Chapter Ten
ART
Four days later my body is finally singing again, warm and satisfied. So satisfied.
It has something, or everything, to do with Luca. Before he left, he flattened me on the bed, held me down, and rammed a load into me, calling me his fuck toy, making me come like a freight train. Finally. Then he slapped my ass and walked out.
I smile into the pillow which smells like him, cautiously stretch my aching muscles, enjoying the wetness he created inside me. Fuck, if I’m not relishing in the feel of where his big dick was a minute ago.
Did I detect a smidge of tenderness while he was taking me? He still pounded me like there was no tomorrow, but his hand was delicately rubbing my side, his lips brushing my nape. Is it because I’m still healing?
I look toward the window and see a flock of birds flying in a synchronized move; they twist and swirl through the sky.
I flip them off. I know a threat when I see one.
The damn feathered rats are lurking, trying to intimidate me.
Hitchcock’s movie The Birds was a prediction of the avian uprising. Why is no one taking it seriously?
My stomach growls. I’m always hungry after a round of hot sex.
I roll my body to get the pack of Ritz from the nightstand, and wince.
My ribs hurt again, reminding me of what happened a few days ago and what I need to do before my father kills everybody.
But when I see the painkillers on the nightstand, a smile finds its way to my mouth again.
Luca must have left them there, with a bottle of water.
I really feel like something changed since his birthday.
Our confessions cleared the air a little and opened a door to something new, perhaps.
The discovery of my phone was terrifying, but he didn’t hurt me.
He was mad as hell, and for a moment I thought he’d hurt me, but instead he took care of me.
I’m beginning to hope that maybe Luca is finally seeing me from a different angle.
Am I totally insane? We are no Romeo and Juliet—who the fuck wants to be them?
I drink the pills down and then go to the bathroom, patting a wiggling Nacho on the way.
I get a better look at my eye. The swelling has gone down a little more, it’s still purple, and the cut on my cheek doesn’t sting anymore.
Mother of God, I look terrible. I wash my face, and after finding the ointment on the kitchen counter, I apply it to the cut on my lip too.
The hate I saw in Luca’s green eyes in that warehouse suddenly appears in my mind.
It was directed at the very essence of me, so profoundly intense, visceral, and enduring.
It transcended simple anger or contempt.
It broke me. It felt like his rational side shut down, and the consuming loathing took possession.
I wish I hadn’t asked for the reason behind it.
I wish I didn’t know. Because this is a real, hardcore vendetta—the family-war, hatred-festering, murder-inducing, movie type.
It must feel draining living with such a heavy, blazing feeling in his chest. One he’ll never let go of until my father and brother are dead.
And what about me? I’m an Enzino, as he likes to remind me every day.
If I survive it—and that’s a big if—I’ll be free of my family.
And freedom is all I ever wanted. So why does the thought of finally achieving that make me feel more hollow than before?
Maybe I’m just hungry. My stomach is burning.
I’m so high-maintenance it makes me sick—not enough to avoid food, though.
When I get back into the kitchen, Nacho is jumping near the counter.
There’s a bag of takeaway food on it and a boba take-away cup.
Whoever is guarding the door must have brought it in.
The Styrofoam feels warm when I lay my hand on it. Did Luca order this for me?
I feel as excited as my dog as I take everything out of the bag.
But as soon as I open one of the containers and see the phone in a plastic bag on top of the pancakes, knots start to tighten in my gut.
I just stare at it for a moment, hoping it will disappear.
But nope. Still there. I let the cell slide on my palm, knowing already whose number I’ll find registered in it. Jack Enzino’s.
I must have chugged an entire pot of delusion soup thinking about freedom and being myself.
My father has his vile ways of making things happen—I just hope none of Luca’s men are betraying him.
He must have learned where I am from the shitbag that ran away and found out where Luca orders breakfast for me—always the same café.
Bribing someone to slide the cell into the container must have been his next step.
I already decided to go back after Luca’s confession. I know it’s the best thing to do. My father’s push just confirms it. But what would Luca do next? Chase after me? Let me get married and kill us all after that? Or before?
