Chapter Sixteen
Matteo
T here are hundred-year-old abstinent Roman monks who’ve dedicated their entire lives to the teachings of Christ who are less sexually frustrated than I am right now.
The need is crawling up my arms, stiffening my spine, tightening my balls, and generally ruining my otherwise good mood.
Ridiculous.
This whole situation is fucking ridiculous .
My jaw grinds together, sawing at the top layer of enamel on my teeth, as I think back to the way Valentina’s face fell when she realized who I was. Based on that one look, I think it’s safe to say she might actually have preferred the horrifically scarred Phantom of the Opera be revealed behind the mask instead of me.
I chuckle humorlessly, the sound hissing beneath my breath as I toss back my scotch. Joke’s on her for not realizing that’s exactly what she’s getting with me.
I’m not sure what drove her to run away from me last night, but I know it sure as fuck wasn’t lack of interest. She’d arched and moaned into me, her mouth fucking mine with greedy strokes of her tongue like it had that night a year and a half ago.
My blood scorches through my veins even now, burning my body up from the inside out. Anticipation bubbles to the surface, dangerous inches from erupting through my pores. This deeply inconvenient, maddeningly powerful, near-manic year and a half long itch is going to be scratched soon. Once I get Valentina out of my system, I’ll be able to focus on the business.
On Marina. On a life mapped out to be free of emotional burdens with a spouse I neither like, nor dislike. On the creation of a family for the sole purpose of having heirs.
I didn’t grow up in a loving, stable home and, consequently, I’m not capable of providing it to any family I’ll create. What I can guarantee is a home free of the abuse and trauma I suffered. That’s another reason an arranged marriage with someone I have no feelings for makes sense. If the emotions aren’t there, then they can never be perverted into hatred and mistreatment. Marina makes sense.
Valentina and I just need to fuck so I can put myself out of this misery. That’s it.
A crisp, metallic clack echoes, ripping me from my thoughts. Then a sharp snap. The clack again. With a practiced flick of his hand, Rocco flips the lid on a vintage zippo lighter open and closed then open again, his eyes trained on me.
Unfortunately, my brother isn’t completely talentless. No sociopath ever is. He has two rather unorthodox strengths in his arsenal, both of which he loves to practice on me. First, there’s the particular knack he has for sniffing out people’s weaknesses and using them against them, and then there’s the way he’s cruelly efficient at creating new weaknesses.
Which is why, as we’re sitting with our father in one of the private VIP rooms at Firenze , his arm is dangling off the side of the armchair and he’s playing with a lighter.
With a deft brush of his thumb, he spins the wheel. Not powerfully enough for a full flame to emerge, but enough for sparks to flash out of the top. His finger looks outwardly lazy, absentminded almost, but I know better.
Cruel, beady eyes watch me for any reaction, enjoying the clear tension in my body, the way I can’t tear my gaze away, no matter how much I want to. The rasp of the wheel turning grinds in my ears, the noise punctuated by a soft, sizzling sound as the spark ignites and a flame erupts from the lighter.
Sweat beads at the back of my neck. The air grows shallow, the oxygen sucked out of the room by the small flame. I feel like I’m going to fucking snap .
“Are you listening, Matteo?” my father barks.
“Sorry.” I squeeze my eyes shut to avoid snapping my gaze back to the lighter and reopen them to stare at my father. “I am.”
“You’re the one who wanted to talk, so speak.”
I gnash my teeth together, calling upon every ounce of control inside me to focus away from Rocco’s needling.
“The increase in the house cut that you announced during the meeting was ludicrous,” I grit out through my clenched jaw. “Going up to fifty percent isn’t going to be possible, you know that.”
Augusto Leone laughs, a sound that comes from deep within his fat belly and rumbles up his thick throat with difficulty, years of smoking cigarettes having roughened the passage. The laugh morphs into a coughing fit before it ever leaves his mouth. He leans forward, hacking repugnantly into his fist for long seconds before he says, “If I wanted your opinion, I would have asked for it, Matteo.
There was a very brief time in my life when I idolized my father. I was seven and I’d watched him command his men to attack a rival shipment, then celebrate the successful mission with them once it was done. I barely understood what was going on, but I remember the pride I’d felt. I remember it well because it died the very same week it was born, when he’d walked into our home’s basement playroom to find me tied down using jump ropes and Rocco, five years my elder, burning me with a cigarette.
The relief at seeing my dad, at knowing that I was going to be rescued, was too monumental to put into words. It paled in comparison to the cataclysmic fear that washed over me when I realized he wasn’t going to help me.
Instead, he’d plucked the cigarette from between Rocco’s fingers and handed him his cigar.
“This is good training for when you’ll be Don. You have to be ruthless, Rocco. Merciless. ” He’d glanced emotionlessly at the freshly charred circles that decorated my back. “If you dab a bit of gasoline on the skin and then use the cigar, it’ll burn a larger area. I'm proud of you son.”
