Epilogue #6
“Is whatever’s inside going to jump at me?” he asks the Mafia boss with a wary tone.
“Not today.” It’s rare to hear a joke out of him or to see the small smirk on his face; it unsettles me a little.
“What’s that?” I hear Marco ask. I lean to get a better look.
“If I have to explain it to you, it means you’re doing something wrong with yours,” I tell him suggestively.
“It’s tiny,” Fly declares.
“Yeah. Size matters,” I counter, slightly stroking my soft dick against Art’s ass.
“No, it’s how you use it,” Marco comments.
“Size definitely matters,” his fiancé insists.
Marco pulls on Fly’s blond ponytail, earning a little glare from him. “Whose side are you on?”
“The big side,” Art utters, making his friend crack up laughing. “It’s the only one that drives me crazy in and out of bed,” he adds, shaking his plushy ass cheeks against my dick.
“I reckon you know how to use it—the gun.” Seb puts an end to the innuendos, as Art takes the small pistol out of the box.
“I do, although I prefer ashtrays more.” He looks up at me with a smirk. Our eyes exchange the dark joke.
“You could go into public relations and murder people’s reputations instead,” Fly suggests.
Art chuckles, his eyes move to the window. “Maybe I should start practicing shooting again.” He points the muzzle at a tree out in the large garden at the back of the house. “I think the crows’ disengagement was all a tactic.”
“Again?” Fly is frowning at him.
“Do you see me holding churros?” Art feels the need to explain the whole bird situation.
“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter, earning a pinch on the back of my hand, which I return to his side.
He keeps going. “I dropped the bag of churros on the street, and bang, those flying rat thieves were on it a second later. That was a massacre!” He looks at Marco.
“Of course they fucking were, they’re birds.” He huffs, sipping his wine.
Art ignores him. “My churros died a heroic death.”
I grab my glass and take a long gulp.
“Birds are tiny dinosaurs with little beady eyes.” Seb fucking agrees with him?
“Exactly! And the bird revolution is coming.” Art puts the gun back in the box.
“And when will this revolution happen?” I can see Marco is fucking with my fiancé.
Art seems to ponder his answer. “It’s like pornography, you know it when you see it.”
I snort, hearing similar responses from the others. He’s fucking insane, but he’d never have chosen me if he wasn’t.
“Thank you, Boss,” he tells Seb, touching the box.
“Thank you, Arturo,” he says back, glancing at me.
Before I can take another sip of wine, Art takes it out of my hands and drinks it all down.
“You have a glass.” I point at his full one on the desk.
“What’s yours is mine, right?” He thinks he’s taunting me, but I actually fucking like that.
A small knock on the door makes us both turn around.
“Come in,” Seb exclaims.
Nicola, Seb’s son, appears on the threshold. He’s short for a nine-year-old kid, or maybe I was too tall at that age. His big eyes move around until they stop on his father.
“Done with your homework?” he asks the boy, who nods at him.
Nicola hasn’t uttered a word since Don Massimo died a little more than a year ago. I told Art about it, and the way he’s looking at the boy for the first time is filled with affection.
“Oh, Nicky, you are wearing the bracelet we made. Me too!” Fly shows him the braided one on his wrist, similar to the one Nicola has.
The kid gives him a small smile, lifting his arm happily.
“Cool! Can you guys teach me how to make one?” Art asks.
Nicola looks at him, but then his eyes fall on Nacho. The dog is sitting near the window, under the sun. Here the libido beast behaves, while at my place he tries to fuck everything in a ten-foot radius.
“That’s Nacho, my doggie, and I’m Art.” He leaves my lap and moves closer to Nicola. He offers him a Cheeto, but the kid shakes his head. As soon as he kneels on the floor, the dog goes to him.
“Look,” he tells Nicola. “Nacho, kiss.” The dog lifts his body on his back legs and presses his nose on Art’s cheek.
That makes the kid grin, showing a missing front tooth.
“Do you want to try?”
Nicola nods hesitantly, walking closer to Art, and just like that, my boyfriend’s got the kid’s adoration.
“Touch your cheek like this when I say kiss, okay? Nacho kiss.”
The dog moves to Nicola and jumps to reach the kid’s face, hitting his mouth instead. The kid laughs. Such a pure, happy sound. I haven’t heard it in a while. When I turn toward Seb, he is staring at his son and at Art with curiosity in his gaze.
“Nicky, Uncle Luca and I brought you something back from Boston.” Marco lifts a paper bag and Nicola runs to him. He hugs him and then comes to hug me. He feels so small in my arms. Then he runs back to Marco and grabs the bag, looking inside with excited eyes and uncontrollable energy.
