Last Man Standing

by Wendy Rosnau

  She twisted her arm to shake him off, but the effort failed. He hung on as he rounded the table, grabbed her other wrist and pulled her closer.

  “Stop it, Lucky. Let go.”

  He forced her hands to his chest, over his nipples. Closed his eyes. “Touch me, Elena.”

  Suddenly she stopped fighting him, and he opened his eyes to find her staring at his mouth. He leaned down to kiss her, but she turned her head away. Softly she said, “Okay, if you want me to touch you, get on my table.”

  “You know that’s not the kind of touching I’m talking about.”

  She looked up at him. “Maybe not, but it’s what you need.”

  “What I need is to get you out of my head. But that’s not going to happen until you’re gone.” He released her hands and slid his own over her hips, pulling her against his lower body. Slowly he lowered his head, and this time she let him brush his lips over hers. He whispered, “I want on you, not this damn table, Elena.”

  Her hands were still on his chest, the heat from her touch warning him that he’d started something he didn’t want to stop. Something he needed to stop.

  He kissed her again, then backed off, realizing suddenly that she was right. He must be drunk. He had to get out of there. He turned to retrieve his shirt, letting her get a good look at his scarred back without thinking.

  “You’re a vigliacco.”

  He turned around. “What did you say?”

  “You heard me. You’re a coward.”

  “Be careful, Elena.”

  “I’m not afraid of you. But I think you’re afraid of me.”

  Shirt in hand, he laughed. “Afraid of you? I don’t think so.”

  “Prove it.”

  “And how would I do that?”

  “Get on my table.”

  “As you said, it’s late, Elena.”

  She walked past him, headed for the door. “Take off everything and climb beneath the sheet, Lucky. Facedown. You can either be on the table when I get back, or gone. It’s your choice.”

  The scar was like nothing she had ever seen before, Elena thought as she paced the study. Her mother had extensive scars, but this was the longest Elena had ever seen. And she hadn’t even seen it in its entirety.

  She wanted to find him on the table when she returned, but she wasn’t expecting it. She glanced at her watch. Two more minutes. She’d go back in two minutes, and if he was gone…

  Her thoughts returned to the scar, anxious to touch it. From the look of it, the knife wound had been extremely deep, the granulation tissue creating secondary adhesions. The lesion guaranteed radical nerve damage. Before she did anything—touched him—maybe she should talk to his doctor.

  More than five minutes had gone by, and still Elena wasn’t sure she was ready to go back to the therapy room and find Lucky gone.

  But what if he wasn’t gone?

  What if he was naked beneath the sheet?

  She touched her lips, unable to deny how much she liked his mouth on hers. She unfastened the clip that held her hair off her neck and reworked the loose pieces back into the twist on the top of her head. Deciding that she’d stalled long enough, she opened the study door and walked across the hall and into the room.

  The sight of him on the table brought her up short. As she’d instructed, he appeared to be naked. Her gaze drifted over him. He was lying facedown, the sheet covering his lower body and exposing the enormous scar that followed his spine.

  The music she worked to was a meditation CD used to help relax patients. She walked to where the trim silver stereo sat next to her oils and emollients and hit the button to restart the CD. The low haunting sounds suddenly ate up the silence.

  Elena’s heart was pounding, and she was afraid he could hear it. She took a deep breath, said, “Are you cold?”

  “No.”

  His voice was low, his face positioned in the doughnut-shaped pillow that allowed him to breathe comfortably.

  “First I’m going to palpate the scar,” she said, gently folding the sheet down to rest low on his smooth hips. “What I’ll be looking for are the most tender points along the spine. Hot spots, I call them.”

  The sight of Lucky’s broad back leading into his narrow waist made Elena’s stomach do a nervous flip. She struggled to keep her voice normal. “Those will be the areas I’ll want to work on first.”

  She ran her hand along the scar pressing gently as she followed the vertebrae along his spine. “Here?” she asked. “Is there more pain here?”

