and money?”
“Oh you know, it’s just that one issue that isn’t any of your fucking business, because it’s mine,” I fire back. My patience levels are at an all-time low with Victor and his arrogance. “We have your money, including the interest you put on it, but since you’re so far away, bringing it to you isn’t at the top of my priority list right now.”
The looks on the guy’s faces at the table tell me they’re on pins and needles, waiting to see how this conversation is going to end. Even Frankie looks nervous.
“Dominic,” Victor continues. “I know you’re a new boss, and you’re standing up in front of your family right now, trying to show them how in charge you are. But, this is the kind of issue that starts wars in Our Thing. We’ve already been down this road, so let’s n
ot forget how it went last time when you were at my warehouse. Your family has stolen a lot of money from me, and if it isn’t returned with interest, it’ll be considered a breach of peace, and an act of war.”
“As much as I can appreciate the political analogy, I already told you we have the money. And I already told you I didn’t have a problem going to war. The money is here, but the time isn’t. I don’t have time to argue with you about it. We’re not bringing it tonight, and if you think that justifies a war, then you’ll fire the first shot. Once that happens, it is what it is, and we’ll see who’s left standing. Do what you gotta do, Victor.”
“Well let me just say this,” Victor snaps. “Today is Tuesday, and for every day you don’t bring me my money and my truck, you’ll add five hundred grand to the payment. And if the money and truck isn’t brought to me without a single cent missing by the time I wake up on Friday morning, you won’t have to bring me anything, because what you’ll owe me will be worth more than money, and I’ll be there to take it.”
Before I can drop some witty, aggressive comeback, the line goes dead.
It was a terrible idea for me to talk to Victor, because I can’t fucking stand him. My hatred for him might start a war all by itself.
This isn’t about the money. It’s about principle. As a boss, Victor cannot let us get away with taking what’s his, and as much as I don’t like the old geezer, I know I’d do the same thing if I was in his shoes. I’d be ready to cut someone’s fucking head off to prove my point. I’d love to flex my muscle on this, and I will if he keeps pushing me to it, but the truth is that Jimmy was the one who started all this. Thanks to him, our family owes Victor, and that’s how the Commission will see it too. It doesn’t matter how much I want to break Victor’s neck, the Commission will see us as the ones who started this shit, and that’s no good. I want to kill Victor for pushing this so hard, but the rules of La Cosa Nostra have me handcuffed.
I put the phone down and turn to face my family. They’re all on the edges of their seats, dying to know what Victor said about the money, but I’m not sure how to put it. So, I decide on the blunt approach.
