Spin Ruin: (A Mafia Romance Two-Book Bundle) (30 page)

I leaned into the mirror. The sensitive skin of my neck was reddened and raw where his scruff had abraded me. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t as though anyone was going to see me anyway.

He came in quietly, no slammed-open door or yelling or grabbing. He just stepped in as if he had every right to.

He took my shoulders. The hands that had hurt were so gentle now, exerting just enough pressure to pull me back and kiss my shoulder. His lips curved themselves to the slopes of my body as if they’d been constructed for my pleasure alone.

“Contessa,” he whispered, “I want to ask you something.”

“Yes?”

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I don’t know. You. I want you. But I don’t know how to have you.”

“What if you don’t have me? What if you’re had? You leave it to me, and I’ll take care of you.”

“Antonio, we talked about this. I have money. I couldn’t give it all away in this lifetime.”

“I don’t mean money.”

In the mirror, he considered my shoulder, and brushed the curve of my arm with his thumb like a lit fuse slowly burning.

“What do you mean, then?”

“I mean your safety,” he said. “Give me your safety. Abandon any idea you can take care of yourself.”

I turned to face him, and he pressed me against the vanity. “But I can take care of myself.”

“No.” He held a finger up. “You can pay for things. You can manage a political campaign. You can walk into any room and talk to anyone. In your world, you are the Contessa. In my world, you are helpless.”

“So, what are you going to do? Send me out in a suit of armor?”

“Don’t tempt me.” He gave a smirk, and I loved and feared it at the same time.

“Antonio, really, what are the odds Paulie is going to do something stupid to me to win this battle with you? I come from a very large, notorious family. I was engaged to the District Attorney. I’m not trying to throw that in your face; what I’m trying to say is—”

“You’re not untouchable.”

“I’m not saying I’m untouchable. I’m saying messing with me would be crazy. Suicidal. I’m not only protected by you; I’m protected by the world. It’s just who I am. Honestly, my disappearing into this apartment for too long is going to cause more of a problem.”

“How?” His eyebrows arched like landmarks, and he looked as if I’d just told him Santa Claus was at the door.

“There are places I go and people I see. Even if I have no life that you can see, someone is going to notice I’m not picking up the phone or taking lunches at Montana’s. I’m not saying it’s easy to prove an absence, but someone’s going to connect that with you and me at Catholic Charities. Someone ambitious and smarter than me.”

“Not too many of those around,” he said.

“Well, thank you. But the facts remain: I need to be let go without a fuss from you. And soon.” I poked his chest. He pulled my arm up by the wrist and put it around his waist. “You said you were going to leave the world. Under
l’uovo
. You said you were getting out. Give Paulie your business and come with me.”

“You need to watch more movies,” he said.

“Believe me, I’ve seen plenty.”

“Then you know I can’t just divide my business and walk away. Even with everything the movies get wrong, they get that part right. And with everything the FBI thinks they understand, they get that one thing right: I can’t just walk away. I can’t surrender in the middle of a fight.”

“Why not, if you have no more skin in the game?" I said. "Why wouldn’t they just let you go?”

“Imagine this. I act like a reasonable man. I divide everything and walk away. I promise you, I’d be a dead man as soon as I turned my back. And you ask why. Why? It’s because I have information. I’ve done things.”

I started to ask what, but his expression shushed me.

“Without my family to protect me, I’ll be picked up by your ex and questioned. Accused. I can either talk or not talk. If I don’t talk, I go to jail, where I’ll be murdered to keep me from talking. Or I’ll talk, and I can choose between a witness protection program, where you can’t join me because of who you are and how well-known your family is. Or I can be murdered in jail for talking.”

“What if I made a deal with Daniel to leave you alone?”

He held a finger up in my face, jaw clenched. “Do not—”

I took his wrist and kissed the inside, on the rough, blue tattoo of Mount Vesuvius. I’d asked him if it had hurt to have it burned into such a sensitive area, and he’d laughed and said he practically slept through it.

“If you made peace with Paulie, you wouldn’t have to worry about him killing me.”

He pressed my hands together between us. “It’s been quiet these few days. Zo is working on rebuilding the shop. The Sicilians, Donna Maria and all of them, have stopped complaining that the Neapolitans are fighting. I’m just starting to breathe.”

“Can I speak my mind?” I said.

“How can you not?”

“I don’t trust her patience. When a political opponent doesn’t respond to an attack or an offer, he’s not just sitting there waiting for something to happen; he’s gathering ammunition. The worst thing you can do is give him time to arm himself.”

He pressed our hands together pensively then kissed my fingertips. “You have a devil of a mind, Contessa.”

“What are you going to do about it, Capo?”

He stared down at our pressed hands as if considering something. “There is something distracting the Sicilians. A wedding.”

“They can’t plan a wedding and run a business at the same time?” I said.

“Not their wedding. It’s a wedding between a Neapolitan family, the Bortolusis, and a rival Sicilian family, the Leis. This doesn’t happen often. Sicilian mafias have a tower of payoffs. Don, boss, underboss, capo, on and on. I’m Neapolitan camorra. We’re smaller. We don’t step on each other. We don’t have all these people to answer to, just the capo then Napoli if something goes bad.”

“Like with you and Paulie?”

“Like that," he said. "But we don’t marry across organizations. Sicilians and Neapolitans don’t have a matching structure. It’s more trouble then it’s worth. So it’s just not done. Because marriage is for love when possible, but for business, when necessary.”

“And this one is business?”

“Yes. And it’s a problem, a big problem, because it makes them too powerful, now. And Donna Maria Carloni needs to answer it or get crushed. She has a granddaughter, raised in Sicily, a good match for a nice Neapolitan boy.”

“Do not even tell me you’re short-listed.”