“Ohhh, you got him a train set, with rails, a station, even a rail crossing,” Fly exclaims. “There’s no space here, should we go somewhere bigger to build it?
” He’s very good with him. Marco seems to think the same since he can’t stop staring at his fiancé with hearts in his eyes. So fucking weird seeing him like this.
“Me too! And Nacho!” Art jumps up and down, imitated by the dog. He makes Nicola giggle again.
Nicola looks at his father, silently asking for permission. When he gets it, he grabs Art’s hand and pulls him toward the door. My boyfriend blows me a kiss before disappearing.
Fly goes to Marco and wraps his arms around his neck, murmuring, “Hug me until I smell like you.” Which I unfortunately hear.
When he gets what he wants, he follows the others. Nacho doesn’t do the same, looking at me with those black, round eyes.
“Fucking hell, go!” I order him, watching him run out of the room.
“Do you still insist that the dog is not yours?” Marco teases.
“Do you still insist the cat in your penthouse is not yours?” I counter.
“That feral beast ruined one of my suits!”
“I remember Fly doing the same when you met,” Seb muses.
“Well, Fly doesn’t fucking claw at me.” He shows the long red scratch on his forearm. Doesn’t he? I saw the scratches he left on Marco’s back in the hotel suite we were staying in when we went to Boston.
“You, on the other hand, are fucking whipped.” He points his wine glass at me. I remember saying the same exact words to him after he got together with Fly.
“To a sickening degree,” he adds. “Your boyfriend has hickeys and marks all over his neck and shoulder. The fuck, man?”
He’s like that from getting cock and for belonging to me. I shrug.
“You think we don’t see the teeth marks you leave on Fly every time?” Seb interjects again, squirming in his chair.
It’s Marco’s turn to shrug. Pot, kettle, black.
“You really both found your cup of tea,” Seb declares, tilting his glass at us.
Tea? Art is more like a twistingly gorgeous flute of champagne. Will Seb ever find a tea of his own?
“Now, tell me about Boston,” the boss orders.
“Nothing else to add, unfortunately.” Marco sighs. “The Kings will be on the lookout, but there’s no trace of Jack Enzino.”
That bag of shit is still on the run. I don’t like it. Don’t like what he could do to Art if he gets his hands on him. By now, he must have heard he’s under our protection.
“He’s wanted by the police, too. Casper let me know they traced the name of the corporation on the title deed of the house with the backyard full of Mario’s corpses to Jack Enzino.
The Yakuza and Bratva are looking for him as well—we will find him.
They will come for lunch so we can talk about how to proceed,” Seb reminds us.
“Keep a guy on Art if he goes out, just as a precaution.”
I nod. I’m grateful that Seb recognizes him as one of us.
Art did smooth things out with the Corettis in the last month.
His friendship with Aurora, the Donna Coretti, seems solid.
I reckon that helped Seb’s liking toward him since he became il capo dei capi two weeks ago, thanks to Aurora’s agreement to it.
“Aurora stepped into the role of capo with no problem,” I say. Art was right, she is a ballsy leader, respectful, and a little unhinged, but on our side since we saved her life.
“Donna Coretti has offered us to use her shipping company for moving our weed and laundering as a thank-you for stopping the wedding. Doppi was also grateful that we brought his son justice by killing Mario and for returning the body to the family. He’ll retire as soon as Donna Coretti and her fiancé get the hang of things. ”
The rumors about Aurora being in love with someone else were true. It was her chauffeur, but her father didn’t approve. It seems she’ll get what she wants now.
“The Enzino family is fucking done. Art is not interested in keeping the family going.” Marco looks at me.
I shake my head. Nope, he wants to become a Nero—or will want to, I’ll make him want to. The thought makes me almost growl with anticipation.
“We are going to keep weeding out the rest of the Enzinos. I need you both on this.” Seb looks at us, and we nod. We are good at weeding out two-faced fuckers.
“Enzino’s turf has been divided between Leone and Coretti, seventy-thirty. I want to give you some of it to take care of.”
“For real?” Marco asks, as surprised as I am.
A territory I’m solely in charge of. I fucking like that.
“I can’t take care of it all by myself. I need my right and left hands with me,” Seb simply explains, raising his palms in the air. It’s something Don Massimo always used to say to us.
“I’ll do my best,” I tell Seb, grabbing the full glass of wine from the desk and clinking it against theirs.
I would be utterly exhilarated about it if we didn’t have a very big loose end.
“Until Enzino is out of the picture, we all are in danger, so keep your eyes peeled,” Seb states with dark eyes.
“That old snake isn’t going to just lie and die,” Marco grunts.
I growl. “Then we’ll need to behead him once and for all.”
Art