Chapter 45
When I get back downstairs, I’m still breathless and flustered, feeling like the bottom just fell out of my whole world. There’s no one to be seen, but I’m sure Jago is tucked out of sight somewhere. She’s probably rubbing her hands at the thought of me making the don angrier with every second that passes.
She’s probably found a spot in the dark where she can watch me.
I knock on the door. The growl I hear in answer is so feral and indistinct, I can’t be certain what it was. But I take a breath and step inside.
The room is bright with sleek, low profile up-market furnishings. It looks comfortable and spacious, but it’s more like a plush office in a corporate HQ than the den of a don. Maybe that’s how he wants to be seen. Less of the old-school muscle, more about modern finance.
At first I think I got the wrong place, and anyway, the room seems to be empty. Then I hear the don’s voice from a far, dark corner. “You took your time. Shut the door behind you.”
I can’t help my thoughts racing. Did Jago tell him about me and the boys? Did the boys tell him I asked about the houses? Or has he just brought me in here purely and simply because he hates me?
“So,” he barks as I walk towards him. He’s sitting behind a big, very plain wood desk. “How did you do it? Was there a lot of planning? Did your father put you up to it? Did he mastermind it? And,” he leans forward, “why? What were you going to do with her?”
“What?”
He hasn’t invited me to sit. There isn’t a chair in front of the desk. Does he expect me to stand, like a disgraced schoolgirl, hauled in front of the principal? I look around for a chair I can bring over, since he hasn’t had the courtesy to offer me one.
He barks, “Look at me when I’m talking to you.” The power of his voice, the sheer volume, is a physical shock.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I haven’t seen a chair that looks like I would be able to move it. Not without a struggle at least. It doesn’t seem like good strategy to be wrestling with his furniture and tiring myself out while he yells at me and verbally assaults me. I should at least stay nimble and agile on my feet.
“The raid on Bagniola’s ball. Why did you do it?”
“What? Me?” I blink and take a breath. “Did I just step through a looking glass? What are you talking about?”
“You planned it. Or you and your father did, I don’t know which.” His voice is loud and his eyes are narrow, but I don’t believe him. His anger feels faked. He’s putting on a performance, and he’s getting it all wrong. The don is not gifted in theatrical skill.
“Was that why he sent you here? To make sure it all went according to plan?”
“I chased them away. Me and Bruno.”
“That’s part of the bluff. I don’t know how, but you can be certain that I’m onto you.”
I can be certain that he’s out of his mind.
“And the Crespi thing. That was you, too.” Now that lands too close to home, and it shakes me inside but I take it with a straight face.
What is going on here? He blusters on. It’s terrifying and ridiculous at the same time. I think I might be sick. “Don’t try to deny it. It was obviously a professional-level hit. Probably ex-military or a government outfit. Did your daddy hire in a pro team from out of town? How much did you have to do with it? With the actual executions. Were you there?”
It’s obvious he knows less than nothing about it. But he’s making me jumpy. He’s way too near the truth for comfort. There’s no way to know if somebody fed him all this crap, or if he’s just making it up.
This obsession he seems to have with the Crespi’s thing being tied in to the raid, I wonder what that’s all about. I’m combing my brain for what I saw of the raid.
The team was well-equipped, but there was nothing else about their operation to suggest they were military trained. They weren’t even especially professional. Often as not, that kind of muscle action is cops moonlighting. If anything, those looked pretty haphazard, just like local some hoodlums out and loud, playing with the big boys’ toys.
Adrianna Bagniola, the target, wasn’t secured in any obvious way. I didn’t even think they were certain which way they were going. And whatever that look on her face was, I don’t believe she was a terrified hostage.
No, this whole charade is a setup of some kind.
His eyes narrow some more and he leans forward. “You come into my house like a spy. You sneak around, and there are double-dealing plots and schemes wherever you go.”
“Really, I don’t know…” It sounds feeble. I know. But he doesn’t let me finish anyway.
He gets up noisily and stands. For his size, he’s surprisingly fast getting around the desk. “I don’t trust you, Miss Benedetti.” He’s reaches toward me. As he does, I catch a whiff of Jago’s scent on him.
