“Just my rocket launcher, machete, and vials of poison,” she says without skipping a beat, and I can’t hold back a snort of surprised laughter. Fuck, she’s smart! She’s already figured out that I’ve figured out this whole thing was her idea! Holy hell, the game is afoot!
I grin and shake my head, fighting an overwhelming urge to just spill everything, tell her I had nothing to do with her parents’ death. But I hold back. After all, someone gunned down Bari’s parents. And until I know who it is, all options have to be considered. It could be a rival mafia family looking to start a war and weaken both our families. It could be a secret faction within my own family. It could be a conspiracy by the older members of the Bellano Family, rough, old-school men who don’t want to see Bari Bellano take over, hard men who perhaps believe she’s too soft, too sweet, too weak.
It could even be Bari herself, comes the last thought as my smile fades and the chill returns. I think back to what I know about this woman. Very little, it occurs to me. Her parents sheltered her, kept her hidden from view—from my view, at least. I have a vague memory of seeing her as a child, nestled between her Mama and Papa at a wedding reception for one of the sons from the big Chicago Family. But then I was sent off to Italy, lived a lifetime in a foreign land, and came back a King.
A king about to claim his queen, comes the thought—a thought that casts everything in doubt again because it feels so fucking true, so goddamn certain, so damned real . . .
And so damned impossible.
“The Bellanos are beneath us,” Father used to say when he was teaching me the family business, telling me about the great mafia families of America. “Their bloodline is not pure Italian. Their roots cannot be traced clearly to the old country. They are mutts, mongrels, scavengers who feed on the scraps that the Barzinis leave behind. So far we have let them have their territory—not because we cannot crush them with our might, but because the Five Families have warned us not to start a war.”
“Why not?” I’d asked Father, my green eyes burning with intensity as I watched the old man look down at me with pride at the fire in his son. “The only ones afraid of war are the weak, right?”
He’d grunted and smiled, looking over at Mother, who was watching and listening from across the room. “Yes, but this isn’t the Middle Ages anymore. It isn’t even the 1920s. The mafia in America has to play by certain rules now. We aren’t bikers selling meth in the suburbs or gangsters hawking crack on street corners. We are part of society’s fabric, providing valuable services to those in need. Protection to those who cannot go to the police. Justice for those who cannot go to the courts. Loans for those who cannot go to the banks. The police leave us alone so long as we govern ourselves, so long as we do not attract attention, so long as we keep the peace between the Families.”
“A peace that can be uneasy at times,” Mother had added from her perch by the window, her dark eyes shining as she smiled at me. “A peace that cannot last forever. Will not last forever.”
Father had looked sharply over at Mother and then back down at me with a sigh. “Your mother is right, Brusco. War hurts both sides. But at the same time, great empires are born to spread. Great kings yearn to conquer.”
Great kings yearn to conquer, I think as I focus back on Bari, think about conquering those curves, spreading those thighs, invading and plundering, planting my flag, sowing my goddamn seed . . .
And then I snap my head back and turn away, rubbing my jawline furiously again as I wonder what to do next. My parents’ words had stuck with me when I was in the old country, learning the ways of the mafia from the original mobsters, first in Rome and Milan, then in the smaller towns and villages, where the mob exercises straightforward, overt control, true protection and administration, real rules.
Rules as old as time.
Rules that say when someone hits you, you hit back.
Rules that Bari Bellano has changed.
After all, if she simply went to war with us, none of the other Families watching would blame her. They would not intervene, since that would draw Families across America into the war because of age-old alliances. They would let it play out, because that is how the game works.
But by showing up here in proverbial chains, like a sacrificial virgin to the Godfather, she’s fucking up the game, changing the rules, twisting this thing to her advantage in the most brilliant goddamn way! After all, a war would end quickly, with the Bellano Family wiped out, their territory swallowed up by the Barzini empire in one gulp. The Five Families might grumble and glower, but they’d let it pass because it would be over quickly.
