4. Carmine
4
Carmine
C armine drew his fist back and punched the man in front of him in the face again. Two teeth and blood came flying out of his mouth. “I’m so sick of having to come all the way down here to handle you fuckin’ idiots!”
“Carmine, I—”
C quickly drew his nine and let off a single round, silencing the man for good. He turned and looked at his older brother Gennaro. “Call them muthafuckas and have them clean this shit up.”
“I already did because I knew you weren’t letting his ass walk out of here,” he chuckled and shook his head, knowing his little brother like the back of his hand.
“Good,” Carmine tucked his weapon.
“You went and saw your toy ?” Gennaro taunted.
Carmine yoked G up and gave him a menacing glare. “If I have to tell you one more time to stop calling her that, dad will be burying you next!” He let him go with a shove.
Gennaro chuckled, dusting off his shirt. “For someone who isn’t even fuckin’, you sure are protective over your lil’ fling.”
“Watch your fuckin’ mouth when it comes to her,” Carmine plucked G in the middle of his forehead before walking out of the building.
Carmine absolutely hated it whenever either of his brothers spoke about his situation with Saige. It was complicated, but he enjoyed every minute he got to spend with her. If his father knew that he was messing around with a black woman, he’d lose his fuckin’ shit, but Carmine wasn’t worried about that. He knew Saige hadn’t and would never tell anyone what they had going on. Even if she did, the chances of his father finding out about it were slim to none with him living in an entirely different state.
When Carmine initially met Saige, there was something about her that he couldn’t resist. He knew he was taking a major chance when he approached her, but that was something he was willing to do. Finding out that Saige was a virgin was a shocker to him. It was rare to find a virgin, let alone a twenty-two-year-old virgin. While he was heavily attracted to her, taking her virginity wasn’t a line he was willing to cross. He was certain that if he took her virginity, it was going to change both their lives.
He wasn’t even sure that she’d accept his proposal of being his sugar baby. He had to have her, but that was the only capacity in which he saw fit to work for them. A true relationship was out of the question, which was why he didn’t want to take her virginity. He loved her deeply and if the circumstances were different, he’d make her his wife. Saige was beyond perfection in his eyes. She was pure and untouched, and he’d had the pleasure of teaching her how to suck dick like a pro. He reveled in the fact that he was the only man to see her naked and taste her sweetness. There were so many amazing qualities about her outside of the fact that she was a virgin. Over the last two years, he’d fallen head over heels for Saige Persaud, and there wasn’t shit he could actually do about it.
Sliding into the back of the black Cadillac Escalade that awaited him, he took his vibrating phone out of his pocket and saw that it was his father again.
“Pull off,” he instructed the driver before answering. Since G had pissed him off, he was gon’ let him find his own ride. “Yes?”
“Is it handled?” His father spoke into the phone.
Carmine rolled his eyes. He hated that his dad always felt the need to micromanage him. “If you were going to call and check in every half hour, you should’ve come here and did it your fuckin’ self! It’s done!” he angrily spat before hanging up and turning his phone off.
Carmine and his father, Luca, had somewhat of a tumultuous relationship. Being a Sartori meant he had big shoes to fill and being the last son had given him a bit of a complex. His oldest brother, Domenico, was overly favored by Luca, and Gennaro could do no wrong in Luca’s eyes. For some reason, Carmine got the short end of the stick. Luca put Domenico in a position to be next in line to take over the Sartori empire while he used Carmine and Gennaro as the muscles. If Carmine and Gennaro went to handle business together, Luca would only call Carmine to see how things went. If shit went sideways for some reason, then it was always Carmine’s fault, regardless of whether it truly was or wasn’t.
C loved and respected his dad because he’d taken care of the three of them on his own as a single father. Their mother, Mia, passed away due to complications after giving birth to him. Carmine knew it probably wasn’t easy for Luca to have a handle on them while also grieving his wife and trying to keep his drug empire afloat. In a way, Carmine felt like Luca hated him due to the fact that he lost his wife because he was born. It crossed his mind a lot that if he was never born, his mother would still be alive. Her death wasn’t his fault and yet that was a heavy guilt that he carried with him daily. The only person on the planet that knew that was Saige.
She made him feel comfortable enough to open up to her completely. It could’ve been the therapist in her, but she always made it so easy for him to talk. That was one of the many things he loved about her.
Thirty minutes later, Carmine was arriving at the hangar where the family jet was kept. He boarded the plane and got comfortable in his seat. Ten minutes later, Gennaro was storming onto the plane.
“You’re a fuckin’ dick!” G yelled at Carmine, pointing at him with his index finger.
A satisfied smirk spread across Carmine’s face. “Watch how you speak to me and about Saige, Gennaro.”
“Fuck you!” He spat, taking a seat in the back of the plane.
Shrugging G’s attitude off, Carmine closed his eyes and prepared for takeoff. He was exhausted from all of the nuts that Saige had sucked out of him, so he fell asleep quickly. A little over an hour later, the plane was landing in Philadelphia. Gennaro rushed past Carmine and off the plane without so much as a goodbye. That shit didn’t bother C one bit. Chuckling to himself, he deboarded and walked over to his midnight blue Jaguar XF.
“Pussy!” Gennaro shouted out of his car window as he zoomed by in his yellow Lambo.
Carmine knew that Gennaro could hold a grudge like no other, so he was fully prepared to not hear from him for a few days. He hit the alarm on his car and slid inside. Starting it up, he made the dreaded forty-minute drive to his home in Rittenhouse Square. After he parked, he shut the engine down and sat for a few minutes. Finally getting the energy, Carmine hopped out and walked inside his home which was quiet. Making his way upstairs to his bedroom, he was surprised to see his wife of seven years, Victoria, still awake.
“Welcome home, baby,” she walked over to him and deeply kissed him. She broke the kiss and immediately slapped him across the face. “Really, Carmine? You could’ve at least washed the bitch out of your fuckin’ mouth!”
Carmine reared back and punched her square in the nose, sending her flying to the marble floor. He squatted down next to her as she lay there whimpering with blood leaking from her nose.
“Let that be the last time you call her out of her name,” he told her before disappearing into the bathroom to shower.
Though Victoria had no idea who Carmine was cheating on her with, she was well aware that he was stepping out on her. That wasn’t the first time he went home with Saige’s pussy on his breath, and it damn sure wasn’t going to be the last. It also wasn’t the first time he’d put hands on her, and anytime he felt like she was disrespecting him or Saige, he’d do it again. Vicky got the evil side of him while Saige got the soft version.
At the beginning of their marriage, Carmine loved Victoria’s dirty drawers. No one could pay him to think that she didn’t shit rainbows and piss sunshine. Three years into their marriage, they welcomed their first child, Carmine Junior. The following year, their daughter, Caterina, came along. Carmine was the happiest he’d ever been, but he had to be out of the house a lot because he was in the streets. Vicky felt alone which led to her stepping out on him. When he found out, he almost killed her. If it wasn’t for Caterina crying in her crib, the vicious beating would’ve ended Victoria’s life.
Ever since then, their marriage had been on shaky ground. They tried to make it work for the sake of the kids and because deep down, Carmine really did love her. However, when he met Saige, everything shifted for him. She was a breath of fresh air and an escape from the nightmare that his marriage had become. Carmine loved his children with every piece of his heart, and he wanted them to grow up in a two-parent household. He didn’t have that, and he wanted to be able to give that to them, so he stayed in the marriage. Saige kept him happy, so he really didn’t need Victoria for shit but to help raise his kids and stay in her own fuckin’ lane.