by Jax Hart
Moonlight spilled across her pillow—cold and gray like the light of death itself. It shined down on a crumpled piece of paper, next to it lied a wilted flower.
You won’t find me. I’ll find you first. Someday when you aren’t looking, my face will be the last you see as your blood spills just as my Papa’s.
Until then, little-man Salvatore.
P.S. If our roles were reversed. I wouldn’t have hesitated. You showed weakness and mercy. Don’t expect me to give you any.
My cock stirred.
The little butterfly had claws. She’s smart too. But she’s wrong if she thinks I’ll let her soft mossy eyes and flame colored hair bewitch me twice.
I would get vengeance. Someday just like I promised. When she’s legal and her tits ripe. I’d laugh as I ram my steel dick in her and remember her taunt that I didn’t know my way around a woman’s body. My hands trailed over her cold sheets. Picked up objects around her room before dropping them back in their place. On her dresser, I found a hair ribbon. It was hunter green and still had strands of her hair tangled in it. I held it to my nose. Like the sick predator I was, I inhaled deeply.
My whole body quaked.
Trembled.
Need.
Desire.
Vengeance.
They all swirled in a storm, brewing inside me.
I pocketed the treasure next to the photo and walked downstairs. Whistling, I shoved off the back step and walked in the shadows toward the local whorehouse. I’d prove that sassy hellion wrong. I’d become a man tonight.
A Salvatore never pays and a whore’s legs are always spread for one. I knew our outfit always kept the most beautiful ones on reserve. No other men in Palermo could touch them. Their pussy’s were saved for us.
My knuckles rapped twice on the door.
The madam kept her cool when she opened. “Mr. Salvatore. Welcome.”
She ushered me inside the opulent mansion where women lounged topless on velvet couches. She snapped her fingers. “Get Giselle.”
“Come. Sit.” She led me over to a wide chair covered in the same crimson velvet as the couches. She made me a bourbon, neat. I felt like a man as she paraded woman after woman in front of me until she presented the last one.
“This is Giselle. She’s a favorite.”
I perused the woman. She was beautiful, with long chocolate hair and deep blue eyes. But I didn’t want her.
I look up the line.
“Her,” I pointed my finger at the petite redhead. She was young and flat chested. If the madame was surprised by my choice she hid it well.
The redhead came forward and straddled me. I ran my index finger up her stomach. It shook as it reached her pebbled nipple. It took everything I had not to come in my pants as she moved her hand to the seam in my crotch.
She resembled my hellion, but she was much older. She took my hand and led me to a gaudy boudoir.
I didn’t bother with foreplay. She knew what was coming. I drove my steely hips into hers. My hands made their way to her throat. She clawed at me. I whispered honeyed words of devils and angels as I came. My eyes shut tight, as I buried my nose in her hair and pretended, she was someone else a decade from now.
I let go and she rolled from under me wheezing for breath. I felt reborn, energized, and ready to take my place at the head of my family’s table.
I sprung off the bed and started to dress. Opening my wallet, I let a thousand Euros rain on the bed.
“Salvatore men… don’t pay.” Her voice was husky with pain.
“A gift, for you bella.” I smirked as she held the sheet to hide her barely there breasts.
“Don’t hide, bella. These,” I leaned over taking the sheet and letting the back of my knuckles rub over her nipples, “are art.” I realized I took her, but still knew nothing of sex. “Show me? Teach me how to please a woman?” Her eyes widened in disbelief. “Please, bella.”
She nodded. “Choking is fine but wait until you feel me clench around you. Wait until I’m at the edge of the cliff. I’ll soar higher then.”
I undressed again.
She pushed me back on the bed and straddled my hips. “Touch me here.” She rolled her own nipples. “Like this.”
I groaned, feeling my cock harden, wanting more. I bent forward taking the tiny bud into my mouth. She threw her head back and grinded her wet mound on me.
