17. Dominic
17
DOMINIC
I tap my foot against the floor and sit as close as I can to the edge of my bed, waiting for Luca to turn up. All alone in my freshly tidied room, I’ve been waiting for hours for him to arrive. Checking my watch for what feels like the thousandth time, I start doubting whether or not he’ll even come.
I thought after everything we’ve been through together by now, everything we’ve done and our time together last night, we might actually have something real. Does he not feel the same? Was it all just a way to get me to leave this morning ?
Just as my doubts and second-guessing start spiraling out of control, I am interrupted by firm knocks against my door. I rush up and quickly check my reflection, making sure my clothes, hair, smile, and just everything about me is in near perfect condition, even though it’ll all be messed up soon.
I fling open the door with reckless abandon and pose for my guest, looking him directly in the eye with a wry smile prepared just for him.
But it’s not Luca; it’s Angelo.
“What are you doing here?”
Angelo takes one look at me and somehow manages to piece together the whole situation. “Oh, I’m sorry.” He chuckles. “Were you waiting for someone?”
“Yes, I am,” I say, not in the mood for his usual bullshit. “So make it quick.”
“Wait a second,” he mutters. “You’re waiting for Luca, aren’t you?”
I shift awkwardly. “So what if I am?”
“Well, I think I know why you’re waiting.”
“What does that mean?”
Angelo kisses his teeth. “He’s gone to see the Grecos. ”
I clench my fists, and my legs start to shake. My entire body doesn’t know whether to react with anger or fear. “Who told you that?”
“Salvatore Valenti’s son just stormed the Greco castle. They want to make an example of him, so they’re calling on everyone,” he explains. “I heard from some guys going there right now. I know you would want to know.”
“Where?” “Their restaurant downtown. You’re not going down there, are you?”
“Of course I am!” I yell at him. “Give me your keys.”
“No way. You might get yourself killed.”
“If I don’t go, Luca definitely will be.” There’s no time for arguing. I grab him by the collar of his shirt and pull him up to my face. “Give me your keys, or I’ll take them myself.”
“Fine,” he relents. “But I’m going, too, and I’m driving.”
I release my grip, and Angelo stumbles to find his balance. I push past him and make my way to his car.
Angelo slams the gas pedal, careening around every corner and speeding through the streets of Montcove, but he’s still not going fast enough.
“Hurry up,” I growl.
Angelo keeps his eyes on the road, doing whatever he can to straighten out to make up for me being the crazy one. “Do you want to crash and burn before we get there?”
I huff to myself. “What the hell was he thinking?”
“I don’t know. He’s your boyfriend.”
“That’s not— I don’t—” I stutter, my thoughts unable to fully form with everything already going on, and Angelo throwing out labels only makes it worse. “Why would he even go there?”
“What would he even want with the Grecos?” Angelo asks.
“They’re trying to edge my family out and get themselves involved with the Valentis,” I explain.
The car screeches onto another block, and the final street to get to the restaurant comes into sight.
“So he’s gone to stop it all by himself? That’s almost romantic.” Angelo laughs aloud.
“Cut the jokes. This is actually serious, Angelo.”
“Fine. Just know that it’s going to be bad when you go in there.”
I turn to face Angelo, glaring at him across in the driver’s seat. “You drove here. You’re coming in there with me. I need backup.”
“What?” He laughs. “I don’t want to get my ass beat.”
“You won’t with me there,” I tell him, no longer asking.
Angelo shakes his head, pulling up in front of the restaurant and abandoning his car there. “Let’s go then.”
Throwing the passenger door open, I dive out and race toward the door to the restaurant, Angelo following close behind me. My entire body feels like it’s collapsing in on itself, and the burden of my anxiety makes my back almost break under its weight. Why couldn’t I be the one to charge headfirst into this restaurant? What has happened to us? He’s the one that’s supposed to clean up after my messes. Why did I have to be a bad influence on him? Why couldn’t I get something good from him instead?
If the roles were reversed, I know that no matter how bad it got in there, Luca would come after me, and everything would be okay. Does he feel the same? Can I honestly say that right now as he’s in there, Luca doesn’t have a doubt in the world that I’m outside about to burst through these doors and make everything better?
Why would he? This whole thing has only gone this far because of how badly I screwed up, and fate isn’t even kind enough to make me pay for it.
Maybe he should have just told his father to accept the Grecos’s deal and to leave us to go under. Maybe everything would have turned out okay if our parents never got married in the first place.
I would be drowning right now without him, but he would be fine without me.
Crashing through the door, my eyes narrow immediately to try and cut through the dim light and get a better read of the room. They’ve left the lights off to the main dining room of the restaurant, so I’m only just able to see using the moonlight bleeding through the gaps in the window blinds and two smaller side rooms with the lights still on. They clearly want this place to seem closed for business and empty to avoid interruptions, but they didn’t account for me.
