by Leah Wilde
“Or what?” Guido said, grinning again, his eyes alight with dangerous glee, like he was literally getting off on torturing her this way. “What are you going to do, Fiona?”
“I’ll call the cops,” Fiona said reflexively, saying the first strategy that popped into her mind.
But that clearly didn’t impress Guido or freak him out the way she’d hoped, as he just laughed and clapped his hands together loudly, like she’d just told the most hilarious joke he’d ever heard. “That’s good. That’s really good. You know, Fiona, I figured that my dad was a complicated man. I thought he was interested in you for more than just your good looks. But I guess I was wrong. You’re not very smart, are you?”
Fiona didn’t say anything, staring at him with as much venom as she could muster.
“Why don’t you come back to the compound? If you’re worried about my mother, don’t be. I can deal with her,” Guido said, stepping even closer to Fiona, until she could feel his hot, sickly breath attack her skin.
Fiona cringed backwards, colliding with the wall behind her in an attempt to put distance between their bodies. “You’re pathetic,” she spat out as Guido laughed at her again.
“Oh, yeah? Tell me why that is.”
“You think I’m going to go with you just because you’re the big boss now? You think you’re untouchable, don’t you?” she said to him, feeling hysteria start to grip at her heart, making her say things she shouldn’t. Be smart, she told herself, fighting back the wave of bile that rose up through her throat. Be smart about this. Don’t let him win just because he scares you. You have to give Vince a chance to get the information from Mrs. Romano.
“I am untouchable, though,” Guido said, slowly walking over until he was standing over Fiona, who was boxed in with nowhere to go. She couldn’t run from him, and she couldn’t scream for help, either. In this neighborhood, nobody was likely to come to her rescue. It was just her dad, who was probably half-asleep with music blaring out of his headphones. Besides, Fiona wouldn’t want to get him involved anyway. With his weak heart, there was only so much that he could do. “There’s nothing you can do to hurt me.”
The desire to tell him what was really happening was so intense that Fiona had to bite the inside of her lip to keep herself from spilling every last detail about her plan with Vince. No, she told herself. You have to be strong. For both of you. For Paulie.
She thought about reaching into her pocket to tell Vince that Guido was harassing her and making her feel unsafe. She knew that he would drop everything and run to her side to protect her, but even if she did manage to grab her phone and make a call or text before Guido could stop her, that would just endanger the plan with Mama Romano. This was their one shot, the one opportunity they had to get Mrs. Romano to let her guard down and confess some of her crimes on tape so that they could use the evidence against her. Fiona couldn’t risk that, even if Guido was now squatting down next to her, reaching out to rub her leg and making her want to throw up just from the disgusting way he smirked at her.
“You’re going to come with me,” Guido said, reaching forward to cup the side of her face and move some of her hair out of the way. Fiona felt like retching right there in his lap, but she held herself back, glaring at him with all of the anger in her body, just so he would know how much she hated him. “I don’t want to fuck you here in this heap of shit. Come back to the compound with me, and we’ll see about your new place in the Romano family business.”
“Fuck you,” Fiona spat out, shrinking back further against the wall and pushing Guido’s hands away.
His smirk dropped, then, replaced by a scowl as he reached into his pocket to pull out a gun. Fiona held herself back from gasping in fear as Guido pressed the end of the gun against her head, the cold metal making all of her body freeze like she’d already been shot.
“Oh, you’re going to fuck me, all right,” Guido said, shoving the gun harder against her head until she skidded across the floor away from him. “Oh, yeah, run. Make it fun for me. I like a little entertainment before I fuck the life out of you.”
“You’re a sick piece of shit,” Fiona stuttered out, crawling across the floor towards the front door, hoping against hope that someone would see her in distress and come help her. “I’ll scream, you know. My dad’s in the house. He’ll hear me and come fuck you up.”
“No, he won’t,” Guido said confidently, grabbing the back of Fiona’s shirt and dragging her back into the house before slapping her on the side of her face. “I’ll shoot him if he even so much as walks out here. Trust me. I have a lot of experience killing, babydoll, and your dad won’t faze me even a little bit.”
Fiona swallowed to clear the huge lump in her throat, nodding to herself as she considered her options. Screaming wasn’t a viable choice, nor was trying to make a break for it by dashing to the street. Now that she told Guido that her father was in the house, he could just go and shoot her dad the second she tried to resist. Fuck, Fiona thought as she realized the severity of her situation. She was stuck.
“Now get up,” Guido said. “We’re going to the compound.”
Fiona forced herself to move, straightening up and following Guido out of the apartment into his car, every cell of her body screaming in protest the entire time. Guido nudged at her until she climbed up into the passenger seat before walking around the side of the car to jump into the driver’s side. “Now tell me, what’s your favorite kind of wine? I need to know how to make you loosen up,” Guido said as he put the car into drive and pulled away from Fiona’s apartment complex.
