5. Salvatore
5
Salvatore
The fight’s gone out of Contessa, at least for now.
She lets me clean her drenched little cunt with my tongue, even when she’s still trembling and over-sensitive. Her taste lingers on my lips as I stroke her thighs, giving her time to come down from that peak.
“Is it always like that?” Her voice is soft and dazed. She reaches down to touch between her legs, as if she might be changed somehow. Fuck, I want to hold those thighs open and show her what an orgasm can really be like when it’s given to her with my cock.
“Sometimes it’s better.”
She looks overwhelmed at the thought.
I need space between us before I lose the last of my control.
I lift Contessa up in my arms. She doesn’t resist or even question it as I carry her to one of the nearby bedrooms. As much as I’d like to pin her beneath me for the entire night, if I get my hands on her for hours straight, neither one of us will get sleep. I’d wear her out before sunrise.
One of the benefits of an old house with old architecture is bedroom doors that lock from the outside. I’ve never made a habit of keeping hostages in luxury accommodations, but for once, the old locks have a purpose.
I give her one of my undershirts to sleep in. It’s too big for her, hanging off one shoulder and ending just a little too high on her thighs. It’s short enough to give me a glimpse of her pussy, showing the thick curves of her ass when she curls up on top of the covers.
I fight myself to walk away.
“You’re leaving?” She asks once I’ve made it to the doorway.
“What, you wanna cuddle?” I ask, already knowing her answer.
I know she’s still dazed when she doesn’t come up with some smart-ass remark, only frowns and pulls on the stubborn ends of the shirt that won’t cover anything no matter how hard she tries. “Get some sleep,” I tell her.
I don’t leave any room for the girl to argue as I shut and lock the door behind me.
I march straight into my bathroom to take the coldest shower of my life.
It doesn’t fucking help.
***
Sunrise comes too soon and cracks the sky open red. I chase a handful of hours of sleep with black coffee. For such a godforsaken hour, the house is busy this morning. The housekeeper moves room to room with stacks of sheets piled higher than her head, refreshing the unused beds.
In the parlor, calls are going out, names on lists are ticked off one by one. During wartime, the family members who have left are summoned back home behind the walls—a shelter from the storm.
All across the city, weapons are moving from warehouses to townhouses, cars are taken to monitored garages. The marching of an unseen army begins, preparing for retaliation.
The major families haven’t fought an old-school war in a few years. Not the way our fathers continually fought them. Lawyers and judges and bent politicians; it’s easier to string up a puppet than it is to sink a body. But Gio and I—we remember the old days that forged us.
The night still itches in my skin. There’s too much to do when all I want is to go upstairs, throw open Contessa’s door and ravage her awake. At the slightest inattention, the girl slips into my thoughts. The feeling of her nails scraping against my scalp. The look on her face when she comes. It’s like an afterimage seared behind my eyelids when I blink, always there on the edge of my awareness.
Even now, I find myself wondering what she’s doing—
Marcel ambushes me from my thoughts. One glance tells me he hasn’t slept, his eyes underscored with dark circles behind his wireframe glasses.
“You look like hell,” I say in greeting.
“You’re causing it,” he says back, and pours his own cup. He’s dressed down in just an undershirt and sweats, hair damp from the shower, a towel slung around his shoulders. “One would think a high-profile kidnapping might be the sort of thing you consult your consigliere about before you go winging it in the middle of the night.”
“I’m consulting now. What’s the temperature?” I ask.
“Too early to say.” I expect as much. “Most of the elders don’t know yet, except Cecilia.
Like usual, she somehow knows everything. She’s requested a meeting first thing this morning to discuss it, but you know they’ll all attend.”
“We’re a little past discussion.”
“So it would seem,” Marcel sighs, world-weary, his exhaustion stemming from somewhere deeper than just one sleepless night. Years of being my right hand has worn on him, aged him too quickly. I don’t envy him the position; I wouldn’t want to have to keep track of me, either. “They’ll still want the meeting regardless.”
“Let them have their say. I’m only interested in fighting Gio. We don’t war on two fronts.”
Marcel nods his agreement, and we fall into step together, making our way to my office.
“Have one of the girls look after our guest princess. She’ll need a new wardrobe, and the room needs all the essentials stocked.”
“I’ll put Ava on it. Are you keeping her in there?” He asks.
“For now.”
“How long is ‘for now?’”
“Let me worry about that.”