With that piece of advice and compliment given, he’d left the room. He’d left me .
“Be rational.” It takes everything in me to keep my tone even. “There’s no way we can sustain an increase that significant.”
Rocco spins the wheel again, the grind of the metallic spinner against the flint making my eyelid twitch.
Augusto’s gaze narrows on me. “We need to make up for lost profits somehow.”
Sizzle, pop .
Fresh flame.
“By bleeding the branches dry?” The bead of sweat rolls down the back of my neck. “We can’t support a twenty percent increase, not without bringing in more business. That’s not going to happen overnight.”
“You clearly think you’re so much smarter than us, little brother,” Rocco whispers, his voice slippery as a snake’s. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
“It’s not possible. Aldo would tell you himself if he wasn’t such a fucking coward. I’m sure the Marchesanis will be calling you next to say they can’t deliver on this.”
Augusto waves a dismissive hand at me, indicating he’s done listening. “I think it’s time for a little distraction,” he announces, looking around like it’s magically going to appear.
“We’re talking business, take this seriously,” I snap.
Rocco grins, jumping in. “There’s nothing I take more seriously than pussy grinding on my cock.”
Our father guffaws like it’s the joke of the year, consistently proud of the sociopath he’s made in his image.
“Maybe if you weren’t so busy worrying about where to stick your dick, the business wouldn’t be failing in the first place.”
Rocco’s eyes flare angrily. A red flush creeps up his neck, turning the skin blotchy. I clench my jaw. The satisfaction of landing a blow against him isn’t worth whatever reprisal he’s going to unleash now that he feels humiliated.
“Careful, Matteo. Your misplaced superiority complex is starting to show. While you’ve been toiling away doing branch level work, I’ve been making real moves to diversify our revenue streams and bring in fresh cash to the Famiglia . Things you’d never dare because you’re a spineless pussy.”
“What are you talking about?” Icy fingers glance down my back. “What have you done?”
“Nothing for you to worry about. It’s need to know only and you, brother, will never be someone Father and I believe needs to know.”
“Rocco—”
“What we do need is a dancer. I know just the one I want,” he announces silkily, mouth stretching into a smile full of sharp teeth. “Time to test out the fresh meat.”
Tightness bands around my chest as he presses the call button next to his chair.
“What do you mean?”
He ignores me, and when Guido stalks into the room, he tells him, “Bring in the girl.”
Guido nods dutifully and leaves without asking which one. Unease slithers into my stomach and I’m about to ask which girl when the door opens again and Valentina walks in.
Something ugly twists in my chest.
She’s wearing a full body dark lace cover up over a skimpy black bikini with matching heels. She freezes in the doorway when she sees the three of us sitting facing each other, her eyes going instantly to me.
My reaction is immediate. “Not her.”
Rocco’s face splits into another shit-eating grin. Whatever blow I may have landed earlier, he just came back at me with a knockout punch.
“And why not her?” he questions, extending his hand towards her. “Come here, dolcezza .”
Valentina doesn’t move.
“Not her,” I repeat. My hands tighten on my armrests. The same armrests I was clutching twelve hours earlier when she wouldn’t let me touch her as she kissed me. “She doesn’t do private dances.”
“So I hear. Guido told me you auditioned her yourself, which was interesting enough, but then he also told me you restricted menu items for her. And that, brother, was very intriguing.”
A muscle in my cheek refuses to comply with my outward appearance of calm. It ticks and ticks and fucking ticks , revealing the growing disquiet swirling in my chest.
“She’s not good. Her skills are limited, we can find better. Call Guido back, he’ll recommend someone else.”
Rocco’s grin stretches even further, growing wider than that self-satisfied cat in Alice in Wonderland until he’s looking at me gleefully.
“She’s good enough that you hired her,” he counters. “You must have seen something worthwhile. I’d like to see it too.” Turning back towards Valentina, he repeats, “Come here.”
My gaze whips to her. “Leave. Now .”
“If I’m not wanted, I’ll go,” she answers, a hint of a quiver in her voice.
Valentina reaches blindly behind her, feeling for and finding the door handle there. She’s holding a smile up on her face but it’s weak and trembling at the edges.
She’s about to do as I said and I’m about to breathe again, when my father speaks. “Now I’m intrigued. Come in and show us what you’ve got, dolcezza .”
Valentina’s hand falls away from the door.
“Yes, sir,” she whispers.
A deafening buzz roars to life in my ears as she comes further into the room. I train my eyes unseeingly on the floor, my pupils contracting painfully down to the size of pinholes when her feet walk past me. She moves on unsteady legs, missing a step when she passes me, and I have to strangle my hands together to keep from reaching for her.