Just like it would be over quickly if Bari Bellano joins her Mama and Papa six feet under by Christmas morning, I think as I have to stop rubbing my jaw before I rub the fucking skin off with my rough hands. If everyone believes I killed her parents, it wouldn’t be shocking if I killed the daughter too, right?
But of course I can’t.
Not now.
Not now that she’s presented herself to me. It’s an act of surrender, a peace-offering, a tribute to the stronger Family. And it’s against the old rules to respond to a peace-offering with violence. We can be animals, but we aren’t barbarians.
Hell, we Italians came up with the word barbarians, I think as my mind twists like it's spiraling into chaos. Everyone who wasn’t Italian was a fucking barbarian. Pretty damned simple. Either you’re pureblood Italian, or you’re a goddamn barbarian, I think with a grin, my rambling mind serving up an image of my mother, who was obsessed with maintaining the bloodline, keeping the lines of succession clear and pure.
“Italian blood,” Mother had said to me in the minutes before she passed. “That is all I ask of you when you choose a bride, Brusco. Pure Italian blood. You rejected every arranged marriage offer I presented to you. Do not reject my dying request. Promise me, Brusco. Promise me.”
“I promise,” I’d said to Mother, holding her wrinkled hand as I watched the light fade in her eyes, waited in silence as she slipped away into the darkness, joining her husband, the only man she’d ever been with, the two of them betrothed as teenagers in the old country, back when arranged marriages were how it was done.
My parents were believers in arranged marriages, and yeah, they’d tried a few arrangements for me over the years. Hell, that was the major reason I think they sent me to Italy when I was eighteen. Too many “mutts” and “mongrels” in America, they’d said in disdain. So hard to find pure Italian blood. So Italy it was for the young mafia prince, but I returned alone, my princess’s throne empty and cold. Of course, there’d been a number of Italian belles presented to me over those years. Beautiful girls, with culture and smarts and looks and pedigree. Just what Mother and Father wanted, no doubt.
But I always said no.
I always let them pass by.
And only now do I understand why.
Only now does that old memory float back in like a dream, as if it’s reminding me of its secret impact even though the memory itself wasn’t a secret. That pure, sweet, innocent memory of Bari Bellano as a little girl, me as a little boy, the two of us staring at each other in a crowded room, wedding flowers all around us, music and dancing surrounding us, red wine flowing thick, promises of forever flowing even thicker in the atmosphere.
Only now does it occur to me that the memory stuck with me in the strangest way. It wasn’t a memory I willfully buried—indeed, it wasn’t buried. But as I look down at the woman that Bari Bellano has grown into, that memory resurfaces with a power that almost brings me to my knees, like it’s been simmering beneath the surface all these years, guiding my every choice, whispering for me to say no to every woman who fluttered her eyelashes at me, glanced longingly at the empty throne beside me.
And only now does it occur to me that maybe . . . just maybe Bari remembers that first meeting too, that maybe it’s been secretly guiding her own choices over the yea
rs, gently nudging that strong, sweet little girl as she bloomed into a woman, pushing her along her own path, a path that put her in this room, on this couch, in that dress, in my clutches.
She’s a captive, yeah.
But so am I.
So am I.
4
BARI
So am I a captive or a sacrifice, a prisoner or a princess, a brilliant military strategist or a dumb chick who just made a childish, risky decision that in the end is going to make no difference in the world, I wonder as we look at each other in silence, the crackle of the fire ferocious in the background, the scent of sugar and chocolate heavy in the air.
“Have you eaten?” Brusco asks suddenly, the question bringing me back to earth in a rush, my heavy inner thoughts disappearing into the even heavier atmosphere like smoke on a winter’s night.
“Have I eaten?” I say with a frown, resisting the urge to suck in my round belly. Then I blink and smile when I see that it’s a serious question, that the warm, comforting aromas coming from the mansion’s kitchens are affecting Brusco too. It smells like hot chocolate and Christmas cake, and I blink again as I wonder why the home of a monster smells like . . . like . . . like a home. “Um, no. Of course not. Why, is this the part where you ask me what I’d like for my last meal?”