  “Yes.”

  “And here?”

  “Not so much. But, yes.”

  She moved lower, pushed the sheet to the rise of his beautiful backside. “And here?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to have you roll onto your back so I can see the path the scar travels and continue to palpate.”

  He did as she asked and as he started to roll over, she rescued the sheet to keep his gender hidden from her eyes. When he was facing her, she slowly moved the sheet downward, looking for the end of the scar.

  The knife that had traumatized him had cut across his hip to his navel. From there it headed downward. Elena’s hands stilled, knowing he was watching her. Knowing that if she lowered the sheet farther, she chanced revealing more than just his scar.

  “Ten inches. Think you can handle that?”

  Elena jerked her head up. “What?”

  “The scar.” He grabbed her hand. Pressed her fingers into the scar just below his navel. “From here to the end of the scar is ten inches,” he clarified. Then he released her hand, grabbed the sheet and flipped it off his right leg.

  For a moment Elena was sure he was going to expose himself. It never happened. His big hand gripped the sheet close to his private area to keep it covered, revealing only his leg and the scar that had ripped his stomach at an exaggerated angle to end up on his muscular thigh.

  If he was trying to shock her, she wasn’t going to allow it. He had a magnificent body, and as much as she enjoyed looking at it, she successfully kept her hands steady as she began to palpate the scar.

  There was a tender spot as Elena pressed her fingers into the scar two inches from his navel. “All right,” she said, pulling the sheet back over him, “you can roll onto your stomach again.”

  She guided the sheet once more as he rolled, his hands dropping to rest on the padded rail beneath the headrest.

  Now that she knew where the restrictions were based, she knew what would benefit him the most. Touching his right shoulder, she said, “I want you to relax completely. Give your body to me.” When he didn’t answer, she said, “We’ll need a control word between us. A word you can use when you want me to stop if the treatment becomes too painful. It’s beneficial, however, to sometimes feel a degree of pain with myofascial release.”

  “What’s wrong with the word ouch?”

  Elena smiled. “Okay. If you like that word.”

  She stood at his right shoulder, his head close to her thigh. Afraid he would decide he’d had enough before she could get started, she moved her hands to the first hot spot between his shoulder blades and began to apply pressure to the area.

  With scar release the movements were slow, and the pressure needed to remain constant. There was no directing or forcing deep within the layers of fascia, and sometimes there was no moving at all, just waiting—sometimes three to five minutes—before the barrier let go.

  Prepared to stay up all night if need be, Elena soon became lost in her work and the feel of Lucky beneath her hands. As the minutes ticked by and each release came, she said a silent prayer, then followed it through, keeping the pressure constant until she felt Lucky’s body surrender to her with a deep sigh.

  “That’s it,” she whispered. “Noises are good, too. A moan. I’ll even accept swearing.”

  She moved to the next tender point. Began the process again. It was slow and laborious work, but she kept at it. Each time she felt the fascia layers move, she knew she was m
aking a difference—relieving a degree of his pain.

  Forty minutes later, on a hot spot near the base of Lucky’s spine, he expelled a deep guttural groan that made Elena feel victorious. She hated the idea of hurting him, but she knew after the initial pain, he would feel better.

  “That time I felt heat,” she said softly. “It’s called therapeutic pulse, and it means we’re making progress.”

  She stepped away from him for a moment, then returned with an emollient. She poured some into her palm, rubbed her hands together and began to massage his back, then his shoulders. It was important to keep his muscles relaxed.

  Before long she tucked the sheet at his waist, exposed his right leg and began to knead the muscles in his thigh, then his calf. She even spent a few minutes on his feet. She took her time, moving on to his left leg to repeat her treatment.

  She asked him to roll over once more. Repeated the process.

  She lost track of time, caught up in touching him in ways and in places she had only dreamed of touching him. It was after midnight when she finally looked at the clock.