“Fuck you,” Fiona muttered, turning to stare out the window, fighting off tears as she took in the sight of the blue skies around her. What was going to happen to her? Was Guido going to keep her as a sex slave, permanently tied up at the compound? Or was he going to kill her after using her once, discarding her so that his mother wouldn’t get mad? Either way, this was the end of her life. She’d rather die than let Guido touch her.
But what about Dad? Fiona wondered, panic surging up inside of her as she thought of her father. Guido was definitely the type of vindictive piece of shit to take it out on Fiona’s father if she posed even the slightest bit of a problem to him. Even if Fiona managed to get herself killed before Guido could rape her, that didn’t mean that her dad wouldn’t still be in danger. Goddammit. Goddammit, goddammit, fuck it all to hell!
“Be nice to me,” Guido said, reaching over to smack Fiona around the side of her head, almost making her collide into the window beside her. “Or I’ll have to find ways to punish you. You know we’ve got guys posted at your dad’s house. I can make this incredibly painful for you if you don’t listen to me.”
It took every ounce of strength in Fiona’s body not to spit in Guido’s perfectly smug little face. She held herself back, clenching her hands into fists underneath the seat just to hold on. Guido was serious about this. He wasn’t going to let this go after fucking her once. He was going to control her until she died, and once that happened, he’d probably give the kill order to the men sent over to her apartment, ready to murder her dad at any second.
That settles it, then, Fiona realized, a wave of calm washing over her as she settled on a solution. She’d have to find a way out of this without getting killed and wrest Guido’s power away. But how?
Chapter Twenty-Five
Vince was jittery, his fingers trembling a little as he poured the wine for himself and his mother. “That enough?” he asked, looking up at his mother, who gestured for him to keep going.
“It’s been a hard week,” she explained with a tight, unattractive smile. She looked tanner than the day before, her skin more wrinkly. Vince wondered if she’d made a stop at the tanning salon after his dad’s funeral. It wouldn’t exactly surprise him, given his mother’s usual priorities.
“Tell me about it,” Vince said, sliding into a seat across from his mom. “Really, I’d like to know. Has it been hard readjusting with Guido in charge?”
> Mama Romano took a large gulp from her wine before answering. “It hasn’t been the easier transition in the world, no,” she admitted, licking her lips before taking another sip of wine. “Guido’s a temperamental fellow, you know; he always has been. But I know how to rein him in.”
Vince wasn’t so sure of that, thinking back on the deals with the underage girls that he’d discovered with Fiona, but for his mother’s sake, he nodded and smiled. “Of course. You know, I’ve just been worried about you, that’s all.”
“Why’s that?” his mother asked, furrowing her brows together in confusion.
Vince felt a little pang of guilt at that. He knew he wasn’t the best son in the world, but it hurt to realize that his mother didn’t expect him to care about her. Then again, she didn’t really deserve it, now did she?
“I just know that you’ve been through a lot this year,” Vince said after sipping a little of his wine. He wanted to keep his head, though, so he wouldn’t drink much more. The wine was for his mother’s benefit, making sure she got loose enough to start talking about her more secretive business deals.
“Every year, really,” his mother replied, drinking more wine until her glass was practically empty. She reached across the table to pour herself some more from the bottle. “But you’re right. This year has been particularly busy.”
“And really hard, emotionally, too, I imagine,” Vince added.
“Why’s that?” Mama Romano asked.
“Well, losing Dad, of course, but then the other older guys who have passed away this year. Bobby. Old Tommy. You know, a couple others that I’ve heard through the grapevine died recently,” Vince explained, keeping his tone light and casual so that his mother wouldn’t get suspicious.
His mother was silent for a moment, though, staring at him like she was sizing him up. Vince met her gaze as confidently as he could, keeping a soft smile on his face to compensate for the fact that his heart was thundering in his chest like a stallion, adrenaline flooding his body as his mother looked at him with some mixture of hope and suspicion in her eyes.
Finally, she cleared her throat and downed her second glass of wine. “Mm, this is good,” she murmured, pouring herself a third glass. Vince smirked to himself when his mother wasn’t looking. He knew he could count on his mom’s trusty old alcoholism to pull through.
Yuri appeared a moment later, placing fancy plates of pasta and chicken on the table, along with a side salad for each of them. “Thank you, Yuri,” Vince said, nodding at his servant to go back into the kitchen and leave them in privacy.
“How have you been doing finding replacements for the people we’ve lost over the past year?” Vince asked, bringing the conversation back around to the men his mother had indirectly killed.
Mama Romano shrugged, taking another deep drink of wine before beginning to pick fussily at her side salad. “You know, that part wasn’t very difficult. I was prepared for it.”
“Oh, yeah? Were Tommy and the rest in poor health before they went?”
Mrs. Romano paused, her fork frozen in midair as she looked back over at her son, making tiny beads of sweat pop up at the back of Vince’s neck as he tried to look as unassuming as possible. “All right. Who told you?”