That puts me off my guard, then the size of him overwhelms me. His hands and arms are too big for me to get out of the way in time. “Whatever you’ve got up to with my boys, whatever filthy, whorish tricks you might have used…”
I turn, but I’m backed against the desk. There’s nowhere to go.
“All the trouble around here, it’s because of you. It’s ALL because of you. I don’t need this shit. I don’t need all this aggravation. I’m sending you back to your daddy. He can fucking deal with you, he can take all the chaos and put out all the fires that break out around you, everywhere you go.” He’s rough as he grabs my shoulders. “I know the depths you’ll sink to, a slut like you.”
I’m ready to swing at him, but he hooks his ankle behind mine as he spins me round.
“Lets see what it is you’ve been trying to corrupt them with,” he rasps, holding my shoulder with one hand and shoving me forward. With the other, he starts to yank at my pants.
I grip the desk with both hands. He’s pulling my pants, tearing them as he does. I lean farther forward, supporting myself and taking my weight on both hands.
He jams a hand inside my panties. His fat fingers grope around. His hefty body is hot, crowding behind me.
An hour ago, I had it all. I was a hair’s breadth from having all my wildest dreams come true, and more. Now I’m about to be groped and mauled and probably worse, totally against my will, by some deranged, lumbering, mountainous fuckhead with fish breath and a mind like a rank sewer pipe.
To make it even worse, the way he’s gripping me with one hand and grappling with the other tells me this is not his first rodeo.
Well, it’s not mine, either. It wasn’t by luck or by accident I stayed a virgin all this time. I swing forward, rocking across the desk as far as I can. I need to be dead on target first swing. He won’t let me get a second shot. And I kick one stiletto straight out and back.
The awful sound of wet sinew twisting comes as he lets out a howl like a speared bull elephant. Now I need all the strength I’ve got and a feat of balance.
Spinning fast, I grab his balls so hard his eyes pop. He shoves me, and I’m losing my grip. He howls as I clamp my hand tighter.
Using his momentum, I get him swung around and back over the big desk. At the same time, I jam my two middle fingers hard into the soft flesh under the angle of his jaw.
Crunching his balls hard, I tell him, “You know that I can finish you right now. Right?” He snarls and roars.
I can’t deny the rush of pleasure I get from crushing his balls. Really, I have no idea how much they can take before they’re permanently fucked beyond repair. The human body has amazing powers of recovery. But I aim test his to the limit.
“I don’t know what all that bullshit performance was all about. Seriously, I have no fucking idea. Maybe it was just an excuse, a way to get yourself worked up to have a go at me. Was that it?” He doesn’t answer.
“Whatever it was,” I fix his eye, and I snarl. “You bring your junk anywhere near me,” another squeeze. I wonder if I can twist harder. I give it a try. His eyes bulge. I jab at his throat to remind him. “If this mess,” one more crushing twist. “Comes anywhere near me, ever again, I’ll serve it back to you as paste in a sandwich.”
I clamp my hand tighter one last time and twist. Hard.
He’s holding back a squeal or a yelp. The glint in his eye signals deep down, a dark, deeply buried part of him is loving this and wants more. I know it, that sick pleasure, and only because I recognize it. The thought of him and me being alike, especially in something like that, disgusts me.
It makes me want to kill him. Slay him and chop him into little pieces. Obliterate him and burn the body.
And just like I can see him in his eyes, I know he can see me in mine. Like it or not, in this instant we’re kindred spirits. He reflects the very worst of that terrible part of me, the part that I would burn out with acid if I could.
I hate him for bringing that to the surface in me, I hate him for mirroring it, and I hate him for what it makes me want to do to him. And I’m terrified how much he can see me, even when I’ve got his life on a knife edge.
It’s repulsive, and it’s unbearably intense. I don’t know how to let go. My guts bubble and quake. I could puke in his face. The least he deserves is death by fire. I settle for coughing a thick gob of spit into the middle of his face.
His eyes well and he shakes. I let go his balls and drive a knee into them as a farewell.
“Get out of my house,” he wails. “Never come back here. Never. If I ever see you within a mile of this place I’ll have you broken in pieces and fed to the dogs.”
“Yeah.” I toss back over my shoulder, “I already decided that staying for dinner could be awkward. So. If I don’t see you, eat shit. Fuckface.”