Rocco settles back into his chair, his gaze turning black on Valentina. She starts to dance between the three of us, but he spreads his legs and pats his lap crudely, licking his lips like a carnivore appraising its freshly caught meat. “Park yourself right here, dolcezza .”
It takes everything in me, everything I’ve learned these past ten years, every morsel of control, every ounce of willpower, to calm myself down enough from my black murderous rage to not kill my brother on the spot. It’s only once I have that hold on myself that I look up at her.
I wish I hadn’t.
The evident distress on her face rips the bottom straight out of my stomach. Worse, she looks over at me for help, her eyes pleading.
She looks at me the way I looked at my father in our playroom.
Like I could be her salvation.
But there’s nothing I can do. If I cause a scene for her now, I’ll endanger her further. I shake my head, silently urging her to keep looking at me.
She has to dance.
Just the thought makes me want to bury a bullet in Rocco’s heart.
His hands close around her waist and he yanks her downward, grinding her ass on his lap with a sick grunt.
Acid burns my stomach as Valentina’s eyes go dead. The light leaks out of them as they remain fixed on me. She can’t stand having his hands on her.
“I’ve figured out what you like about her, Matteo.” Rocco looks at me over her shoulder, his smug grin a clear provocation. His eyes drop slowly down her back before he adds, “It’s this ass .”
Pure, unadulterated rage hurdles to the top of my throat as Rocco’s hands climb up her waist. My vision blurs at the edges, then blacks out. She’s not his to look at and I’m going to rip out his goddamn eyeballs and shove them down his fucking throat.
“ Cazzo , this is an ass that’ll make a man believe in God.”
A thousand angry hornets crash loudly against the walls of my eardrums.
“Let her have a bounce over here when you’re done, Rocco,” Augusto says.
I lunge to my feet. Rocco flicks the lighter back on before I can take a step. Strangled rage seethes beneath my skin until I’m sure they can see it pulsing, a living, breathing thing screaming to be set free.
“If you’re not going to take this conversation seriously, then I’m going to leave,” I announce, buttoning my suit to keep my hands away from Rocco’s throat. “I’m trying to stop you both from making another mistake.”
Valentina’s eyes go wide, betrayal stabbing through them. Equal measures of satisfaction that she recognizes me as her protector and dismay that she thinks I’d abandon her pierce through me.
Rocco’s hand closes around the front of Valentina’s throat. Bands of barbed wire coil tightly around my major organs, holding my very life hostage. He pulls her backwards against his chest, and an anguished whimper leaves her lips.
“No problem,” he purrs against her ear, eyes pinned maliciously on me. “We’ll keep Melody here to entertain us. Come on, dolcezza , Matteo told me he’d be happy to share you with me. You don't mind if our father watches while you strip and bounce on my cock, do you?”
The tight ball of rage that had slowly been twisting my belly erupts into a firestorm of fury.
Ten years of control, gone in an instant.
I fucking lose it.
I’m across the room in a heartbeat, grabbing Valentina’s arm and ripping her out of Rocco’s hold.
The punch flies before I can second guess it, but the satisfaction of hearing the blow connect and my brother’s face snap to the side removes any lingering doubts.
“ Enough .” There’s a strange note of madness in my voice.
Behind me, our father chuckles darkly.
Rocco rubs his sore jaw while giving me a victorious smirk. His arms stretch to either side of him as he tips his chin up at me.
“You’re finally admitting you like the stripper.”
“I’m not admitting shit.” Every word is forced past my clenched jaw. I push Valentina behind me towards the door. “She’s nothing. I just don’t need to watch you assault a woman in front of me. I’d do the same for anyone.”
I whirl on Valentina next.
“Get out,” I snap, arm extended towards the door, my jaw so tight it’s one attempt at a facial expression away from cracking in half.
She stumbles back a step, unsure eyes finding mine, but she stays. Her gaze darts to my family before coming back to my face. She hesitates like she doesn’t want to leave me here alone with them. I descend on her when she doesn’t move. Grabbing her by the arm, I drag her to the door. I can’t fucking focus while she’s in here, a clear and visible target to them.
“Matteo—”
“I said, get out .”
I throw the door open, push her out and slam it shut behind her.
My father cocks his brow at me. “Interesting little display, Matteo.”
Ignoring him, I turn on my brother. “You know what else is bad business? Harming the fucking merchandise. The last thing we need is bruised dancers on stage.”
“That’s the reason for your overreaction?” he asks, taunting me with his arrogant smirk.
“The only one.”
“Huh.”
That one harmless enough syllable has the hair on the back of my neck standing on end.
“Stay the fuck away from the dancers, Rocco.”
“The dancers?” he asks, smile growing exponentially. “Or her ?”
“Both,” I spit. “You don’t want to cross me on this, Rocco. That’s a fucking promise.”