I walk into the bathroom, leaving a whimpering Nacho outside—I don’t want him to witness this. The big breath I take does nothing for my nerves. Shit. Better rip it off like the symbolic Band-Aid. I tap on the number. After two long rings, he picks up.
“You motherfucking bastard. I should have drowned you the day that bitch brought you to me,” Jack Enzino’s voice hisses in my ear.
“Why didn’t you?” I retort, too weakly to be effective. I’m beyond pathetic.
“Shut that fag mouth and open your ears. My men are coming to get you tonight—”
I cut the loathsome homophobe off. “I’ll come to you,” I hear myself saying.
“Oh, really?” His derisive snort is so familiar that I know how to swallow it like a bitter medicine that makes you sicker.
“Unless you want to start a war before the wedding.” He’ll bite. I know how important closing this deal with Coretti is for him. I just don’t want Luca to die because of me. His revenge will give me freedom, dead or alive. I just hope he will succeed and find his peace.
“You better be at the slaughterhouse when I get there tonight, you useless piece of shit! Coretti thinks he has the upper hand now, breathing down my neck because of you!” I can imagine the spit flying out of his mouth.
“I will,” I tell him.
He ignores it. “Thank your lucky stars I need this marriage, or I’d have already turned my best guns toward that fucker’s place.”
He hangs up, and my hand drops at my side.
Didn’t he do it already at the safe house? If he wasn’t the one responsible for the shooting, who was? Coretti? Cazzo! This is bad. Do I really want to go back to that pit of snakes?
Just when I started to think that I could make it, my father latches onto me and pulls me back in by the ankles.
Luca is the only thing that could keep me from drowning, but I’m not sure he wouldn’t push me under water after he gets his revenge.
It doesn’t really matter. I’m trapped from all sides, however I don’t need to find a way out anymore.
I leave the bathroom and drop the phone in my duffel bag before moving back to the kitchen, where the pancakes have turned cold.
I don’t feel like eating anymore; lack of appetite is my body’s typical response to my father’s abusive nature—hate, fear, and contempt go hand in hand with it.
I tear a piece of pancake with my fingers and shove it into my mouth anyway.
Then I open the maple plastic jar and take a long sniff.
I told my father I’d be there tonight, but I have no idea how I’m going to leave here.
Another sniff and my neurons seem to get fired up.
I got a plan. Well, half a plan…an outline of a plan.
It doesn’t matter since I have time to turn it tangible enough.
I keep drinking and eating, giving little pieces of apple to Nacho.
But instead of thinking solely of a way to escape, my mind starts to wander and ends up on Luca again.
I knew he was only a temporary fix. It was supposed to be one of the many distractions I used to forget.
After all, there is no way he wants to keep playing this hate-fuck game much longer.
I don’t know what I feel for him. I don’t.
But one thing is for sure: from the moment I met him, I wanted those green eyes on me, no matter how much he disliked me, treated me poorly, or pushed me away.
Because when he looks at me, I see limitless possibilities in those pools, I see a different, brave Art Enzino. And I like him.
It’s fucking crazy, right? I spent a little more than two weeks with the wacko.
It’s nothing, not enough. But because of the dangerous circumstances and the sharing of all those uncontrollable emotions, it feels like we’ve been together for months.
I don’t know much about him, but all the little things I’m learning are neatly tucked away inside my mind.
Like something precious I should cherish.
Sweet J, Arturo Enzino is one lousy poet.
I know Luca Nero is a bad man. But I see his loyalty toward the Leone family, I feel his incredible perseverance in avenging his parents and I hear the hidden affection every time he tells Marco and Fly to fuck off, because I know he’d die to protect them.
He even shielded me from those bullets and saved me from those men.
Me! Someone whom he hates. It’s rare to find a mobster with such principles in the criminal world, the same world I was born into and forced to remain in.
So he’s a bad man, but he is the best bad man I’ve ever encountered.
When I’m done with the food, I look down and catch Nacho humping one of the cushions on the sofa.
Luca is really going to throw him off the building if he keeps at it.
My dog loves napping on Luca’s clothes when he’s not home and following him everywhere when he comes back.
It seems like I’m not the only one interested in the grunting mobster.