And then, just like that, the motherfucker unlocks the door and walks out on me.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
LUCA
I lose my goddamn mind when I’m alone with Finch.
What I planned to do once he was settled and happy and all the boys had fucked off: write out a list of potential crew members to run by Tino.
What I did: spent an hour in bed plundering his body.
Every time I look at him, I want to give him the world. I want to do everything in my power to make those eyes shine gold, gleam green, light up with joy. God help me, I want to make my husband the happiest man on earth.
But I can’t. I need to remember the bigger picture. Maybe one day when our enemies have been dealt with…but to make sure that day comes, I need to be able to think. To plan. To strategize.
I take a long walk around Central Park, and the night air helps cool my blood. I’m familiar with the Park at night; I cut my teeth in the New York gay scene cruising in the Ramble. It occurs to me I’ll never be able to do that again. But thinking about those days doesn’t make me nostalgic for what I’ve lost.
If anything, I feel happy about what I’ve gained.
I stop at the Alice in Wonderland sculpture on the way back and think about how my own life has been turned upside down. It’s only when I find myself grinning at the Cheshire Cat that I come to my senses.
“Stupido,” I mutter to myself. What the hell am I doing, letting my thoughts creep back to Finch? I need to hold back those emotions that are threatening to creep up and over the walls I’ve built around them. Now is not the time to let emotions baffle and bemuse me.
We’re not safe, not yet.
I make sure I get back late, hoping he’ll have taken the hint and gone to bed. Thankfully, he has, although there’s a note on the kitchen counter when I go in there to make myself a sandwich.
I ordered takeout. Olive Garden. That’s what you Italians eat, isn’t it?
And when I look in the fridge, just like he says, he’s ordered food from Olive Garden.
I’d never tell Tino Morelli or anyone in my crew this, but I actually do like Olive Garden. And I’m fucking starving, so I dive right in, even though I’m bristling at the sarcasm.
To keep my clear head, I don’t spend the night in the master bedroom with him. When we moved in, I made sure Finch saw me set up another bedroom down the hallway. It was smaller than the master, but still bigger than any bedroom I’d had in my life. It has a bed and a desk in it, and that’s all I need. Predictably, Finch objected to it.
“But we have a bedroom, right down there, for both of us. And a big bed for us to fuck ourselves silly in every night.”
Frank, who had come upstairs with us to have a look around the townhouse, turned tail in the doorway and walked off down the hall. I looked down into Finch’s face.
“I work late most nights, angel. I don’t want to disturb you when I come home.”
“You won’t. I want you to wake me up.” The pout had returned.
“I won’t stay in here every night, only if I’m out really late,” I’d said as a compromise, because it was hard to deny Finch anything when he was looking at me with those eyes of his.
I go to my own room now and lock the door behind me. I need to keep my head clear, keep hold of the ideas I’ve had during my walk in the Park. When I’m just about to fall asleep, I hear padding feet in the hallway outside, and the door knob twists.
“Luca?” His voice is soft, uncertain.
I don’t reply.
After a moment, the footsteps retreat.
The next morning I’m out early, before Finch has a chance to catch me. Marco is here, thank God, and I let him into the kitchen to wait for Finch.
“Let me know if the bird flies the coop,” I tell him. “You go with him everywhere, Marco. Drive him wherever he wants to go. But you let me know who he’s with, who he meets, where he goes. You hear me?”
“Sure thing, boss.”
Boss. I like that.
As for me, I head out to where Frank is waiting for me in a car. “What’s on the agenda today?” I ask as we take off from the curb.
“Good morning to you, too,” he growls. Great. He only gets cranky like this when Celia’s bitched him out about something. “We’ve got debts to collect and tears to make, Georgie.”
“But I haven’t picked my crew yet. Who’s on the job?”
“That’s something you’ll have to take up with Tino, I guess. Nothing a plebe like me can do about that.”
“What’s crawled up your ass this morning?” I sigh. Frank’s bad moods are sullen and childish, and I hate when he gets in them. It’ll make him fucking unbearable all day.
“Cee’s bugging me to raise her allowance,” he grumbles. “Since she started hanging out with your lovely lady, she’s got a taste for luxury.”
Frank is literally the only one I would ever let get away with calling Finch names like that. But even I reach the end of my patience sometimes. “You keep making fun of him like that, our friends today won’t be the only ones in tears, Frank. You show some fucking respect. That’s my husband you’re talking about.”
Frank is quiet for a while after that. “All I’m saying,” he says at last, “is that your husband is putting ideas in my wife’s head. But I’m the one who has to pony up the cash.”
I’m not any happier than Frank about this blooming friendship between Finch and Celia, if only because of her ready stash of prescription drugs. But better that he’s with her than with his old friends, I guess, and I haven’t seen him popping pills since he got out of the hospital. He’s been too excited about the move.
“We’ve got too many problems right now for Cee’s shopping to be a concern. Get your wife under control, Frank. You’re the man of the house, aren’t you?”
Frank gives a dark chuckle. “You got no idea, little bro, how hard your life’s gonna get now you have someone waiting for you at home. Just you wait a month, and then we’ll have another chat about it.”