When she lifted her hips, my cock surged up and slipped back in. She showed me the tempo. Slow. Fast.
I came again. This time it was just a sheer release, with no ghost of a girl’s eyes haunting me.
I was virile with a lifetime of pent up rage in my teenage body. We went for hours. And I found my favorite position when she gets on all fours and raised her ass up high.
I slid in deep, seeing stars as my dick hits the secret spot all woman have. My whore didn’t fake her cries of bliss as I hit it over and over.
I realized missionary is for lovers. And love is a weakness. I vowed never to take a woman that way when there is no need. This position was best anyway. She was satisfied and I felt like a powerful god and the best part—I didn’t need her face or lips. Kissing is for passion. Eyes can steal your soul. Both those things are a death sentence for a man-boy like me. Especially if I want to survive to bring my family back to the heights of power.
I left her right before the breaking dawn. The smell of sweaty sex still clung to me as I snuck back into the family home with evil ruling my heart. In a moment of clarity. It all made sense. What I must do to survive like the little Fiorelli girl.
I grabbed my father’s switch blade and crept down the hall to my uncle’s chambers. He was snoring. Bottles of wine littered his nightstand and floor. He was in the middle of two women who also were sleeping it off.
I opened the blade and struck hard and fast. His eyes snapped open, but he was already a dead man as the blood gushed from his slit throat onto the satin pillows.
I held his gaze and waited. In his dying eyes, I saw that he knew. He knew why it had to be done. For he was plotting against me. My uncle wanted me buried and gone but instead it would be him, not me.
I turned, walked out and let the hot shower rinse away my sin. But the man I had become remained. I took my first life and lost my virginity in the same long night.
I met my eyes in the mirror. The Fiorelli girl was wrong. I wasn’t weak. I had just become a man.
CHAPTER FOUR
“DO I HAVE TO GO?”
“In America, yes. You must go to school.”
I sighed, munched my toast and pretended I wasn’t intimidated. I stared down the face of death, escaped its clutches unscathed but the thought of going to the fifth grade in a public school in New York had me petrified.
Since my accent was heavy and my English poor, Zio thought it best to enroll me a year behind for my age. He took me shopping and I was excited to buy jeans and sneakers. Papa always made me wear dresses and fancy shoes that pinched my feet.
He sipped his espresso, eyeing me over the rim. “Look them in the eye. Don’t let them see your fear. They will be looking for it.”
“Who? The fifth-graders or the Salvatore’s?”
“He smiled faintly. “To conquer one, you must conquer the other first.”
“Well, I already conquered Roque Salvatore. These bullies don’t stand a chance.”
“No, they don’t. I’ll pick you up from school. Your training starts today.”
“Martial arts?”
“Fencing. You’re small for your age and much younger than your foe. You must use every weapon you can to your advantage.”
“Like the goddess, Diana. She used bows and arrows.”
“You will, too. All in good time.”
I picked up my backpack and put on a thick puffy coat. I was already feeling much better about my day. I just had to get through school first. Zio walked me the five city blocks over to the school. I stopped, letting the tip of my nose touch against the chain metal fence. Boys inside
the concrete school yard were playing some weird game inside a hexagon using a bouncing ball.
“It’s called Ga-ga. You’ll learn. It’s good for your reflexes.”
A few girls jumping rope caught my eye. Hope fluttered through me. I’d never had any real friends. People at my old school either sucked up to me because I was a Fiorelli or feared me because I was one. I couldn’t win. But now I was Diana Palermo, a girl with no past and with a future I could paint any color I wanted.
“Come on, I’ll walk you in.”
“No. I can take it from here.” I lifted my chin high; stared down every curious gaze, and marched right into that building.
“Diana Palermo.” The name dropped from my lips heavy with my accent, but it was spoken like a dare. The secretary nodded her head so hard the glasses perched on the tip of nose wobbled.
She spoke English so fast I couldn’t understand one word. I thought Italians spoke fast, but she had my nationality beat. She shuffled a pile of papers, found the one she was searching for and motioned me to follow her out and down the hall.
