Chapter Twenty-Three – Vieri
Her hand stays in mine. The tips of her fingers are warm. I stare at the ceiling. There’s a crack in the plaster above the chandelier. I let my thumb move once, slowly, over her knuckles. We lay on the rug in the center of my study. She doesn’t pull away.
Life always played its games with me. This girl beside me is supposed to be gone, dead. For no reason other than my own greed and ambition. Yet here she is beside me, still a result of my emotions.
Her shirt is slipping off her shoulder, her thigh pressed to mine, head close enough that I can smell the citrus in her shampoo.
She’s looking at me. My hand covers half her face. She fits there too easily. I press my palm into her skin. She leans into it.
What should I do? Kill her and live with it? Keep her and never tell her? Tell her and lose her?
“What’s wrong?”
Her voice barely breaks through. I should say everything. Tell the truth.
But I say, “You’re beautiful.”
Her brow lifts. “You’re lying.”
She says she already knows the shape of my lies.
My hand drops. I let my eyes fall to her body. The curve of her hip. The soft stretch of her belly under the thin fabric. Her legs are drawn up slightly. Oh, she doesn’t know what she’s offering just by lying there.
I feel a sharp ache in my chest. I don’t deserve her. I lean in and press my lips to her forehead.
Her skin is warm and damp from everything we’ve done, but she’s still trembling. I shift beside her, propping myself on one elbow and brushing my knuckles along her cheek. She looks up at me, dazed and soft, lips parted like she’s trying to catch a breath that won’t come.
I drag my mouth lower—cheekbone, temple, corner of her lips—until I find her mouth and kiss her properly.
She melts into me, that sweet little sigh escaping her throat, and I feel it deep in my gut.
I need her closer.
I rise just enough to swing one leg over her thighs, planting my knees on either side of her hips. I watch her eyes widen as I settle fully on top of her—straddling her completely, her soft body framed beneath mine.
My hands find her waist, sliding under the hem of the shirt. Her skin is warm, plush, and she tenses when I press my palms into her hips. I mold around her. My weight dips onto her thighs, my chest hovering above hers, and I take her in—all of her.
She whimpers.
I roll my hips forward letting the hard line of me grind right against the tender ache between her legs.
Her head tilts back with a gasp.
My mouth follows the line of her neck.
“You feel that?” I murmur against her pulse. “That’s what you do to me.”
I keep moving—my thighs squeezing her in place, her softness yielding under each slow grind. I feel her shudder again, her hands reaching for something—my back, my shoulders, whatever she can hold to stay grounded.
I kiss her ear.
“I could stay like this forever,” I whisper. “Right here, wrapped around you. You’re perfect.”
She cries out against my shoulder, muffled and wrecked, and I feel the tremble in her thighs when I press deeper into the cradle of her hips.
The study door swings open without a knock.
Lunetta pushes me away and her shirt slips down one shoulder, and she scrambles to pull it back in place. My hand finds the floor, pushing myself up.
Riccardo stands in the doorway, arms crossed.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
****
I’m standing near the desk, buttoning the last of my cuffs. Riccardo drops into a chair like he’s settling into a show.
“Really?” he says, leaning back, one leg crossed over the other. “In the study? You couldn’t get a room?”
“And where the fuck have you been?” I ask.
His brow lifts like the question is a joke.
“You haven’t been at work. You haven’t been home. Three days.”
He shrugs, drumming his fingers against the armrest. “Like you care.”
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask.
Riccardo leans forward, elbows on knees, grinning like he’s tasted blood.
“You make me fire my whores,” he says. “Then you turn this place into a cheap motel. With that.”
“Be real careful,” I say, voice low.
He snorts. “Touchy.”
Then he leans back again, arms stretched wide over the chair’s back. “I asked around, you know. Lunetta Sofia Fiore. Full name. Catholic school girl. Attended St. Marcella’s. Old Melbourne girl. Carmela Fiore’s granddaughter.”
I say nothing. But my neck goes rigid. He sees it.
