Chapter 38
38
SAMANTHA
I look around Antonio Russo’s study, wondering if I’m standing in the same spot my father did when he reported to his don. The room is smaller than I imagined. Darker. Warmer too, hot enough that sweat breaks out along my hairline.
Once, I vowed I would never come to Russo’s home. I would never set foot over the threshold of the building where my cousin was murdered. But now, with vengeance so close…
I’ll do anything to destroy the man before me.
Russo leans back in his chair like a lizard sunning on a rock. I don’t know if he dressed specifically for me or if he attended a party earlier this evening, but he’s wearing a tuxedo. He lost his tie somewhere along the way, though, and his shirt is open at the throat, revealing a mat of tight curls on his chest.
“I thought perhaps you had chosen not to come, Giovanna.”
“I was stopped for speeding,” I admit.
Russo seems to think this is the funniest thing he’s ever heard. He laughs until tears stream from his eyes. Eyeing me over his whiskey glass, he finally says, “You were so eager to see me, cara .”
“I’m always eager to help Diamond Freeport clients.” I try to make the words sound true. In reality, I lost track of how fast I was driving when I thought about getting my hands on Russo’s tax forms, on finally getting the evidence I need. I pictured him in a courtroom, standing before a judge, bowing his head as he was sentenced to decades for federal tax evasion. Before I knew it, the Bentley’s odometer passed eighty.
I’ll gladly pay the ticket, even though it comes with the promise of my own visit to court—for reckless driving. The cop didn’t arrest me on site, probably because I admitted exactly how fast I was driving.
“Your tax filings,” I say. “Are those the documents?” There’s a stack of official-looking papers on the corner of his desk.
“It is always business with you, my sweet Giovanna. If I had known how seriously you take your legal studies, I would have followed your career much more closely.”
I bristle at the lie. Russo tracked me in law school. He knew exactly where I lived and worked. The entire time I thought my new identity was secret, Russo was monitoring my every step. I only learned the truth after he murdered Eliza.
“Those are the documents?” I ask again.
He nods with all the confidence of the pope. I sit in the chair across from his desk and reach for the papers.
“Not so fast,” he says.
Caution slams into my brain like a meteor smacking the earth. This has all been too easy—Russo’s midnight summons, being waved through by the guard at the front gate, the summary patting down by the two East Falls men in the kitchen…
“I need to review them now,” I say. “We don’t have much time to fix things before Monday morn?—”
“ Basta! ” Russo barks.
I’m a trained lawyer. I’m devoted to my mission. I’m determined to get those documents before I leave this house. But a lifetime of terror crashes down on me at the command. My throat feels like it’s closing, and I freeze with my hand half-way to his desk.
“I told you before, Giovanna. My trust does not come lightly. I will see my segno before you take those papers.”
My breath stutters in my lungs. The roof of my mouth goes numb. But very slowly, very carefully, I stand.
I don’t want to turn my back on Russo. I don’t trust him. But I recognize absolute command on the flat features of his face. His pupils are wide in the dim light. His dull eyes look like a snake’s. Once I get that picture in my head, I can’t budge it—especially when I realize I haven’t seen him blink since I came into the room.
I don’t have a choice.
I stand beside the chair. I face the door. I bite my lip and pull up the hem of my black knit top.
Russo laughs.
“That is not the view I paid for, Giovanna. Strip and show me your segno .”
“Go to hell,” I say, spinning back to look at him, because Antonio Russo hasn’t bought me. I’m not his whore. I’m not his wife. And I’ll never take my clothes off for him.
He moves faster than I thought possible, swooping toward a drawer in his desk. When he comes up, he’s holding a pistol. Its tight little mouth points directly at my chest.
“Strip and show me your segno ,” he repeats. “ Puttana. ” There’s no emotion in his voice. He might as well be placing an order in a restaurant. Instructing his barber. Commenting on a television show he wants to watch.
And standing in Russo’s study, I finally understand what Eliza learned so many years ago when she married the don. I know the truth my father mastered as Russo’s made man.
I have no options. I have no choice. If I want to get out of this room alive, I must do whatever Antonio Russo commands.
So I strip.
I step out of my shoes. I take off my black top. My matching jeans. My plain white bra and simple cotton briefs.
I face Russo, because I have to rebel that much. I fold each garment neatly, setting it on his desk next to the tax papers. My clothes look like an offering on an altar.
When I’m naked, I glare at him defiantly. His only response is to twirl his gun in the air, telling me to turn around.
I hate him. I hate his cruelty. I hate his certainty that I’ll comply.
But I do it. I turn around. I feel his eyes on my segno. My back burns as if the tattoo ink has turned to acid beneath the surface of my skin. I feel each line of the design like a separate battery cable to my heart.
I complete my turn and gaze straight into his reptilian eyes. “I need to review the documents now,” I say, as if I always intended to stand here nude.
That makes him smile. “Not yet, Giovanna,” he says. His lips look oiled in the dim light, slick with his spit. “I want you on your knees.” He uses the gun to point to the floor beside his desk.
“No,” I say, because that won’t be his last command. He wants me to suck his cock. He wants to rape me. He wants to destroy me, the way he ruined Eliza.
He barely twitches his wrist. The gun flicks toward the cold fireplace on the far wall, and my ears are filled with a single sharp report. I flinch as if I’ve been shot, and I hear pieces of brick crumble onto the andirons.
“Boss!” The door to the study flies open hard enough to hit the wall behind. The two goons from the kitchen tumble into the room, their own guns drawn, their eyes wild.
“I am fine,” Russo says. “Leave us.”
The men are already relaxing, confident once they see their master with his weapon. I wonder how many naked women Russo has tormented here that neither soldier looks surprised to find me like this.
The men do as they are told. They leave, shutting the door firmly behind them.
And Russo says, “Do not keep me waiting, Giovanna. I have told you once. I want you on your knees.” He sights casually down the barrel of his gun. “I will not ask a third time.”
I believe him. I believe every word he says. He murdered my cousin for challenging him, for sleeping with another man. And in my heart of hearts, I know he intends to murder me.
But if I try to leave, he’ll shoot. If I try to argue, he’ll shoot. If I try to plead, he’ll shoot.
I don’t see a way out. I’ll never reach the Bentley. I won’t hit the interstate and make it back to Dover. But I have to do something. I have to keep moving. I have to give my brain a chance to unlock, to come up with a way out.
So I cross the room. I kneel in front of Russo. I’m light-headed, and I sway, and I put my hands on his knees to steady myself.
My fingers are dangerously close to the engorged rod I can see beneath his pants. I swallow hard and start to look away. But when I turn my head, I’m stopped by the pressure of his gun against my jaw.
I expect it to be hot from the bullet he fired into the fireplace. Or maybe I expect it to be hot because he’s the devil. Or maybe because…
“Oh yes,” Russo says, as if he read my mind. “This is the gun I used to kill Elisabetta. Can you smell her stinking figa ? Can you taste her?”
He slides the barrel from my jaw to my lips. I try to pull away, but he grabs my hair with his free hand. Pulling hard, he forces my head into his lap, grinding my cheek against his pulsing hard-on.
I open my mouth to scream, and he shoves the gun past my teeth. My lips are crushed by steel. I buck against his hand, but I can’t get free. I try to thrash my head, but he only presses me harder into his thigh.
“Tell me, Giovanna,” Russo says, as if we’re chatting about the weather. “Are you afraid to die?”