5. My Wife
MICHELA
5
The golden serpent’s head painted in a circle on the door contrasts with the rough handmade charcoal scales carved into its body that blend with the color and design of the rest of the door. I want to run my fingertips over the smooth head, then feel the rough carved edges on the neck part, but I suppress that urge by flexing my fingers instead.
“Changed your mind?” Corrado brushes his fingers over the top of my hand as if reassuring me of something.
I realize I must’ve squeezed his biceps when I flexed my fingers.
I shake my head.
“Good,” he says. “This’ll be fun.” Corrado raps the serpent’s head few times. When nobody answers, he explains, “They’re not expecting me.” He knocks a few more times. “I hoped they wouldn’t retire for the lounge already, but it looks like they might have.”
I unwind my hand from his arm and press my palm over the serpent’s head, then press my ear to the door. “I feel vibrations from the music, and it’s pretty loud, so I’d say they can’t hear you.”
“There’s cameras,” he says. “Someone should be watching the door.” Clearly displeased, he shakes his head.
The door opens to four men dressed in black suits and black ties. They’re each the size of professional wrestlers. Three of them walk out and surround us, while one blocks the entrance. For good measure, he crosses his arms over his chest. At six-four, with bulging muscles threatening to rip open the sleeves of his suit, he’s bulkier than Corrado. They all are, and yet, Corrado seems unfazed.
Reassuringly, he brushes a finger over my hand again. “Good evening,” he says. “We’re here for Isabella’s birthday party.”
The man shakes his head. “You have the wrong door. Try the front.”
“Tell Franko that Corrado’s arrived.”
The man frowns. “Never heard of you.”
“You’re too far down the ladder to have heard of me, which is why I’m allowing you to live and tell Franko I’m here. I will count to five. One.”
The three men close in, and I inch closer to Corrado.
“Maybe we could try the front entrance,” I whisper.
Corrado’s voice is calm when he says, “Three. I suggest not getting too close to her.”
The men around us chuckle.
“Four.”
“Please,” I whisper again. “Let’s go.”
Corrado tucks a finger under my chin and lifts my face. He searches my eyes for something, and his brows knit, but he nods. “Five. Michela here saved you. I might give her your lives. I’m done playing nice, so I will reach into my pocket and get my phone. Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”
Corrado pulls out his phone and presses an app with a serpent lying on a pot of gold. I have a good eye for detail when it comes to art, and the serpent on the door matches the design of the serpent on his app.
His entire screen flashes bright blue.
Four ringtones start blaring, and the men step back and pull out their phones. They stare at the screens until Corrado slips his phone back into his pocket. As one, the three men walk the few steps to the door and face the wall. The guy in front also joins them.
Corrado steps inside, and because I’m standing outside staring at the grown men facing the wall like misbehaving toddlers, he extends an arm toward me, palm up. “Come now.”
I give him my hand. He threads our fingers as we walk into a fine dining hall with tall ceilings and dramatic black stone marble floors lit only by dim vintage lamps.
Instead of walking toward one of the many tables or even to the bar at this end of the hall, Corrado leads us to the left and leans against a pillar. The shadows hide us from about a hundred finely dressed people already sitting at the tables watching a contemporary dance performance while enjoying their dinner.
I survey the room and recognize at least a few faces. “Hey,” I say over the music, but Corrado doesn’t hear me, so I rise on my toes and speak near his ear. “Hey, there are politicians here.” This close again, I can smell his masculine scent laced with fresh soap.
He turns so that our faces are inches apart. Hazel eyes hood and appear darker. The shadows fit him perfectly, making him more beautiful than he already is. I look away, but feel his gaze lingering before he looks away as well.
After a while, I ask, “Are we going to stand here all night?”
“Do you mind if we do?”
I shrug. “I guess not.”
“Are you hungry?” he asks.
A woman from polite society might’ve said no, but they’re all having perfectly cooked filet mignon with either shrimp or scallops. I haven’t eaten anything like that since before they picked up my twin for attempted murder.
“Do you have any allergies?” he asks.
“Seafood.” Sadly.
“Are they deadly allergies?”
I nod.
Corrado speaks into his phone. “You may come in. Leave the other three outside.”
The man who blocked the door rushes inside and practically jogs toward the table in the front. Once there, he bends and whispers something into the ear of a man in his sixties who freezes in his chair before lifting his gaze toward the entrance.
Corrado pulls me in front of him. Our bodies touch, my front to his front. His hardness pushes against my belly, and when we both grow still, as if we’re the only people in the hall, he makes his dick twitch.
I gasp and try to push away, but he holds me against him, smirking while he lifts his gaze over the top of my head.