She walked into an empty classroom and handed the sheet of paper to the teacher writing on the blackboard with chalk. Much to my delight the teacher turned and smiled with her eyes.
“Diana! Benvenuto! Welcome!”
My shoulders sagged with relief. She spoke Italian. Her accent was off, but I understood her and she, me.
She told me to take a seat in the first row. I thought school was going to be okay. But that quickly changed shortly after the bell rang and the class filed in. She turned her back to finish writing on the board and that’s when the first spitball landed in the back of my hair.
Eyes narrowed, I turned to face the sea of smirks behind me. My fingers felt around in my hair for the wadded-up paper and flicked it to the floor. I wiped my hands on my jeans just as another one hit.
These kids were idiots. The worst things they’ve seen on a TV I’d actually witnessed first-hand. I was hoping to make friends. But I guess it was to be war. Little could they know—war is all I’ve even known.
It was going to be a slaughter.
I chewed the end of my pencil and plotted. I knew it was the big kid in the back with the spiked-up hair and attitude I could smell in the front row. He was going down. I wondered how many boys would fall before I toppled the ultimate prize. They’d all be practice for the main event. But I’d still savor each victory.
I stayed still not even bothering to collect the gathering ickiness sticking in the back of my hair. I held my head high and did my work. Recess was coming soon. I’d show these boys that there’s a new boss in town, starting with a swift kick in the nuts and if that wasn’t enough, I’d practice my right-hook. The one Zio’s been teaching me.
***
Lunchtime was hell. And I thought I left hell back in Palermo. I was wrong. Hell is lunchtime in an elementary school cafeteria. Hundreds of eyes peered at me as I walked in. Then the whispers started. “I heard her parents died in a fire she set…”
“Her uncle is a Pimp.”
“A real one?”
“Yeah.”
“She looks like a freak with that pale skin and that red hair. No Italian looks like that. She’s fake.”
Some spoke in Italian while others were harder to make out. But it was easy to understand no one wanted me here.
Hurriedly, I stumbled in the food line, quickly grabbed whatever was there before finding my way to a table scrunched in between the garbage and an emergency exit.
“Yo! Freak!”
I turned and that was a mistake. A wad of hot mush met me in the face. I swore vehemently in Italian before grabbing a pile of napkins to clean myself.
With a bang, I set my tray down and faced the group of sixth grade boys rolling with laughter.
Fuck them, I thought. I picked up my own plate of slop and hurled it right in the face of the closest boy to me. Then I jumped on their table and pretended their food was a soccer ball and launched all sorts of shit in their stunned faces. The grand finale was me, hurtling through the air like a Diva from Monday Night Raw as I jumped high, landing on the group of boys trying to flee my ugly scene.
Some fought back.
But I gave as good as I got.
“Bella? Suspension on your first day?”
“I’m sorry, Zio. But I will never be afraid of anyone ever again. Especially not some Brooklyn born Italiano. I’m a true blood. I’m a mafioso queen. How dare they?”
“Ah, bella.” Zio hugged me tight. “You are a tiny tigress. A true survivor. Those boys didn’t know what was coming.”
“But save the fight for Salvatore not the schoolyard, eh?’
“I’ll try, Zio.”
But no one ever fucked with me again. I ruled the school after my first day. They called me Little Italy. I liked it. If they only knew how powerful my bloodline was. My people ruled all their people back in the day on that tiny slice of Mediterranean paradise I’ll always call home. But my secrets needed to stay my secrets until the time and day comes when Romina Fiorelli rises.
CHAPTER FIVE
CHLOE SITS FOR A MINUTE when she finishes.
“Are you scared of me? Think less of me?”
She bites her lip. “No. I think more. You saved her. You knew if you didn’t, they would’ve killed her.”
