11. Salvatore
11
Salvatore
If Contessa has taught me anything, it’s that you should always leave long enough to be missed.
I didn’t plan on being away for two nights. Gio was slow to take the bait, more cautious than I thought he would be with his own daughter on the line. We had drip-fed Lovera a false trail for a few days, cooking up a story that Contessa was being held at one of our strip clubs and being made to dance under the stage name Princess.
All it took to sell it was shitty lighting, some makeup, and a woman with the right sized tits and dark hair. The second night she was on stage, Gio committed. He sent three men armed to the teeth to breach the back of the club. The whole job went cleaner than I expected. You plan for control, but you expect chaos.
One, I took for myself. The other two, I let the fish have.
The messier I can make this for Gio, the better. Every called-in favor, every man behind bars, every failed attack and hostage taken—each one is a string holding up Gio’s support structure, snipped away at, one by one.
I anticipated something going wrong and was surprised when it didn’t.
Turns out, I just wasn’t looking in the right zip code.
We step over the shattered door as I march Contessa back through the house. She goes with her head down, steps stiff. I wonder if she realizes how lucky she is, that if I had come back here in a different mood this morning, maybe I wouldn’t be so forgiving.
The girl has me more off-balance than she knows. For two days, I haven’t had my hands anywhere on that body, haven’t had her moans whispered against my ear as she clings to me like I can save her from herself.
Through a thick slab of one-way, bullet-proof glass, I watched Contessa’s cheap, knock-off imitation shake her ass on stage and flash her tits. I watched and felt nothing. I didn’t even have patience for the whores that came around to serve drinks and flirt with me and my men, looking for tips.
Contessa is supposed to rely on me for her pleasure. It’s not supposed to go both ways.
She takes her march of shame well until we reach the bedroom doorway. I sprawl my hand against her lower back, threatening another firm tap against that blazing red ass. She still hesitates. She really must hate this fucking room. Once inside, her expression dims at the sound of the door shutting.
“Show me how you got out.”
She holds her silence. That tells me enough.
“So, you could do it again, if you wanted. Or maybe it was Ava—”
“It wasn’t Ava,” she confesses, immediately, just like I knew she would.
“Well, I have no proof to the contrary, do I?”
The girl folds like paper when I apply the slightest pressure to someone innocent. From the dresser, she fishes out a disassembled pen and hands it over like prison contraband. She claims it was already in the room when she found it. That much, I believe, recognizing the name printed on it.
“Taking the method isn’t enough, Contessa. There’s more than just pens that can work on a lock like that.”
“Then change the lock,” she says, the obvious solution.
“That’s not what needs to change.”
She braces for the verdict as I encroach on her. My hands fit so perfectly around her waist, like she was built for me. I feel the tension in her as she wonders if her punishment isn’t over yet.
“What do you suggest?” she asks stiffly. “A lobotomy?”
I ignore the dry quip and pop open the button of her jeans.
“Take these off.”
She pulls them down carefully. I order her to the bed, where she lays on her stomach, putting that perky ass in the air. Beneath the thin cotton of her underwear, her skin practically glows, a vibrant red giving off its own heat. She won’t be able to sit for a couple days without remembering this, carrying it with her like my own signature on her skin.
Her tension radiates, bracing for the next layer of pain.
I dampen a hand towel from the bathroom and bring it to her. I sit on the edge of the bed and drag the cool rag against her skin. Her round ass twitches at the first contact, but she relaxes slowly into the relief.
“What are you doing?” she asks, watching me over her shoulder.
“I take care of what’s mine,” I say. Whether she understands me or not, she doesn’t answer. Even I have to take a step back and check myself, look in on the moment like a stranger in my own skin. I tell myself it’s deliberate. Intentional. This serves a purpose, my purpose. It’s not just a symptom of the spell she has me under.
But goddamn, the girl has me in a haze that sets my teeth on edge.
“I just got back this morning. A job like mine doesn’t work on a schedule, Contessa. I can’t always predict when I’ll be called away.”