“My business associates,” he says as if there’s nothing sexual about our bodies touching, “didn’t invite me to a party they shouldn’t hold without me. I was feeling rather bitter about that, but now that I’m here with you, I’m enjoying myself probably more than I should.”
His hand trails down the small of my back and over the top of my bottom, but when I tense, he removes his hand.
“Eventually, I will have you,” he says before adding, “Turn around. They’re setting up for us.”
I’m in way over my head.
He releases me so I can turn and watch the tables. The man who received the message is standing at the side of the table while staff take away his meal and the meal next to his. A woman sitting beside him rises and flips her hair over her shoulder in a way that tells me she’s unhappy.
Men start whispering. I can tell they’re looking around, seeking out Corrado, who says, “Don’t forget to play along. Come on.”
Corrado pushes away from the pillar and slides his fingers into my hand at the same time that a woman wearing a long red gown rushes up to him. She stops dead in her tracks when she sees our hands, and our eyes lock. There’s a moment in every woman’s life when another woman wishes her dead with a single gaze and makes no attempts to hide it.
This is how she looked at me now as we walked by her. Worse yet, she’s wearing a birthday girl tiara.
Men rise as Corrado walks toward the table. Since I don’t want it to appear as if he’s dragging me, even if he very much is, I match his long strides, thankful the genes I share with my aunt Georgia gave me long legs.
When we arrive at the table, Corrado pulls me to stand in front of him, rests his warm hands on my shoulders, and says, “Good evening, members.”
Members?
He pulls out a chair for me. I pause as everyone at the table stands up while I sit down. Wow, these are some old-school manners.
I sit with my back straight and my hands folded in my lap as Kate might.
Next to me, Corrado unbuttons his charcoal suit before sitting.
When the men at the table remain standing and staring at us, I clear my throat. Corrado looks around, and as I take in the room, I see that most of the men and a few women are also standing with their heads bowed as if guilty of something. They remind me of Rottweilers who got into the trash while the owner was gone.
Two warm fingers slide over my tight fist. “What do you want to drink?”
“Iced tea.”
The server arrives, and Corrado orders two iced teas and our meals, mine with salad instead of seafood.
Since the other people remain standing, the whole room feels off. I begin to fidget with my hair.
“Does it bother you that they’re not sitting down?” he asks.
I nod. “It’s a little awkward to think I’ll eat, and they’ll stand and watch.”
He rubs his jaw and purses his lips. “How about those three guys outside? Does it bother you that they’re still staring at the wall?”
“They are?”
He nods. “Discipline in ranks saves lives.”
“What ranks are we talking about?”
He doesn’t answer me, but leans back. “Relax, everyone. Nobody is in trouble yet.” He says this in a very nonchalant and polite manner, but we’re sitting with two congressmen, and the other people, judging by their clothes and jewelry, seem just as affluent.
When Corrado said we were going to a party, I imagined a chic, upscale New York bar with trendy international music and a bunch of wealthy men and women holding dry olive martinis. I imagined a cake served on a long table and everyone nibbling at the hors d’oeuvres.
That party might be happening upstairs in the hotel bar. But not down here.
Undoubtedly, we’re in the most powerful part of the New York’s underbelly, and I’m sitting next to a man who makes the men with tattooed knuckles, men with missing pinkies, men with teardrop tattoos, as well as men with ivy-league school rings all wish they’d never come here.
My internal alarms are so loud that ringing develops in my ears. In way over my head. I’m removed so far from normal life that I feel like I’m in a different world. Maybe I am.
When the iced tea comes, I grip the glass and stare at it, allowing the coolness from the ice to seep through my skin and ground me. Corrado places his hand over mine, and I look up. He regards me with an encouraging smile and squeezes my hand before rising. I rise with him, and when he smiles, I follow suit even though I feel as if I might throw up with how many people are staring at us.
“Franko,” he says, his voice pitched loud enough to stop the birthday girl in the red gown just as she comes to speak with the man, who I presume is Franko. She shoots Corrado a death stare. He glares back, ignoring her, his attention on the man she wanted to speak with.
Franko and the girl approach us, both wearing displeased grimaces. I can see they’re related. Same large brown eyes, distinctively straight large noses, and straight, jet-black hair. I recall our conversation in the car when Corrado said I could help him with a certain man wanting Corrado to be with his niece. This must be the pair he was referring to. I brace for an unpleasant conversation.
“Corrado,” Franko says. “We’re so happy you could come.”
“Yes,” Corrado says. “You look thrilled. Isabella,” he says. The girl’s eyes crinkle at the corners when she smiles, though not for long, because Corrado takes my hand and pulls me in closer to him. He throws an arm around my shoulders and says, “It’s a pleasure to introduce you both to Michela. My wife.”
Oh my God!