Panic sparked inside of Vince’s chest, but he kept his cool as best as he could, shrugging as he said, “About Tommy going? I don’t know, I think Guido might have texted me the news a couple months ago…”
“No, that’s not what I mean,” Mrs. Romano said, putting her fork down and reaching over to finish her third glass of wine in just a manner of minutes.
“What do you mean?” Vince asked, forcing a confused look on his face.
“The hits!” Mrs. Romano said, raising her voice as she got to her feet. Vince was a little nervous that she was about to flee from his apartment entirely, but she just walked around the table to grab the wine bottle, pouring out the rest of its contents into her glass, even though her speech was already starting to slur a little bit. “The hits I called on Tommy and Bobby and Sal and the rest,” she said.
Vince felt his heart stutter in his chest, probably letting his genuine shock slip onto his face. “Uh, Ma…” He trailed off, unsure of what to say.
“Was it that little whore? Fiona?” Mrs. Romano said, saying Fiona’s name in a lilting, mocking tone of voice before she cackled and finished off the wine, going over to the counter by the mantelpiece to grab another full bottle. “You want some of this?”
“Sure,” Vince said, putting his nearly full glass out so his mother could mix in some of the new wine. She was continuing to talk to him. That was good. It would be best if he had as much information as possible to use against his mother.
“It was that little bitch. Had to be. I bet Guido told her,” his mother spat out as she drank more wine, shaking her head in disappointment towards her younger son.
“So Guido was involved…?” Vince said slowly, encouraging his mother to go on.
“Of course, of course,” Mama Romano said, waving her hand dismissively. “Guido and I made sure we got rid of the problem people, if you know what I mean.”
“Tommy and Sal and Bobby and Harry?” Vince prompted her.
His mother nodded. “Yep. All those useless old codgers. You know, for thirty fucking years, I ran the show, and they all worshipped your idiot father instead. No disrespect to the dead, of course,” she said, waving her glass in the air as if she was addressing some ghosts in the room.
“They never respected you? Is that why you had them killed?” Vince asked her, tasting the coppery flavor of his own blood in his mouth as fear and excitement built even higher inside of him.
“Yes. Well, that was part of it,” Mama Romano said, leaning forward in her seat so she was closer to Vince. It seemed like she was excited or maybe even relieved at finally having the opportunity to talk to him. Again, he felt a little guilty about that, but it was hard to feel sorrowful for long when he remembered the extent of his mother’s actions. “They always treated me like I was this stupid bimbo, you know, who got lucky by getting knocked up with you. That wasn’t it. They never understood that Paulie was nothing without me. Where would he be if I hadn’t driven him, if I hadn’t led him to where he needed to go? Huh? Nowhere! Fucking nowhere! The Romano name would mean nothing if it weren’t for me. But none of them realize that.”
Despite everything, despite his loyalty to his father, to Fiona, to the legacy of his family, he felt heavy in his heart, which ached for his mother, his poor, drunk, foolish mother who thought she’d finally won. It was tragic, in a way, recording her like this when she finally trusted him enough to tell him the truth.
“But they were in the way, right? It wasn’t just a pissing match with those old fuckers, was it?” Vince asked, prompting his mother to continue.
“Right,” Mama Romano replied, pouring herself yet another drink, even though she was swaying back and forth in her seat like a toddler. “I knew that once…once Paulie was gone, they wouldn’t back Guido. Or you, really. They’d want to take over for themselves. And then what, huh? They’d have run the Romano business into the ground with their stupid ideas and their weak little limitations.”
“You knew Dad was going to die?” Vince asked. He almost didn’t want the answer. It would be simpler, easier if Fiona was wrong. If it was all just some terrible coincidence, an awful turn of events that nobody could have foreseen or predicted. But the truth was rarely as merciful as fantasy. And Vince had to know the truth.
Mama Romano paused, though, looking up at him with something like fear in her eyes, if a woman like her was even capable of fear. “I had a suspicion,” she whispered.
“Why?” Vince asked.
His mother hesitated, opening her mouth and then closing it a few times in quick succession before she finally sighed and pressed her head into her hands. “I’m so sorry, honey,” she whispered.
Vince felt his heart fall through his stomach, his eyes falling shut by themselves as he let
the truth sink into him. His mother had his father killed. The two people he was supposed to trust most in the world had hated each other and driven each other to insanity. It was a lot to take in, even though Fiona had warned him about it.
“I should have been able to stop it,” Mama Romano whispered the next moment, tearing Vince back out of his thoughts.
“What? You mean, you didn’t…?” Vince trailed off, incapable of saying the words out loud, though he knew it was probably crucial to do so for the sake of his mother’s official confession.
“Of course not!” his mother yelled. “I loved your father. I never could’ve…” She sighed and shook her head, steeling herself before she pushed the words out. “I never would’ve hurt him, let alone kill him. But I knew that Guido was upset. He got a peek at the will that your dad had drawn up, and he just went ballistic. Sometimes I think that your dad put you as the heir just as insurance so that Guido wouldn’t have incentive to kill him and inherit the business.” Mama Romano paused, shaking her head sadly again. “I should’ve stopped it.”