The Grecos and their lackeys stand in a ring around the room, Antonio standing proud with his arms folded in front of his stomach in the middle of a sadistic cackle. Their heads all turn to the sound of my disruption, each of them eyeing up my prepared fighting stance as I root my feet to the floor and cock my fists ready.
Luca, lying on the floor in a crumpled pile, rests in the middle of them. Finally catching a break from his beating as his assailants prepare themselves to take me on next, but they’re not ready for me. They could never be.
Charging forward at the closest person to me, I see his bruised knuckles that were used to hurt Luca, and a fire burns inside my stomach .
“Get the hell away from him,” I roar, my feet bounding off the floor and launching me toward my target, my fist rocketing across his jaw and sending him reeling back.
With him dealt with, I turn to face my next opponent but find four more already coming at me. Ducking around one of their hits, I end up taking two more instead. Flailing out another attempt at a punch, I barely glance one of their arms before the rest of Antonio’s dogs come down on me with the worst pain I’ve ever felt.
Knocking my ass to the floor, I’m thrown back by a barrage of kicks and punches. Skidding my face against the sharp edges of each tile on the floor, I feel them cut and scrape against my face. The warmth of my injuries cool down under the rivers of cold blood running down my cheek.
Recoiling from the pain, I turn my body in place in an attempt to stand again. Feeling the unbearable pain and struggle of my muscles as they fail to simply hold my weight, I relent the attempt and fall back to the floor.
It’s okay, though; this isn’t over yet. I still have Angelo to keep them busy until I catch my second wind .
Gasping for air trying to fill my emptied lungs, I drop my head, accepting my place on the floor. I turn my eyes across the room to lock gazes with Luca, who looks as defeated as he is in pain. The hopelessness in his eyes feels like a sharp knife stabbing me between my possibly broken ribs. Even if he did expect me to come after him, he didn’t think for a second that I could do anything to help him. He was right.
His eyes start to widen as he looks past me, staring over my body to where Angelo should be rushing through any second now.
I wait for him to come flying past me with a flurry of blows or a supportive arm as he drags me back onto my feet so we can fight side by side again, but nothing comes.
What is he doing? Why isn’t he fighting?
Persisting through my immense pain, I roll over to face Angelo, watching him just stand there, doing nothing. His brown eyes blend into his brunette fringe as it lies in front of his face. No part of his average build is ready for a fight.
It’s him. How could it be him?
His entire act drops, his look of anxiety and alarm leaving his face as his almost trademark cocky smile takes its place.
That piece of shit.
With a new purpose, I push my bruised hands against the floor and stagger to my feet. Fighting through the pain, I stumble toward Angelo and try to tackle him to the floor.
“You bastard,” I sputter out.
Struggling against the weight of gravity itself, I barely make it two steps closer to him before my body collapses to the floor again. The rough hands of Greco’s men grip tightly onto my arms and drag me back.
Propping me up to face Luca and Antonio, I am locked in place as his henchmen refuse to let me go. I’m forced to watch Luca’s beaten state, his almost lifeless eyes staring back at me trying to work out how we could ever get out of here.
I have no choice but to see the exact moment when he gives up.
“That was easier than I thought.” Angelo laughs as he walks past me to join Antonio at his side.
“You did good,” Antonio congratulates him. The two of them laugh at their victory .
I writhe against my captors, trying to free myself from their hold, but it’s no use.
“You betrayed me,” I wheeze, my breath slowly coming back to me.
The two men share a look with each other then burst into laughter.
“Betrayed you?” Angelo echos. “I was never on your side to begin with.”
“I can’t blame him. I always said you could have been an actor in another life,” Antonio jokes. He wraps his arm around Angelo’s shoulder, a smug smile on his lips. “I’m proud of you, son.”
Luca and I react in unison, the revelation hitting us both like a ton of bricks.
“You told me you were a Morganelli,” I stammer.
Antonio takes his hands off of his supposed son’s back and throws them in the air. “Well, that one’s on me. I know my reputation all too well.” He paces the floor around us, unable to resist playing up his victory lap. “I just couldn’t bear the idea of dumping that on him at such a young age. People would treat him differently, and he’d be better off without that on his shoulders.””
“Something your parents should have considered,” Angelo mocks us both, kicking us while we’re already down. “Though that would be saving them from your embarrassment instead.”
“For now, my boy will just have his mother’s name.” Antonio gives his son a smile. “When he’s ready, we can always tack my name on the end too.”
For a moment, I watch Angelo’s body tense. “Go on guys. Let him go,” Angelo commands to the guys holding me back. “You good there, Dom?”
“Fuck you,” I spit back at him.
“That’s more like it. I was worried you just gave up all together there,” he says. “Do you want to punch me? Would that make you feel better?”