Brusco grunts, turning his head towards the door, his handsome profile making him look like a Roman God standing above me. “I’m not going to kill you, and you damned well know that,” he says, turning those green eyes back towards me. I see a glint of anger in those eyes—anger tempered by what I swear is admiration, like he both hates and loves the fact that my first move in this chess game we’re playing has put him in a curious position. “Not with the Five Families watching from Chicago and New York. You knew that the moment you showed up here in your little red dress and black stockings, Bari.” He pauses and lifts his chin. “May I call you Bari?”
I raise an eyebrow, the strange mix of formality and brashness in Brusco getting to me in the most wonderful way. So far he’s only called me “Ms. Bellano” or by my full name, like he’s been raised in some bygone era. Again the thought strikes me that this man didn’t murder Mama and Papa in their beds, in their home. He might be a monster—hell, we’re all monsters in this world. But maybe he’s not that kind of monster.
I watch as Brusco strides across the room and pulls open the door. He leans into the hallway, calling out in Italian.
“Accedere,” he commands to an unseen attendant, and just minutes later silent men and women in crisply pressed uniforms wheel in carts laden with freshly baked Christmas treats that make me swoon where I sit.
“Oh, I see,” I mutter, shaking my head as the strange mixture of opposites in this mysterious man gets to me again. “You’re just going to watch me overdose on sugar and chocolate and then hold your hands up and shrug innocently when I keel over dead. Nice move.”
“It’s Christmas, Bari,” he says, clearly deciding to call me by my first name now even though I didn’t explicitly say he could. Another sign that although he’s been raised to be polite and formal, there’s an unmistakable streak of arrogance, an unshakeable belief that in the end he’s going to say what he wants, do what he wants, take what he wants.
Take what he wants, I think as I finally succumb to the thick slabs of plum cake neatly cut so not even a crumb is out of place. The sugar hits me like a drug, reminding me that I’m really damned hungry, that I haven’t eaten right in days. The piece of cake is gone in like three seconds, and I grab a cookie and sigh as Brusco snaps his fingers and points at the two empty cups on the shining silver tray.
An attendant fills them to the brim with hot chocolate and then leaves the room with a half-bow that once again makes me think I’ve stepped back in time, into an old world where tradition matters, where customs and rituals mean something, where . . . where Christmas means something?
“Wait, is that a . . . a snowman on this cookie?” I say when I notice the designs on the homemade treats.
“It was until you bit his head off,” Brusco says, holding a plate out towards me just in time to catch three falling crumbs. “And please use a plate.”
I take the plate from him and watch in amused disbelief as this tattooed, ripped, Italian beast of a mafia king carefully puts a snowflake-cookie in another plate for himself, delicately picks up a perfectly folded napkin, and sits down on a leather chair across from my perch on the matching couch.
“OCD, anyone?” I say, smiling in my surprise as the spiced sugar cookie and thick hot chocolate takes hold of me in the warmest, most wonderful way. I really feel like I’ve been transported to a new world, like there’s suddenly been a clean break from the past, from the girl I was, from everything I was! Ohmygod, it’s like we’re on a first date, it occurs to me as I try to get over what I’m feeling, what I felt when I saw him walk into this room . . .
But I can’t, because Brusco snorts with innocent, almost boyish laughter at my jab, like he’s feeling it too, feeling the heaviness lift like a fog from over us. Just then the log in the fireplace snaps and crackles, pops and sizzles, filling the air with the scent of Christmas, filling my heart with a madness that I know can’t be real.
“It was a problem when I was younger,” Brusco says, his dark skin flush like he’s embarrassed. He reaches out and carefully picks a cookie-crumb off my shoulder, doing it with such precision that I barely feel the touch. But my body shudders nonetheless, like it’s yearning for his touch, and it’s everything I can do to push back those thoughts—thoughts which have no place in this situation, in this room, with this man.
