Chapter 11 Fawn
CHAPTER ELEVEN
fawn
I woke in the middle of the night to change my tampon because it felt tight and weird, but it was completely white—blood free. Yay!
So this morning, when I stretch out my arms in the massive hotel bed, I feel more sensible, more level-headed. Happy hormones have returned.
I roll to my side and see him— I push to my elbows immediately to take in the sight like one might the Northern Lights, with awe and appreciation.
He is rarely asleep while I’m awake. Ever since I fell from the bed, writhing in pain, miscarrying my first pregnancy, he wakes at my slightest murmur.
He must be exhausted.
A memory from earlier this morning comes back—my face in the pillow, gasping for air, feeling his thrusts in every inch of my body, in my toes and ears.
It rarely happens like that, like I’m a doll, to be taken, but occasionally he needs me to handle his evil.
To take what he gives me. To absorb his demons.
On those days, I know something darker is taking place in his world.
It's not for me; he wants to keep the underbelly of the Mafia away from me. I’m to raise his children, watch Disney, blush for him, believe in the moon, be soft.
If I change, if suddenly I become a tough, cold-hearted woman, he won’t like that.
The image of Lorna flashes behind my eyes.
Sighing, I realise he isn’t better with her.
It’s me he needs. We fit together. Push and pull.
Soft and hard. Chaos and order need each other. Fun literally fits into fundamentals.
I am very rational today.
Kudos, Fawn.
I place my hand on his warm, broad chest, fingers feeding through his brown and grey hairs, smiling when he inhales a little harder in response to my touch, sensing me somewhere from within his dream world.
A sleeping Clay Butcher—mine.
My gaze travels down his face, chiselled cheeks and a perfectly rectangular jaw, to his mouth. The lower lip is slightly thicker than the top. They are parted, inhaling and exhaling. My eyes roam south, down his naked body to his hand that lies in a strange position on the mattress.
I squint. With the tip of my finger, I stroke along his bruised knuckles and over open wounds.
Were they there yesterday?
I swallow over a lump. No, I don’t think they were. I would have seen them when he held the phone to the mattress by my face, when he was teaching me a lesson about ownership and loyalty and devotion. I would have noticed the sharp edges of those gashes, the raw carvings in his tattoo.
So, last night something happened.
While I was sleeping.
There are hidden corridors in luxury hotels that most guests never see: bright, elaborate back rooms lined with polished wood cabinets full of alcohol, glass-fronted displays of fancy cigars nestled on velvet pillows, trays of hand-painted chocolates.
And always empty leather armchairs, waiting.
Few people get to experience this secluded fairytale land.
It’s reserved for an elite few.
For Clay Butcher.
But as I stroll beside Clay—his tailored navy suit brushing against me, the stroller’s wheels humming across the travertine floor—I scan the main lobby where everyone else lives and plays, holding steaming takeaway coffees and nattering easily.
To my left, through an opening, I peek into the breakfast buffet, full of bobbing heads, chattering children, and my favourite kind of morning vibes. The bain-maries exhale buttery steam, and I inhale the scents of scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon, and pastries. Mm.
My stomach rumbles.
I stop at the threshold of the buffet restaurant, chewing my lower lip, wanting to join the normal people—just this once.
I want Luca and Ash to enjoy life, to have all the things I never did, but I’m afraid they’ll miss out too, doomed to be too precious for playdates, too important for buffets—too much trouble to be friends with.
I don’t want that for them. I want everything for them.
I’m an orphan; I missed out on the ‘majority lifestyle’.
I’ve gone from second-hand to Gucci, from government housing to mansions.
What about the healthy in-between? Can’t my babies experience the healthy in-betweens? The lobster and the brisket?
I look up at Sir with enormous, imploring eyes. “Please, Sir?” I don’t explain; he knows.
He stares over the top of my head, scanning the room, his lips flattening with distaste—every unknown face, every messy table, every potential hazard. “We can have breakfast at Sapori di Lusso, little deer,” he says, his tone stern. “Not from a damn trough.”
“I’ll sit with my back to the wall?” I promise, giving him my sweetest smile. “Don’t you want the boys to experience normality? It’s more fun this way?”
“Fun?” His brow arches.
That word again.
I look back at HJ, for just a glimpse, and he stares at me as if I’ve asked Clay Butcher to model naked for a room full of budding artists. “Fun,” I repeat.
Before he answers, a waitress appears in front of us. Her dark hair is up, save for a few rogue strands that pour around her nape. She pulls an iPad from her apron pocket, eyes glued to the device. “How many for breakfast?”
When Clay doesn’t answer, she lifts her gaze to meet his intense stare. The silence stretches, thick with unspoken judgment. Finally he relents. “Four.”
I squeak with excitement.
“Alright,” she murmurs, her gaze flicking from the stroller’s tiny passengers to the two henchmen and HJ standing watch behind us. “That’s seven,” she corrects Clay, and my mouth drops open. The very air seems to still. “I just need a credit card on file.”
“You most definitely do not.”
The server blinks, astonished. I shift from foot to foot, heart racing.
“Oh—I’m sorry, sir,” she stammers, rifling through the pockets of her apron. “But the hotel policy is—”
“No, no, it’s fine!” A man bursts from the kitchen doorway, his belly bouncing his apron with each hurried step. “Sorry, Mr Butcher,” he pants, cheeks flushed. “She’s new. She’s not from the District. She doesn’t know. Please let me show you to a table.”
The name ‘Butcher’ lands on the waitress like a bucket of ice-cold water. “I… please don’t fire me,” she whispers.
Clay’s blue gaze stays on her, unreadable but intense, then shifts to the man who rushed out in a flurry.
Nervous silence passes...
I hold my breath.