  “Now it’s very late,” she said. “That’s all for today.” She turned away, put the cover on her jar of massage cream, and when she turned back, Lucky was sitting up, dragging the sheet with him as he stood.

  His eyes were heavy-lidded, his movements delayed. The combination of liquor and massage had worked like a sedative, Elena suspected.

  He stared at her without saying a word, and she wondered what he was thinking. What he was feeling.

  “I hope I didn’t hurt you too badly. I never heard the word ouch.”

  He shrugged, continued to stare, his chest rising and falling slowly.

  “I should let you get dressed.” She headed for the door.

  “Elena.”

  She stopped, turned. “Yes.”

  “Tomorrow. We do it again?”

  “Yes, if you’d like. We could meet while my father is taking his afternoon nap. Buona notte, Lucky.”

  “Good night, Elena.”

  Chapter 9

  Three days later Vito Tandi passed away quietly in the middle of the afternoon with Grace’s name on his lips, Elena at his side and Summ standing vigil over the candles that had continued to burn since that morning, when he hadn’t been able to get out of bed.

  The candles, Summ claimed, would light Vito’s path on his journey into the next life.

  It had snowed heavily that day and remained overcast ever since. Yesterday Lucky had arranged a private memorial service as mandated in Vito’s will. It had been closed to the public; his staff at Dante Armanno and Lucky and Elena were the only ones in attendance.

  The rest of the day Elena had spent with Summ going through old photo albums of her parents during happier times. She had taken Vito’s death hard, as Lucky knew she would, but as he’d told Frank, Elena was determined to do the right thing.

  She had known her time with her father was short, and she’d crammed a lot of living into six days. No, it hadn’t been enough, but if it was possible to grow to love someone in a week’s time, Lucky believed Vito and Elena had truly become father and daughter.

  They’d eaten every meal together, and more than once he’d heard laughter coming from the living room— Vito’s husky chuckles and Elena’s sexy sweet peals of joy.

  It was true that Vito’s last days on earth had been spent smiling, and Elena was responsible for that. Summ had called her Vito’s miracle. And Elena was certainly that.

  Secretly she had become his miracle, too. In four days his back pain had diminished by half.

  “He’s been cremated, Miss Tandi,” Henry Kendler said. “That was your father’s wish, and also that his ashes be given to his housekeeper, Summ Takou. I trust you don’t have any objections?”

  “No objections,” she said softly.

  Lucky watched Elena as she offered a sober smile to the lawyer, who sat behind his desk in his office high above the city. They had been listening to the reading of Vito’s will for close to an hour.

  She bent her head and touched her nose with a damp, rumpled tissue that she’d pulled from her pocket.

  “Miss Tandi, are you all right?”

  “She’s fine,” Lucky growled. “Finish up, Kendler, so we can get the hell out of here. It’s probably the smell of this place that’s making her eyes water. Haven’t you ever heard of central air?”

  Kendler sniffed the stale air as if he was unsure what Lucky was talking about, then lowered his gaze to the paper on his desk. “I just have a couple more things.”

  “Well, get on with it.”

  “Vito wrote you a letter, Mr. Masado.” Henry Kendler looked suddenly nervous as his blue eyes, rimmed in shiny wire glasses, darted from Lucky to Elena, then back to Lucky. “Should I read it, sir?”

  When Lucky didn’t answer, Elena said, “Yes, please.”

  “No,” Lucky held out his hand. “I’ll take it.”

  Once Henry Kendler had handed Lucky the envelope, he ripped it open and silently read.

  I’m finally dead if you’re reading this, Armanno. Do not forget what you promised me days ago. Should I die before my enemy has been dealt with, we agreed that my burden would become your burden, my responsibilities, your responsibilities. See that Vincent D’Lano dies a painful death and while he is dying remind him why. Tell him Vito sends his best.

  About mia figlia. This past week has been worth everything I have suffered. Thank you. Elena is all that is left of my Grace. Do what you must to keep her safe. Whatever you must. I understand about the secret trust fund now. I understand more than that, and you have my blessing. Grazie, Armanno. Live well. Love well.

