22. Prime #2
I fuck her until she’s lifeless, until she’s screaming into my mouth, until we’re all sweat and bliss and nothing more, until her pussy clenches and I feel her break, and I thank God I get to see her lovely face contort in pure ecstasy, and it’s too much.
I cry out as I burst between her legs, as I fill her pussy to the core, coming harder than I ever have before, turning into sweat and groaning and not much more.
We collapse together. Her mouth finds mine, hungry for kisses. I stroke her hair and tell her how beautiful she is, how good she feels, how she’s such a good girl for taking my big dick like that. “I know it wasn’t easy, but you did such a good job,” I praise, kissing every inch of her.
“It hurt, but I really liked it,” she admits, looking shy and happy.
It’s dark in our room. I hold her against me. Moonlight makes her glow silver. I breathe her smell and want to stay like this for another second, another minute. I’d sacrifice anything to have her here, right now, and never anything else.
But what she said earlier bubbles into my mind. It nags at me, gnaws at my throat, and maybe I’m growing too soft for her, but she deserves a piece of truth.
“When I was a young man, I had a friend named Shawn.”
She goes still in my arms. I think she realizes how important this moment is, and I don’t know if I can keep going. But she turns to face me, one hand cupping my cheek. “Where is he now?” she asks.
“He’s dead.” I blow out a long breath. It’s been years since I’ve talked about him openly. “And it was my fault.”
She frowns into the silence that follows, but she doesn’t pull away. She doesn’t call me a monster like I deserve.
“Back in those days, the Fontana outfit was one of the most powerful crime syndicates in the city and I was barely more than a homeless urchin floating from foster family to group home and back again. I met Shawn at one of my more stable housing situations and we formed a tight bond, and both of us looked up to the made men that wandered around our neighborhood. Those older guys drove nice cars, they had girls and friends, they laughed loudly and were respected. To me, they were like gods. Their life seemed unattainable to a boy who’d only ever owned two sets of clothes and one pair of shoes. ”
“Was Shawn the same way?” she asks.
“Even worse, if anything. He liked the glamour of it more than I did. He talked about the clubs, the restaurants. He listened when the made men talked like they were preaching just for him.”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen. Shawn was fifteen. But he was shy in ways I wasn’t, and when I had the chance to talk to one of the made men, a guy called Alfonso, I got on his good side.
I don’t know why but he took a liking to me.
Alfonso gave me small jobs, and in retrospect, I realize he was probably ripping me off.
I did all the dirty work, put myself in risky situations, and did it for almost nothing.
But I made it through, and soon Alfonso was passing me on to other operations in the outfit, and that’s when Augustus noticed me. ”
I close my eyes. I don’t want to talk about this part.
Up to this point, life wasn’t so bad. I had extra money, I was gaining a reputation for myself, I was building a legend.
I’d done some things, a few ugly, a few impressive, but enough that people were starting to talk. Prime Spadaro’s one to watch.
“Shawn was jealous but he was also desperate to get involved too, and I kept promising him I’d introduce him, but the time was never right.
We argued about it sometimes. Mostly we were best friends, until I couldn’t put him off anymore.
That’s when I got an offer direct from Augustus, a job that seemed easy.
All I had to do was sit at a corner and play lookout.
If any cops came, if any rival gangs were around, I was supposed to make a lot of noise.
I didn’t know why or what was going on, but that wasn’t for me to ask.
It was something I’d done dozens of times already and it always worked out. ”
Deanna touches my chest. Her lips are warm when she kisses the tattoo over my heart. “You brought Shawn along.”
I nod, the taste of that night still on my tongue all these years later.
“It was muggy. Really wet and nasty. The next day was trash day and the street smelled like garbage. Shawn loved it though, kept saying how this was it, how he’d do this job and break in like I had.
We joked together, you know? Two young boys trying to pretend like they were brave.
I felt better, having Shawn with me. Most nights I was terrified, but not when he was around. ”
“What happened to him?”
“Nothing for the first hour. We sat in silence and shared a few cigarettes. Until around midnight a car rolled down the block, which wasn’t that weird, except the headlights were turned off.
I remember Shawn standing up, cigarette dangling from his lips.
He took a drag and pointed. The fuck is that idiot doing?
That’s what he said, pointing right at the car.
The fuck is that idiot doing? The bullet hit him in the jaw.
Blood splattered my shirt and my face. The cigarette was gone and Shawn stood there for a second too stunned to realize how bad it was until the second bullet hit him in the chest and he dropped.
That saved my life. I’m sure about it now.
If he hadn’t fallen, I wouldn’t have hit the pavement too.
I crawled to him and tried to stop the bleeding as they kept shooting.
Bullets tore into the house behind us. Nobody came out and nobody said a word, only Shawn made these awful gagging sounds.
The car took off, squealing tire smoke. I tried to save him, but I was a kid, and there was so much blood.
He was choking and his hands grabbed at me and he looked so scared and desperate.
It was supposed to be his big night. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. ”
Deanna buries her face in my chest. Her cheeks are wet with tears. That confuses me. She’s crying for a dead boy she never knew? But her sadness is like a trigger dredging up all that old pain I’d managed to shove down deep inside, except mine doesn’t come out in sorrow.
It burns through me in rage.
“That’s why you want to find him,” Deanna says, sniffling and wiping her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Prime.”
“Fontana hung us out that night. Alfonso found me a few days after it happened and shoved a wad of cash in my hands. He looked guilty as he did it. I’ll never forget that. Three hundred dollars for the life of my friend. I spent that money in a week. Wasn’t fucking worth it.”
“It wasn’t your fault though. You said you got him killed, but it wasn’t your fault at all. They were adults, Prime, and you were kids.”
“I know. Doesn’t change anything. I told him we’d be safe. I brought him along when I knew I shouldn’t. I got him killed, nobody else.”
“No, that’s crazy.”
I stroke her cheek, smiling to myself. “I’ve thought it a thousand times. I was fourteen, how could I carry that burden? But I do and always will, and that’s why I’m doing this. Now you see me for what I am. All that blood’s still on me.”
She kisses my cheeks and mouth as if she can clean it away, but that doesn’t change a thing. It doesn’t fix what I am, what I’ve been since Shawn died that day.
A monster, plain and simple.
There’s a reason I don’t fall in love, why I don’t have close friends who aren’t strong enough to protect themselves.
I bring death.
And if I keep following this path—if I keep letting myself tumble into her—I’ll bring it to my wife too.
“You know what you’re going to need?” She smiles, wiping tears from her eyes.
“I have a feeling you’re not going to say a blowjob.”
She swats my chest. “That meeting Carbone invited you to. You’re going to need help with that proposal.”
I snort, and lean back on the bed, hands behind my head. “You offering?”
“Absolutely. Who better?”
“Deanna—“
“Come on, I’ve been doing this for years already. I know your businesses better than anyone else.”
“The legitimate half at least.”
“And I have a feeling you’ll need some of that legitimate half too. We’ll blow them away.”
God, it kills me. She talks like this is a real investor meeting and not some dick-measuring macho bullshit. Fontana wants to make sure I’m not full of shit—he doesn’t care about distribution channels and profit margins—but she’s right, it won’t hurt to be prepared.
“This is as close as you get.” I cup her chin and tilt her face toward mine, squeezing gently. “Do you understand?”
“You think I want to get myself killed?”
“I mean it. There has to be a line.”
Her expression softens. “There’s always a line with you, isn’t there?”
“It’s not for me.” I release her and stare at the ceiling. It’s to keep you safe. But she knows that already.
If she hasn’t figured it out yet, she will soon.
I’m nothing more than a problem.