Finally, he places a firm hand on the small of my back and guides me into the bright, lively breakfast restaurant, and I exhale hard, hoping that’s the end of that conversation.
He wouldn’t fire her?
Not for that?
“I’m Marc, the restaurant manager. I didn’t expect you, Mr Butcher.” The chubby man scurries ahead, voice quivering as he leads us to a corner table at the back.
It’s friendly.
Boisterous.
I could imagine Bronson and Shoshanna coming here with their two boys. Around us, there are children colouring with crayons on butcher-paper runners. It’s welcoming, family-focused, warm and easy—that is until we pass the tables. The occupants’ conversations drop to a hush of secret gasps.
As we approach what I assume is our table, two henchmen take a stance on either side.
“She isn’t going to get fired, is she?” I ask softly as Marc attempts to pull my chair out, but HJ stops him.
Marc startles.
Clay presents my seat instead, and I sit.
HJ then sizes up the sturdy highchairs before lifting little Luca and Ash into their seats with care and knowledge. Once they’re fastened in with a toy each to bash against the table, he slides into place—a large step back and to the side of my chair, arms within reach of me.
“Please don’t fire her,” I say, swapping my most energetic baby, Luca’s, hard plastic giraffe toy for a fluffy koala that makes less noise.
Clay nods at Marc. “Don’t fire the girl.”
Marc ducks his chin reverently, murmuring, “Yes, Mr Butcher. Of course. I won’t.”
“Train her,” Clay adds, sharp.
Marc’s face turns red. “Certainly, Mr Butcher.”
Sir takes a seat opposite me and withdraws a folded note, passing it to the man between two fingertips. “For the young girl. I hold you responsible, not her. And tell her, it’s Mr Butcher, never Sir.”
Fingers trembling, Marc accepts it. “Of course, Mr Butcher. I will tell her.”
I let out an excited “Oooh,” watching the exchange, my eyes widening at the flash of green disappearing into Marc’s apron. "Was that a hundred? Did you just tip him, Sir?”
“Indeed.”
“Can I tip someone?” I ask, eyes bright.
He studies me. “No.”
I sulk. “But why not? They might think I’m rude.”
“When would you need to tip someone, little deer?”
“When…” I look across at HJ for help, but he shrugs. Thanks. “When I get room service!”
Clay opens a menu, one that doesn’t match the others. “No one expects you to tip them. I do it—handsomely, I might add.” He points to items, Marc’s eyes following along, and then he shuts the menu.
Marc disappears with it.
So, we aren’t eating out of ‘troughs’?
But that’s part of the fun!
Little deer steps, Fawn.
“They serve you,” Clay says, smooth and deep. “Because they should, because it is their job, because it pleases me. If you have to tip them, I will not be pleased.”
I smile up at him. He’s so dark and intimidating and powerful. “Everyone wants to please you, Sir. People hold their breath when you enter a room,” I tease. “There must be so many casualties.”
HJ clears his throat to stifle a chuckle.
Clay’s gaze softens for the barest moment, roaming my face. “As long as you breathe.”
There he is…
The man underneath.
We eat breakfast, à la carte not buffet, but I pop up to the bain-maries to get a blueberry muffin each for Luca and Ash, and a cup of apple juice. I fed them before we left the penthouse, but they enjoy picking at food now that they can stomach solids.
While we eat and talk, I’m reminded of why he is being smooth and serious, Clay Butcher this morning. Something happened while I slept last night. I know it was gruesome.
The purpose of his visit is to evaluate how suitable the hotel is for the Family.
I know that much. Servers asking for credit cards up front might not be well received—flustered and no eye contact might be seen as rude.
Clay is the most dangerous man in the city, but his punishments and power aren’t wielded aimlessly.
Are they? Is he usually mean? I don’t know what the other Dons are like, whether they are cruel or calculated, or…
Well, I suppose I don’t really know what the Don, Clay Butcher, is truly like when I’m not around.
When I’m not a soft spot in his resolve.
Is he ruthless?
Would he have fired her?
Or worse?
I know the businessman, the fiancé, the lover, the father, the man, even the mayor. And those versions of him still send shivers down my spine and heat between my thighs.
My eyes glide to his knuckles.
“Little deer.”
I stare at them, broken and bruised. “Are you okay, Sir?” My eyes lift to his. “Whatever happened, are you alright? It frightens me to think you might leave during the night, while I sleep, and may not return.”
Ash starts to scream when Luca smacks him across the head with his koala, so Clay unbuckles his youngest—by a minute—lifting him from his seat and holding him against his chest, and… I sigh. Look at them.
My heart balloons.
As I watch them together, I decide not to press for details about last night. Luca doesn’t see the Don of Cosa Nostra. He sees his dad. I see Sir, Clay, my everything.
“I never want to frighten you, sweet girl.” He holds our little boy, one huge, tattooed hand supporting a tiny back while the other lifts an espresso to his lips—wearing fatherhood so comfortably. “Just because you came here, does not mean my business stops.”
I sulk a little.
He sips from the steaming cup and then sets it down. “I don’t expect another late-night meeting,” he adds, kissing Ash on the hair but looking directly at me. “Does that make you feel a little bit better, sweet girl?”
I smile at him. “Se.”
“Se.” He nods approvingly.
I pick at Luca’s muffin. A bit for him. A bit for me. Ash gazes around the restaurant over his dad’s shoulder, having already forgotten why he was crying, unknowing of danger, unimpressed by green notes, just a boy and his daddy.
The safest man in the city.
To him.
To me.
“Now this is pretty close to normality,” I breathe, engrossed in the vision of Sir in his exquisite navy suit, sitting casually in a family buffet restaurant, with his toddler pressed to his chest. I can overlook the violence across his knuckles.