He smiled. “They have someone. Nice boy. Little
stupido
, but he’ll do for her.”

“And what’s your job in all this?”

“My job is to fuck you until the neighbors think I’m murdering you.”

I kissed his cheek, his chin, his lips. He was erect in less than a minute, and when he carried me to the bedroom, I fell into a suit of armor.

antonio

’d gotten used to helicopters. I’d seen them in Napoli as they blasted along the coast, taking tourists along the beach or finding lost boats. But helicopters—Los Angeles style, with their low circles over a block or house—were a different experience.

The first time I’d been exposed to the loud
thup-thup-thup,
I’d been near LAX, having just gotten off the plane in order to do the dirty business of avenging my sister’s rape with certain death.

“It’s called a double-double,” Paulie said. I didn’t know him yet. He was just the guy who’d met me at the airport and driven me to a restaurant for a hamburger.

“It’s huge.” I held the humungous thing in one hand and a soda, which was also too big, in the other. In Napoli, we didn’t eat like that until the sun set.

We stood in the parking lot because there were no seats, and Paulie said it would be more private anyway. He leaned against the red Ferrari and bit into his burger. Sauce dripped down his chin, and he caught it with a napkin. “It’s good. Try it.”

As soon as I lifted the sandwich, the helicopter came into range. I looked up then back to Paulie.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Not us.”

I looked up again. The helicopter turned in circles over the skies.

“It’s three hundred meters away,” I said.

“Is that far or near? What the fuck is that?”

“Close. And low. No one cares?”

“Would you eat the thing? Jesus. I’ll eat it if you don’t want it.”

I was hungry. I put my soda in the tray that sat on the hood of the car, and bit down.

“It’s good,” I said, trying to ignore the low-flying helicopter with the letters LAPD painted across it.

“
Molto bene
? Right?”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” he said.

“Speak Italian. Ever again, please. It’s like gears grinding.”

“Fuck you, dago motherfucker.”

“
Porci Americano
.”

“Oink oink, asshole,” he said with a mouth full of food.

I replied, but I’ve forgotten what I said, and the sound of the helicopter drowned me out anyway. But in the past weeks, the sound of helicopters has reminded me of Paulie and of what had happened to our friendship because of a woman.

“What do you want to eat?” I asked, when the sound of traffic helicopters woke Theresa. “I’ll have Zia bring it.”

She rolled onto her stomach, tucking her hands under her thighs. “She hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you.”

“She won’t look me in the eye.”

“She doesn’t trust Irish Catholics. It’s not personal.” I drew my hand over her ass, which was snowy and pure. She didn’t fidget in her nudity, didn’t try to cover herself or play at modesty. Not with me.

“I want to see Katrina," she said. "She’s been calling.”

The movie director, Katrina Ip, had started the trouble in the first place. Theresa was financing her movie. I supported her talking to Katrina, just not as long as Paulie was acting crazy. “Not yet,” I said. “Soon.”

She rolled over and got out of the bed. I grabbed her by the wrist. I think I had her more firmly than I’d intended, because she tried to yank away and couldn’t.

“This is not a joke,” I said. “This is not a competition for who has control over you.”

She growled. The guttural sound of it stiffened my dick. I pulled her harder. “The first time I lost a woman I loved, it was easy to get my vengeance, but it didn’t bring her back. Nothing brought her back. The second time, when my sister was hurt, they were ready for me. I did what I had to do, but now the consequence is that I can’t go home. If anything happens to you, the consequence will be my death. I’m ready to die if anyone takes you. But they won’t kill or hurt you because I was lazy or because you were proving some point about your independence.”

“You can’t sustain this, Capo.”

“I can. As long as Paulie sets himself against me, you’re a target.”

She softened, moving into me, so I didn’t have to grip her so hard. “And the next enemy? Who is it going to be? If you win with Paulie, that only sets you up for the next challenge. I can’t live like this.”

She balled her fists in frustration. I pitied her. She hadn’t been born into this. She didn’t understand it.

“Let me ask you a question,” I said. “You have a, shall we say, infamous family. You aren’t unknown.”

“I’ve worked my whole life to be normal.”

“Good job. You’ve been shopping recently?”

“Before you holed me up?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I went to Rodeo on—”

“To the grocery store. To buy towels. Sheets. Soap. Have you ever washed a dish?”

“Yes, I have," she said. "But I see your point. Even if it’s irrelevant.”

I pulled her onto the bed and wrapped my arms around her. “Tell me about that scar on your lip, and tell me you haven’t always been protected.”

She rested her head on my chest and didn’t say anything. I thought she’d fallen asleep. I was considering how to get out from under her, so I could do what I had to do for the day, when she spoke.

“We rented a cabin every year, up by Santa Barbara. It was a campground, but really, more of a pretend-rustic resort. And there was this kid who lived in the area. He was older than me. I think I was seven when we first met, and he was eleven or twelve. He lived in an RV with his mother, and they just had it arranged so he could go to the schools up there. But, every year I found him by this narrow little river at the edge of the campsite. I was the youngest girl of seven, and I was so sick of my family. My mom just talked to the other moms and drank wine. And my dad talked business with his friends. So boring. And this guy? He was wild. We climbed trees and went past every fence we were supposed to stay behind. I think I was the kid sister he always wanted. Or maybe not. Because…”

She stopped herself to sigh, wiggling around until she was looking up at me. “I was thirteen, and he was older. We met in the same place, the Thursday of Labor Day weekend. After dinner, same as always. It was different. I was different. We sat on our rock and talked for a while. He showed me his high-school ring, and then he kissed me. You know, I didn’t think about how young I was. I just thought I liked him. And maybe I loved him. Or, maybe I just wanted to. But, God, I never told anyone this before.”