“Whatever. Who’s meeting us for the collections?”
“I told you, how should I know? You’re Capo, aren’t you? If you haven’t organized a crew yet, then I guess it’s just those damn D’Amato brothers out on their own today.”
I’m about to lose my temper, when I realize that Frank is right.
I’m Capo.
I’m the one who tells people where to go. I’m the one who organizes everything. And if I haven’t pulled a crew together by now, I have no one to blame but myself. I have goals in mind, things to raise with Tino, but so much has been happening that I haven’t even had time to celebrate my promotion yet.
Or the fact that I never have to take another order from Sam Fuscone as long as I live.
I resolve to write out that list of names and talk it over with Tino as soon as possible. In the meantime…
“You know what? I had a shitty night. You had a shitty morning. Why don’t we take out our frustrations the old-fashioned way?”
“Yeah?” Frank glances over at me with a grin. “Just like old times, eh? I’ll hold ‘em, you work ‘em.”
Maybe a Capo doesn’t need to get involved in the dirty work, but today I find I want to.
When I get home that night it’s late again, and there’s no Olive Garden waiting for me in the fridge this time.
Quiet, I tell my complaining stomach, as I survey the poorly-stocked fridge. When I move up higher in the chain, maybe we could hire a chef like Tino. I assume party-boy Finch is no home cook. I wonder what he ate for dinner. Then it occurs to me: I can check.
I shake out my right hand as I contemplate the slim pickings in the kitchen. It’s been a while since my hand hurt like this, but it’s a familiar and welcome ache. Frank and I are a good team, and while my knuckles are going to be bruised tomorrow, I found peace and satisfaction in the work we did today. It reminds me how important it is for me to pull a crew together, as soon as possible. But first I slap together
some bread and cheese, sit at the kitchen counter to eat, and check on the Finch Report.
Under Marco’s watchful eye, Finch went to the gym in the morning, the only one I approved him for, because it’s owned and operated by one of the Morelli Family’s allied clans. Had lunch out at a café. Dropped by Celia’s place in the afternoon, but she was on her way out to see her mother, and Finch declined the invitation to go along. He came back here, made Marco play cards with him, then made dinner for himself—eggs. Hm. Ten o’clock, Finch went to bed. Marco handed off to the night guards at midnight.
Nothing to report since then.
I close the email and try to put Finch out of my mind. I have important shit to do before I sleep, like finalizing that list of names for my crew.
The soldiers are easy enough. I know the men I want, the ones who are loyal to me already, the ones who appreciate my work and treat me with respect, even from outside Fuscone’s crew. Then there are the men who hate Fuscone as much as I do, or maybe more. Then there are the ambitious ones, the ones I know who are smart and shrewd, the ones who don’t care if their Capo is queer as long as working in my crew aligns with their interests.
Then the most important one, the man I’m going to need as my own second-in-command, just like I was for Sam Fuscone. Someone to give the orders when I’m not there, my 2IC to keep the troops in line.
I know Frank wants to be that for me, and of course I’ll find a role for my brother. He’s loyal, he’s unquestioning, he’s tough. He’s great muscle, built wide and thick, with a natural scowl.
But he’s not a leader, my brother.
I love him and I’ll do anything for him, but I want my commander to be someone who can persuade and charm, not just threaten and punish. I want a counterpoint to my own personality. Frank is likeable enough, but he’s only got one tool in his toolbox, and that’s violence. I need a clever man, not just a violent one. I want someone to keep me on my toes, someone who’ll tell me like it is, not what I want to hear. Someone with their own ambitions so I can reposition him in my place when the time comes, and I move up the hierarchy.
An ally in the wars to come. Because I can see what’s coming, and I need to find a way to take advantage of it.
I don’t finish my strategizing until well past two, but once in bed I still can’t sleep. Half an hour later I get up, deciding that I need a glass of water, and while I’m down in the kitchen I can check that the night guards are still awake outside. I wouldn’t put it past them to sleep on the job, even though they know it would end badly for them.
But when I peek through the curtains in the foyer, I see the night guards out there, alert and awake, just like they should be. I’m glad, because I’ve included these two in my list of potentials.
I head back upstairs, but when I get to the door of my room, I pause.
Just down the hallway my husband is sleeping in our marital bed.
My own words come back to me, and I flush in the dark hallway, even with no one to see. You’re a good fuck. We can make some sort of arrangement for our physical needs.
My body aches just thinking of him, like it’s crying out for Finch: to feel his hot skin against mine, the clench of him on my cock. I already miss the way he gasps at my touch.
But I need to keep my head together, too.
In the end, I turn away from my bedroom door and head to the master suite. I’m half afraid he’s done exactly as I did, and locked the door. But he hasn’t. The door opens silently as soon as I twist the handle, and I can hear his steady, slow breathing. He’s deeply asleep, the kind of sleep only children and the innocent enjoy.
I slide into the bed trying not to disturb him, but he wakes with a start. I stifle his cry by pressing my lips to his, rolling on top of him and pushing his legs open with mine. Within a breath, he goes from fear to desire, and moans around the tongue in his mouth. When I pull away, he begins to mumble a question, but I put my hand over his mouth, my fingers dipping in, letting him suck on them.