His laugh is slow, dry. “Turns out Nonna runs a cute little café. Closed now though. Wonder why.” He studies my face. “Bummer, right?”
“Get out,” I answer.
He raises both hands, mock surrender. “Why so tense? It’s been days. Can’t brothers bond anymore? Now this might just be me being old-fashioned, but a good Catholic girl—raised in the faith, you know—she wouldn’t be here. Not like this. Not spread out on your rug. Cause let’s face it—we’re gonna rot in hell. She wouldn’t choose this.” His eyes narrow. “Unless you didn’t give her a choice. Unless you stole her.”
The room flashes red.
“And I know Don Tavano isn’t stealing girls just to fuck them like cheap whores.”
I rush to him and my fist connects with his face. Bone crunches.
Riccardo slams into the bookshelf behind him. A few hardbacks tumble to the floor. One lands by his boot.
He’s laughing through blood.
“There it is,” he chokes. “The brother I know.”
I grab his collar and shove him against the wall, pinning him with a forearm across his chest. His nose is bleeding, dripping onto his shirt, but his grin won’t quit.
“What are you hiding, Vieri?”
He stumbles, catches himself on the desk, wipes the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.
“I’ll get you back for this brother. I fucking promise,” he says. He straightens his shirt and he leaves the study.
The door closes behind Riccardo, and fear wraps around me like wire.
I stand in the center of the study, blood thrumming behind my eyes, fists clenched, breath sharp. I cross the room and swing my fist into the wall beside the bookshelf. The jolt runs up my forearm into my shoulder.
I hit it again. And again.
Each strike sends a sharper jolt through bone. My knuckles split on the third hit. Skin tears on the fourth. On the fifth, a hairline crack blooms across the plaster.
My hand throbs. Blood trails down my wrist. Pain is better than guilt. Pain at least makes sense.
I strike the wall a final time, harder, until the surface splinters. My breath drags through my teeth. My arms hang by my sides. My body is shaking.
I stare at the damage, planted to the spot. Then I walk to the desk, and yank the drawer open.
Inside, resting where I left it, is her rosary.
The beads lie in a loose coil, untouched. The silver cross rests at the top, slightly askew.
I pick it up with my bloodied fingers.
The beads feel light in my palm. I hold it in front of me, staring at the cross.
"Do you listen to men like me?" I stare harder. "Do you?"
Nothing answers. Of course not. I don’t even know why I asked.
"Then tell me how to do this." My fingers tighten around the beads. "Tell me how to let her go. How to look her in the eye and tell her I came here to kill her."
The room stays still. I stare at the cross for another long second. Then I force myself to drop the rosary back into the drawer. It clinks against the wood as it lands. I shut the drawer and reach for my phone.
My thumb smears blood across the screen as I unlock it. I pull up Bugatti’s number and press call.
He picks up quickly.
“Boss,” he says.
“Call it off.”
He doesn’t respond.
“The search,” I say. “The diamonds. Call it off. All of it.”
Still nothing.
I grip the phone tighter. “Do you hear me?”
Bugatti breathes into the line. His tone changes—lighter now. “Well,” he says, “who would’ve thought. I said you had too much nerve to fall for this. But I stand corrected.”
“What?”
Then the line clicks. Dead. I stare at the screen. The call ended.
I call him again. The line is busy. Again. Still busy.
Then the door to the study slams open behind me. And almost immediately I know something is up. I turn just in time to see Riccardo storm in. His eyes are wild, mouth twisted in disgust.
“You fucking idiot,” he spits.
There’s no time to react. A club swings through the air and connects with the side of my head.
The force knocks me sideways. My shoulder hits the edge of the desk, then I crash to the floor. The rug cushions part of the fall. Pain sears up the side of my skull. Blood starts to trickle down my face. I try to push myself up, but the room spins. My balance slips.
Riccardo stands over me, gripping the metal club in one hand, his chest rising and falling.
Then my vision blurs. And everything goes black.