“Obsessed about picking up crumbs?” I say with a puzzled frown. “Didn’t you have attendants waiting on you hand and foot your entire life?”
“Obsessed about everything,” says Brusco, sipping his hot chocolate as the two untouched wine glasses stare down at us from the mantel. “And no, Ms. Bari. I spent my youth in Italy, most of it in small towns and villages where my ancestors came from. We did everything ourselves there. No butlers or maids.”
“That must have been hard for you,” I quip, thinking back to those silent attendants who seemed ready and waiting with carts of Christmas goodies. Not to mention the aromas coming out of the kitchens down the hall. There must be an army of staff in there. What are they preparing for? A funeral feast? A victory celebration?
“Hardship makes us stronger,” says Brusco. “Don’t you agree, Ms. Bari?”
“Oh, so is that why you had my defenseless parents murdered in their home? To help me get stronger?” I snap, almost biting my tongue as I try to control my rage, my fire, my need to understand, to figure out the answer, to seek closure, justice, and . . . and . . . revenge?
But revenge against whom? Logically it has to be Brusco who ordered the hit. But emotionally I don’t believe it. So what do I do? What do I believe? What do I trust? My intelligence or my emotions? My brain or my heart? My mind or my . . . body?
A surge of heat stiffens me to the core, and my thighs tighten as I feel a subtle wetness between my legs, beneath two layers of satin, under my sheer stockings and black panties, hiding like a shadow in the dark, whispering like a voice from within, reminding me that the human body is a miracle in its own right, contains intelligence different from that of the mind, is capable of seeing through the complexity of life in the most visceral, direct, beautiful way . . .
“Your Mama and Papa were hardly defenseless,” Brusco says after a long, thoughtful pause, like he was carefully considering how to respond, what to reveal. I remind myself that no matter what my body’s whispering to me, this is still a dangerous game of chess that’s being played out in front of a Christmas fire, the disarming warmth of cocoa and cookies making it seem all the more unreal, all the more dangerous.
“How do you know I called them Mama and Papa?” I ask without thinking, somehow picking up on the undercurrent I feel i
n Brusco’s massive, hard body that stiffened just like mine did, that I know is reacting just like mine is, that I know is fighting his mind just like my body is engaged in a struggle with my overdeveloped brain.
Brusco blinks, frowns, and slowly rubs his chin. “I think I heard you call them that,” he says finally, blinking again, those green eyes darting up and to the left, like he’s accessing a memory from long ago. “Years ago. Decades ago. You were just a kid.” He grunts and smiles. “We were both kids.”
I frown too, wondering if this is part of his game. “We’ve met before? I don’t think so.”
“It was a wedding in Chicago. Back when the rift between our families wasn’t so wide. You wore a black frock. I remember because my mother said something about how insulting it was to wear black to an Italian wedding.”
“Black frock . . .” I mutter, my eyelids fluttering as I try to think back. “Well, that’s not saying much. I wore black a lot as a kid. Still do.” I narrow my eyes as the rest of Brusco’s comment registers. “And who takes offense to what a little girl is wearing, anyway?”
Brusco grunts again. “Mother was a traditionalist to the core. Pureblood Italian and proud of it till the end.”
The term “pureblood Italian” stings like a whip, and I tense up as memories of my parents throwing that term around with disdain come roaring back to me. The Bellano Family does trace its roots back to the old country, but Mama and Papa made it very clear that we were Americans mutts, our blood mixed with the blood of the new country, the blood of this country. It had been an issue when it came to our dealings with the Five Families, and it was certainly an issue when it came to our relationships with the Barzini Family. There had definitely been tense moments back when I was a teen. Moments when Mama and Papa were preparing for a blood war, when it seemed like the Barzini Family would muscle in on our territory and the Five Families would look the other way simply because of what our bloodline said about who we were.
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