  Lucky folded the letter and slid it into the envelope, then into the pocket on his leather jacket.

  “Is there one for me?”

  Lucky glanced over to see Elena hopeful, if not anxious.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Tandi, there is no letter for you. But he did want me to give you this.” Kendler produced a large manila envelope and handed it to her.

  Elena opened the envelope and looked inside, then pulled out a book and a red velvet box. Inside the box was a ring and necklace.

  “They were your mother’s,” Kendler offered. “Rubies, I believe.”

  The necklace was one large red ruby in the shape of a teardrop hanging from a gold chain. The ring appeared to be Grace’s wedding band—a large ruby surrounded by diamonds. Lucky recognized the poetry book as the same one from which he’d seen Elena reading to Vito. Inside he had inscribed, To my daughter, Elena Donata Tandi. My Grace in beauty and in spirit. Your loving father, Vito.

  Without any words, Elena closed the book and slipped the ruby necklace around her neck, then slid the ring on the third finger of her right hand.

  They left Henry Kendler’s office around noon. In Lucky’s red Ferrari, he asked, “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.”

  She was avoiding his eyes. Lucky reached out and, gripping her chin, forced her to look at him. “Why does that yes sound like there’s something more you want to say?”

  She pulled away and wrapped her coat tightly around her—a long black wool coat that Summ and Palone had bought for her days ago, along with a number of other necessities she’d listed for them. “What was in the letter?”

  “It was just business.”

  “Business?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “It was,” he insisted.

  “Listen, you, I can tell when you’re lying. If I can’t trust you, who can I trust?”

  Lucky let the insult roll off his back and turned on the ignition. His hand on the stick shift, he asked, “Are you hungry?”

  “I thought it was too dangerous for me to be away from Dante Armanno. That’s why you refused to let me do my own shopping, remember? Why I’m wearing a coat that must weigh fifty pounds.”

  The coat did look a bit extreme for November. “Are you hungry?” he asked again.

  “You’re actually
asking me out to lunch?”

  “You leave tomorrow, Elena. You’ll be safe with me in a restaurant this one time. I promise.”

  “Because I’m with Nine-Lives Lucky, the most feared soldato in the city?”

  He scowled at her, suddenly realizing that not all her conversations with Vito over the past week had been about family. “If you have no appetite, then you can watch me eat,” he told her. “I’m hungry.”

  “For food that requires a fork and teeth, or just a glass?”

  She was trying to pick a fight. Lucky wasn’t going to take the bait. He hadn’t had a drink in two days and his appetite was coming back. He said, “I’m hungry for some good monkfish.”

  “And where do you get good monkfish?”

  He smiled mainly because she wasn’t smiling, then pulled the car away from the curb. “My old neighborhood, where else?”

  Caponelli’s was a quaint restaurant in the heart of Little Italy. Lucky led Elena through the door fifteen minutes after leaving the parking lot near Henry Kendler’s law office.

  The cozy restaurant was busy. More than half the tables were taken, and people were waiting to be seated. While she and Lucky waited, Elena glanced at the pictures on the wall behind the cash register. The one that caught her eye was of three small boys on a green couch. They looked like pure trouble as they grinned into the camera. The middle black-haired boy—maybe three years old—sat balanced on the knees of the other two dark-haired boys. The caption under the picture read: To the end and beyond. Friends forever. Eternamente. Per sempre.

  When it came their turn to be seated, a gray-haired woman in her early sixties hurried toward Lucky with open arms and a wide smile. “It’s about time you showed up. You haven’t been here in weeks,” Lavina Ward scolded.

  Elena didn’t expect Lucky’s wide smile or the carefree way he scooped up the woman and kissed her on both cheeks. When he set her back on her feet, he said, “Is my usual table open?”

  She glanced to a far corner of the room. “You’re in luck. Here, let me take your coats and put them in the back.”