“Did something happen?” she asks.
I ignore her prying for information, squeezing the cloth until water runs in droplets down her skin. She shivers, the tension bleeding slowly out of her muscles. Her face grows soft and thoughtful, again, showing all those complicated emotions beneath that bitter, pent-up facade.
“Is this your way of saying sorry?” she asks, softer, so I can barely hear her.
“No. I don’t say sorry.”
This isn’t an apology, but I can take responsibility where it’s due. But if you want to change something, you have to build it back up after you tear it down.
“You must be getting bored of Ava,” I remark, “if you’re already hatching escape plans.”
“I love Ava. I just hate that she’s trapped here with me all day. The longer this goes on, the worse it gets. It’s like I’m making her a captive, too. I don’t want that for her. She doesn’t deserve it.”
“Is that what you think I want?” I ask. “You think I want to hide you away for the rest of your life, Contessa? A man doesn’t buy a Ferrari to keep it in the garage.”
The rag is almost dry, her skin cooler to the touch. I put it aside and pull my girl up into my lap, cupping her ass in my hands.
She grimaces softly, but settles in my lap, the two of us face to face now. I don’t want Contessa under me while we make important deals. If Contessa is finally desperate enough to get daring and disobedient, then she’s ready to listen and obey. That, at least, comes naturally to her.
“If you’re going to be out of this room, you have to play by my rules. But you haven’t proven to me that you can.”
“You can’t expect me to play by the rules if I don’t even know what they are.”
“Your only rule so far was to not leave this room, and you fucked that one up pretty spectacularly.” I cut off her whining before it can start, squeezing her ass gently and stroking my thumbs over the fading welts. “But my pretty girl had extenuating circumstances, didn’t she? She couldn’t help it that I didn’t come around for so long.”
Her nod is hesitant, as if she’s surprised I can see it her way.
“Yes…”
“I’ve always said you can have almost anything you want. From what I’ve seen, you’re about as demanding as a cactus. You don’t need that much as long as you get wet every once in a while,” I tease her lowly.
“I didn’t think you’d give me the things I want.”
“Like not being in this room.”
She nods.
“Here are my conditions, Contessa. The rules.”
She sits straighter, as if desperate to prove she can be good for me. Fuck, I love it when she’s eager, when she showcases it with her whole body. She wraps her arms around my shoulders, settling in my lap like she belongs there.
It makes me feel in control—which, in my experience, makes me wonder if I really am.
Does she know she’s being trained and tested every day? Does she see the end goal the way I do? How deep does that self-awareness go when I’m teasing out her cunt?
“If you’re out of this room, then you’re with me. I’m not here every day, and there will be meetings you can’t go to. Otherwise, you go where I go. But if you’re at my side, Contessa, you’ll see what I do for this family. You’ll bear witness to all of it. And some of it, baby girl, you’re really not gonna like.”
Hesitation flickers in her eyes, but her face stays stony.
“You can’t tell me to stop. You can’t beg me to change my mind. I let you have your say with Cecilia out of respect, but there are things I have to do that you can’t sway me from. Can you handle that?”
“Yes,” she agrees, too easily.
“Really?” I challenge. “You’re going to sit by with your mouth shut if I have a gun to someone’s head?”
Face to face like this, I can see every expression. The way her face tenses, the way her pupils blow dark at the thought.
“You’ll stand by and watch me kill a man at your feet, even if he begs for you to save him?”
“You don’t have to show me those things—”
“Yes, I do,” I correct her, sharply. “If you want to stay ignorant, that’s what this room is for. But if you’re with me, you’re with me all the way. Do you understand?”
The silence lingers.
Finally, she’s really considering the offer, thinking it over. It’s as though it pains her, jumping from one thought to the next, back and forth, her desires on either end of a scale that she just can’t level out. I hold my silence and let her come to the decision on her own. Even I can’t say which side of the deal she’ll land on.