“Don’t give me so much credit. I craved the power. …and I did kill her. I felt her heart stop beating in my hands and her lungs exhale fighting to find air. When she fell limp in my arms, I rushed her into the back of the limo and pressed my mouth to hers trying to breathe back the life into her that I had just took.”
“See? You keep deluding yourself into thinking you’re the villain, when you really wanted to do the right thing.”
“I’ve never done the right thing. We’re barely into the story.”
“Well, it is kinda gross how you lost your V card to a hooker.”
“Men don’t have V- cards. But you better still have yours,” I warn. “For at least ten more years.”
“Ten?” She squeaks.
“If not more. I’ll cut anyone who tries to get near you, Chloe.”
She swallows hard. “I know. But you don’t need to worry. Sex terrifies me.”
“That’s just because some old fuck tried to take it from you. Did I mention I’m sending you to an all-girls boarding school?”
She rolls her eyes. “What happened next? When did you become this big, bad, mafia king?”
“Are you sure you want to keep going? I’ve never told anyone my complete life story…”
She rests her chin in her hands, “I’ve never heard anything more fascinating. Well, you could’ve left out the sex part. But it’s not like it shocked me much. I saw my first dick when I was six. My birth mom sobered up for a bit just so she could use me to get food stamps and state checks which of course she spent getting high. Anyway, she made extra on the side by giving blowies for twenty bucks. Some nights she had a line.”
“I’ll hunt her down and kill her myself.”
“She already took care of that. My social worker informed me she overdosed a few years ago.”
I shake my head at how she’s so young, but yet so old. Nothing fazes Chloe but things can still frighten her.
“You need to understand. I don’t want you to be afraid of sex, I just don’t want you to have any for a long, long, time. Wait for a man who knows how to make it good.”
“Gross. Are you, Roque Salvatore, seriously turning this into some kind of sex-pep talk? On with the story of your ill-fated love. Wait! Where is she now? Did she marry someone else? Is that why you’re so broody? Pacing the penthouse floors all night?”
“As if I’d ever let another man put a band of gold around her finger.”
“Well? What’s the deal? Why don’t you have the girl?”
“Something got in our way?”
“Something? Someone? Or your big, fat, stupid, ego?”
A wry smile ghosts my lips, �
��A bit of both. Fine back to my life story… I left Palermo. There was nothing for me there anymore. Despite the easy smiles made over cigars and bourbon, the other families moved in. It was an easy takeover. The remaining syndicates broke up Palermo into three pieces, each of them taking what they wanted. Only the Don of the Castellione’s tried to intercede and leave me a small piece of my own empire, but in the end even he rolled. But he did do me one solid. He secured my family’s assets and set it aside. Or so I had thought. Little did I know it came with strings… but we’ll get to that later. The house was closed, bank accounts secured, and he had me escorted personally to Constantine Castellione.
The man was a mafioso legend.
In Italy he was synonymous to the American’s Capone. The man is eviler than ten demons walking through hell and I handpicked him to make me one. Only I wanted to walk the earth. I wanted to die an old man. And that wasn’t going to be easy, not when destiny still called me to do more than just dick around in Italy. I always had bigger plans for the future of the Salvatore’s. America.”
I turn the page of my own journals and start reading how I felt. My past comes hurtling at me like a runaway car.
“It was only me in the back of the limo. So, there was no one to see my white knuckles or lump forming in my throat.
Despite my bravado, I knew I wasn’t half as evil as I needed to be. I was a baby villain wearing Pampers compared to what I must become. Constantine was the only person alive who could do it. No matter what he commanded I must obey. If I didn’t. I might as well give up and let the hit that was put on me come to pass. I’d never age. Never grow up, never live.”
“That’s so heavy. Life in the mob. You were my age?”
“Yes. I was fifteen when I entered Constantine’s house and by the time I left him at sixteen, I felt I’d ages six thousand years instead of one.” I pick up my drink and continue reading my own words describing the personal hell I had placed myself in…
CHAPTER SIX