When they’re soaked, I take my fingers from his mouth and push them between his legs, wriggling under his balls impatiently to get to that hole I’m so desperate for. I mean to make it fast, careless. I mean to bring us both a quick release, but I can’t. I get lost in the wonder of his body despite myself.
I make sure he comes first this time, making it good for him, making him cry out my name, and I don’t try to stifle him when he comes, letting him call out his thanks to me before I let go myself, filling him up, whispering his name into his neck like a private prayer.
Afterwards, I hold him close until his breathing returns to its deep steady rhythm.
And then I slip out of the bed and go back to my own, where sleep finds me at last.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
FINCH
Fun fact: there’s not much to do when you’re a marital hostage to the Morelli family, especially with no phone, no internet, and no goddamn hobbies.
There’s a TV, but I can’t seem to find the comedies funny or the dramas interesting. Besides, Marco likes to watch ESPN all day and gets antsy if I turn over to anything else. There’s a library, but I’m not much of a reader, although Luca is, judging by the number of books I’ve seen lying around the house over the last few days, always open, in the process of being read. Real boring shit, like biographies of dead Romans or modern entrepreneurs. But I never seen Luca himself, just these remnants of his reading.
I find myself wondering what the hell I used to do all day when I was free as a bird, stretching my fine finch wings over the great City of New York. Because I can’t remember much of substance, but I was never alone.
Not like this.
I used to go to the gym most mornings, or for a run with some buddies. Then I’d have lunch with more friends at my favorite cafés—a different one each day, to spread the love around. I’d hang with an arty crowd in the afternoons who were looking to procrastinate, maybe chill in Central Park; if anyone I knew had a job, sometimes I’d crash their workplaces and see what they were up to. Nights were for partying, for chasing highs, for finding a warm body to spend a few hours with.
Everything I did revolved around reducing any time alone so I didn’t have to think. And if I ever did find myself alone too long, I could kill the panic with a benzo, maybe watch some porn and jerk off.
These days I don’t see many people. These days there’s too much time to think.
I’m only allowed to go to one specific gym where all the Italian types hang out. It’s got none of the high-tech machines I’m used to, and it stinks like a gym locker. No artisanal teas or smart water after a workout; no hot men to stare at and maybe hook up with in the showers, not that I’d want to these days. But even if one of these dudes were actually into it, none of them would dare to approach me. Marco hangs around like a cold I can’t shake off, glowering at anyone who even nods at me.
And all of them, without a doubt, recognize me as Luca D’Amato’s husband. I can hear his name whispered around when they think I’m not listening. They all look for the ring on my finger, just to see if it’s true, and then I might as well be a dirty sock in the changing room for all the attention they pay me.
Marco comes with me to the cafés for lunch, sitting there right next to me so that even when old friends come up to say hi, he’s an intimidating void of warning. It’s embarrassing, and people have started just staying away from me now, so after a week I don’t bother going out for lunch. I get it to go, and make the smallest of small talk.
I try dropping in on Celia a few times, but she’s actually busy. She has shit to do, even though she doesn’t work and she has no kids. Who knew? She does a bunch of volunteer work for the local Catholic church, which seems really boring and mostly involves washing and ironing donated clothes. Once Marco and I go with her to do the grocery shopping, and it’s like stepping into another world. Celia seemed to enjoy having me there, and I guess it was better than watching her sort clothes, but grocery shopping only happens every
two weeks.
So after a few weeks I just don’t bother going out anymore.
I send out for food or make my own depressing sandwiches. I still go to the gym, because I’m vain, and I refuse to let this hard-won body go to seed just because my life’s on a downward spiral.
Every day I feel like I’m drying up from not having that regular contact with people. I terrified the postman one day, waiting for his footsteps outside and then flinging the door open before he could put the mail in the slot. I tried to invite him in for coffee, but he looked like he thought I was a serial killer or something. I guess the two hitmen at the door and Marco looming behind me in the entryway didn’t inspire confidence.
Marco’s okay. He’ll talk to me if I talk to him, but he’s mostly into sports. Sometimes I go out on the stoop and talk to the guards there, but they either shut down conversation or talk in monosyllables. Plus, they keep calling me Mr. D’Amato, and it pisses me off.
“It’s Mr. Donovan, you fuckers,” I said the other day, and stormed back inside.
I wonder how they covered that in their daily report to Luca, because I know they email him about everything I do. I even invited Marco into the bathroom with me the other day to inspect my toilet leavings.
He declined, but I bet Luca still got a report about the offer.
And as for that fucker I married, he’s like a ghost in this house. He gets up early so he’s gone by the time I wake, and he never comes home before midnight. If this were a normal marriage, I might have trust issues about the whole thing. I might think he’s getting tail elsewhere, maybe some boy toy he’s banging out in Brooklyn or something.
But I know he’s staying true.
How do I know? Well, maybe it’s because I know my man, and whatever else he is, he’s loyal. He made a vow to be faithful, and he’ll keep it.
There’s that.
Married to the Mobster Page 18