“I’ve never seen anyone die before,” she finally admits, as if it’s a personal failure on her part. “It felt like it was happening all around me when I was growing up. Every couple years, there’d be another funeral. Someone in a box I didn’t really know. But I never saw it. My father made sure of that.”
“He coddled you.”
Contessa’s unhappy laugh catches me off guard.
“No. My father did a lot of things. Coddling isn’t one of them.
“Like what?” I ask. She’s never really mentioned it before, and it may be good to know how Gio failed so that I can avoid his mistakes.
“He just…he wanted to make it seem easy. Killing, I mean. When he was still convinced that I could be trained, he would bring me these pictures, two or three men, and he’d tell me everything about them that he knew. Their lives, their jobs, how they had wronged him. He said it was up to me to decide which one he killed. If I didn’t pick, he said he’d kill them all regardless. We’d go over it and over it for hours until I finally gave him an answer. I never even knew if it was real, if there were any consequences at all. I still don’t. But that was his point. An order is just words. You say the words, and the problem goes away. So simple, even someone like me could do it.”
“Someone like you,” I repeat. She utters those words with so much contempt.
She shrugs, but she wears her indifference like an ill-fitting mask. It doesn’t cover enough, revealing what she’s trying to hide. It upsets her, this admission. It means something to her.
“Someone soft.”
I can see that, Gio trying to raise another ruler that hides behind a desk, never risking his own neck. I drag my thumb against her skin, pulling her out of those thoughts so that she’ll listen.
“Your father’s always been a coward about doing his own dirty work.”
She shakes her head.
“I’ve heard that, but I never really believed it. I always thought he was so merciless. But then, I was a kid, I guess.”
“Did he hit you?”
The possibility hadn’t occurred to me before I took Contessa over my knee, playing at pleasure and punishment. She shakes her head.
“He was never that straightforward. The closest he ever was trying to teach me to shoot—I was terrified of guns. He would let my older cousins knock me around to show me how much stronger men were, why a gun was my only chance. He called it roughhousing, but it was worse than that. They weren’t allowed to mess up my face, but they got the point across until I was desperate enough to shoot the stupid thing to make it stop. Usually, it was all bullshit mental games with him. Like my mom—”
Her voice goes soft and flimsy.
“She was the one who coddled me. He separated us for it, let me earn visits if I obeyed him. She had her own problems. I think when he took me away, they got worse. When she overdosed. I wondered if she didn’t do it intentionally, just so he couldn’t use her against me anymore.”
There’s gravity in the confession. A child’s lingering guilt. She can’t even look me in the face when she talks about it. I know what it is to carry that kind of blame. To shoulder a parent’s death. It hits a little too close to a raw nerve, like a sore tooth I should have pulled a long time ago.
No wonder the girl is so quick to jump in front of any innocent bystander, so eager to take the bullet for anyone she can.
“This much, I’ll promise,” I say, drawing her gaze again, “another part of our deal, if it matters. I’ll never threaten another person and use them against you.”
“Why?”
“I’m not here to repeat your father’s mistakes.”
Her eyes flicker slightly at those words, swallowing. Finally, she whispers, “Okay.”
“We have a deal?” I ask, more straightforward.
“Yes.” She breathes it like it’s the most painful word she’s ever uttered. “Maybe it’s for the best if I finally face it head on.”
I draw Contessa into a kiss, the binding action that seals the agreement. Her lips are soft, gently parted with surprise as it lingers. You missed this , my own thoughts hiss at me, with the same weighty accusation I leveled at her. I ignore them, roughly groping at her ass, drawing white streaks through the pink skin. I taste her sweet, surprised gasp.
“Good girl,” I whisper against her lips. “Go get changed. You’ve burned up half my goddamn morning.”
I lie back on her bed and watch Contessa take off the last of her clothes. She stands in the doorway of her wardrobe completely naked with my handprints stamped all over that perky ass.
The sight alone drops my urgency by a couple degrees and floods my thoughts with distraction.
My hands twitch into fists, jaw tightening as I look her up and down.
How the fuck am I going to get anything done now?