He steps toward me slowly, getting his smug face right up in mine.
“Go on,” he provokes. “Hit me.”
Staring back at him, I leave my fists by my sides. I don’t have it in me to even try to hit him, and even if I did, I would miss and make myself look even weaker.
“That’s just sad,” he mocks.
My body gives out, and I drop to the floor again, lying on the ground, no longer able to move any part of my body on its own. I give up.
My ear lands beside Luca’s mouth, our legs sprawling out in either direction.
“I have a plan,” he whispers to me, a distinct croak in his voice.
Rolling onto my side to face him, the shock of pain erupting from my ribs jolts through my entire body. “No,” I whisper back.
Antonio stands beside his son, smirking down at us in our weakest moment, as if the image is the only thing that will make him feel strong and powerful.
Angelo leans into his ear and whispers something to him while he nods. He pulls away and points to four of the men standing around us. “Separate them. I don’t want any more talking.”
“Come on, take them into the other rooms,” Antonio echoes the sentiment.
My arms are being pulled back and yanked toward the ceiling as I am hauled up and dragged across the room. Luca is being treated with the same level of care as the two of us are moved apart and taken away to the two rooms on either side of the restaurant.
One of the Greco lackeys throws me back into one of the small, cold chairs in the room, the other man binding my hands behind the back of it. My shoulders crack as they're tied in an awkward knot.
“Is this really necessary?” I cough out. My lungs feel like they’re about to explode.
“With how much I’ve learned about you,” he begins, speaking slowly and purposefully, entirely different from the Angelo I thought I knew, “it’s best to play it safe.”
“Did you really spend all that time with me just waiting for this?”
Angelo waits to answer, traipsing across the room around me toward the desk and sitting in the grand chair behind it, lording over me as he cowers behind the slab of wood. “Not at first.”
I tilt my head up to look at him.
“At first, you were just some idiot who kept screwing up his own life so badly that it was too much fun to stop watching,” he taunts me. “Then when you told me about your mom’s wedding, well, I couldn’t let the opportunity go. ”
“I can’t believe you, man,” I sputter out.
“Believe what? You were on this path of self-destruction already. All I did was give you a little push.”
“You tried to get me killed!”
“If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead,” he speaks coldly.
“You need something from us, don’t you?” I ask him through gritted teeth.
Angelo rolls his head back with an exaggerated laugh. “Don’t think that you’re going to get me monologuing like some action movie.” He returns to his new emotionless composure. “All you need to know is that you’re here to watch me beat you.”
“Obviously, I’m a bit biased,.” I chuckle. “But I think you’ve beaten me enough already.”
Angelo stands from his desk, his hair falling in front of his eyes again. “Is that all you’ve got? Jokes?” He gets up in my face again. “Even for you, this is pathetic.”
Surrendering against his cold stare, I hang my head low in shame. “You’re right,” I tell him pitifully.
He looks down at me as I wallow in my defeat, feeding off of my failure. “I have had to put up with your bullshit for months now, and finally you learn to shut your mouth. I should have done this a long time ago,” he gloats.
“I get it. You’re better than me,” I mumble. “In every single way, you’re better than me.”
“If you think your blatant flattery will get you out of this, you’re more desperate than I thought.”
“I don’t care anymore,” I admit. “Even before all of this, I had no chance of doing what you’ve done.”
Angelo shakes his head and turns away from me, trying to stop listening to my praise.
“I mean, you’ve lied to me for months, you’ve manipulated almost everyone around you, and you’re about to bring down two of the city's biggest crime families, and you act like it’s no work at all.”
With his back still turned to me, Angelo boasts, “They won’t be the biggest for long.”
“But, hey, at least we can relate on one thing,” I say.
Angelo spins around on the spot to face me. I have his attention now. He doesn’t want to ask about what I mean, but I know he could never go without knowing.
“We both get the same credit from our families, right?”
“What are you talking about?” he demands, his tone starting to falter.
“I’m just saying, you’re doing all that work to bring the Grecos back from obscurity, and your dad still won’t let you share his name? I get that kind of treatment, and I’m a deadbeat.” I laugh.
Angelo tries to keep his cool, but it’s not working for even a moment. I can see the frustration in his eyes, the fire burning inside him as he can’t stop his hands from shaking. “That’s not what’s happening.” “Are you kidding? When he’s ready, we can always tack my name on the end too,” I quote. “How long has he been saying that?”
“That’s not true,” he persists, but it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself.
“Sure, man,” I chuckle. “You keep telling yourself that.”
Angelo huffs and lets out a series of half sentences. “No, he-he… I mean… He knows… I-I have done so?—”
He gives up on whatever he was trying to convince himself of, and without adding another word, Angelo storms out of the back office and leaves me all by myself, completely unattended.
Perfect.