If Marcel questions it, he doesn’t show it, merely nods in deference as we approach my office. The elder members of the Mori family, either by blood or by service, are already waiting.
Cecilia Mori, my great-aunt and oldest of the five elders, has taken point. Her drawn limbs and knotted hands tremble as we greet each other, her skin like ice as I clutch her ring-heavy hands in mine. The steely woman has been wheelchair bound for almost a decade; I’m convinced the rest of her is withering away as her body diverts all its energy into keeping her mind and mouth sharp, her eyes eerily keen as they move in her sunken face. She is nestled down in her chair, small and shriveled, with heavy blankets sprawled across her lap.
I have Marcel kindle the fireplace to warm the room for her.
I take my place behind the desk. The familiar faces study me, the oldest and most well-respected of us, second only to myself. As always, Cecilia is the first with something to say.
“When the family encouraged you to go and get a wife, Salvatore, we hardly meant it so literally. I go to sleep, you’re a bachelor. I wake up, and they say you’re set to marry. A Lovera .”
“An opportunity to move against Gio presented itself, and I took it.”
“Getting the girl was a good move,” one of the old war dogs agrees amicably from the couch, mustache bristling against his splotchy red face. “If old Gio can’t protect his own daughter, who can he protect? His image will take a hit, that’s for sure.”
Cecilia sniffs.
“It’s not my place to disagree with men on such matters. Take the girl, very well, but marry her? The purpose of you finding a wife is to continue a legacy. With respect, you can’t run a family without family. Cousins and nieces and nephews won’t suffice for a man of your rank.
You need a wife who will inspire love and loyalty, as your mother did. The only thing a Lovera will inspire in this family is a murder.”
The criticism fades into the crackling of the fireplace. I lean back, trying to consider the words and give them the due weight that they deserve—so when I find the right words to tell her to fuck off with, it’ll at least look like I gave a second thought to the woman’s preaching.
A wife makes me look more traditional, more in line with the old ways of governing family business. I never gave a fuck about those appearances, but the wishes of the elders aren’t something I can ignore entirely.
The people in this room built and defended the position I hold now. Some of our most valuable connections are forged through them. I have the final say, but those words must carry the voice of everyone else.
“A bride that weakens the enemy strengthens the family,” I counter shortly.
The old viper’s milky stare bores into me. We both know the truth—that you don’t have to marry a girl to ruin her. There’s something else, something greedy and possessive in my decision, that has nothing to do at all with family politics.
“I hope this a decision you have made with all of your obligations in mind,” she says, her old hands too shaky for sewing, but her mouth keen enough to stitch those subtle double-meanings throughout every word. “Your obligations not simply to the family as a whole, but to this council that serves you.”
There are certain secrets that cannot be uttered, even in rooms where everyone knows the truth.
Years ago, when my older brother landed himself in prison, the elders quietly decided this was a stroke of good luck. Nico Mori was better suited for the pen than leadership, and everybody but my father could see that.
Nico lasted as don for six months before he caught a murder charge. Broad daylight, CCTV. A careless squabble over some girl. With men like us, it’s always over some girl.
Traditionally, the family pulls strings, buying and intimidating its way out of convictions, drowning the legal system in so much paperwork, some trials linger on for decades until all the pawns are in place.
Nico was shipped to prison posthaste, and the elders abided it, making backroom meetings with the district attorney while pretending that their hands were tied.
Everyone agreed, short of a white room with a straight jacket, prison might be the best environment for someone like Nico. That decision—that betrayal —was made in this very office.
Were it not for the elders, I’d still be running the underground fighting rings and managing debts, never rising beyond the role of executioner . Hell, I’d probably be where Nico is now.
“Marriages are to forge alliances,” Cecilia continues, “not make worse enemies.”
“Is there a better match, or a stronger bloodline, than the Loveras?”
“I’ve provided many fine suggestions over the years—”
“And have we ever gotten close to finding a weakness in the Lovera’s defenses?”
That, Cecilia has no answer for. Her eyes lower, mouth set in an unhappy frown.
“The girl serves two purposes at once. Let me see how Gio acts now that he’s on the backfoot.”
She drops her gaze, letting the topic go. She has no choice but to defer to me. It’s for the better. I won’t be talked out of it, and the woman doesn’t have that many breaths left to waste them trying to persuade me.
I draw the men’s attention toward our war efforts and bring the meaning to that which can be changed.
Now that I’ve had a taste of her, I’ll marry Contessa or no one at all.