Chapter 13 Damiano
DAMIANO
I watch the Clemenza for a long time, drinking him in along with the bourbon.
I dim the light with the controls on my phone until it lulls the Clemenza into a sleepy state.
The shadows dip and swell over the lines of his body as he breathes.
For years I’ve imagined this day, fantasized about all the ways I would make him hurt, mentally and physically.
The reality is very different.
Not bad different. Not necessarily.
It’ll just take some getting used to, is all. I never thought I’d have him here so soon, for one thing. Everything is in place, has been for months, but he fell into my lap unexpectedly. And I need to find a way to explain this to—how did Daniel King put it?—to a higher power.
I also need to figure out who that kind stranger was who texted me, told me to get my ass to the Obelisk tonight.
But all that can wait. Right now, I just want to enjoy the moment.
Caligula Clemenza is totally shot. I can see it in the way his eyelids flutter and his limbs melt into the bed. He’s fighting sleep, afraid of what I might do. He’s smart. I noticed that right away, how he tried to play me in the car, the way he observes everything, gives nothing back.
Yeah, he’s smart. But he’s also human. So, eventually, the eyes blink and close.
“Tell me how you ended up at the Obelisk,” I say, to jerk him back awake. “How come the last prince of the Clemenzas ended up selling his virgin ass to a stranger?”
His hand comes up to wrap around the collar. “Does it matter?”
“Everything about you matters to me, golden boy. You’re mine now, and that includes your secrets, your fears, every fucking thought in that beautiful head.”
The possessiveness in my voice surprises even me with its intensity, and he stares at me for a long moment before responding. “I needed money. And protection.”
“Why do you need protection?”
“Someone wants me dead.” He gives me an appraising look as he says it.
“I don’t want you dead. I want you alive, so you can pay for your father’s sins.”
He gives a slow shrug. “Someone else, then. They’re after my whole Family. Anyone who shared my grandfather’s blood. Surely the Commission must have noticed.”
So he saw the writing on the wall, the writing that everyone else in this town is so eager to pretend is written in some foreign language that they can’t understand.
The New York Commission, made up of the heads of the four most powerful Families in this city, has been happy to look the other way.
And it figures. Luca D’Amato, Don of the Morelli Family and leader of the Commission, was the one who took down the Clemenzas in the first place.
The amber eyes are narrowing again, not sleepy this time, but sharp. “It’s really not you? The one killing us off?”
“No. Was it you?”
“What?”
“You were covered in blood and running away from the scene of your cousin’s murder the other night, golden boy. With him dead, the empire’s yours.”
He scoffs. “What empire? There’s nothing left of it. So no, I didn’t kill Louie.”
No. I don’t suppose he did. Those soft hands have never killed anyone. Caligula Clemenza never got made, not like his cousin. Far as I can tell, this Clemenza kept out of the business, even though he grew up right there in his grandfather’s house.
“So you just found the body?” I ask. He nods. “You didn’t go to the cops?”
“Are you serious?”
“Then why not go to the Clemenza Loyalists?”
“There are none,” he says flatly. “The Morellis have seen to that.”
So he doesn’t know about that pathetic little movement that creeps around in the shadows. If they’d gotten to him first, I wouldn’t have him here with me now. Hell, whoever texted me tonight about the Obelisk might just as easily have texted them. But they didn’t.
I need to be careful about that. Figure out why it benefited my anonymous friend to have me clean up this particular mess. I should’ve shown more restraint at the Obelisk, seen the trap laid out for me—because it is a trap, I’m sure of that.
But I lost my self-control when I saw the object of my obsession dangled there in front of me, and that fucking Russian bidding on him as though he had any rights to the Clemenzas at all.
“What about friends?” I go on. “You must have some apart from Jesse Foster?”
He smiles bitterly. “Funny thing about my so-called friends. They weren’t. Not when it counted.”
“Then why not walk the streets and sell your ass the old-fashioned way?” I already know the answer to that, but it amuses me to watch his eyes flash.
“I was being hunted,” he snaps. “You think I’d survive half a night out there in the open? And besides…” He trails off.
The silence stretches.
“You’re a virgin,” I finish for him. He doesn’t reply. I lift myself out of the chair and sit on the bed near him. He doesn’t shrink away. Doesn’t cower when I reach out to him.
Maybe he’s not so smart after all.
“Good news,” I say, letting my fingers trace the line of his collar, noting his shiver when I brush over his hand. “You got the right buyer. No one will hurt you while you’re here.” I smile. “Except for me, of course.”
“You promise?”
The question catches me off guard. He’s supposed to fear me, but there’s something vulnerable in the way he asks it, so that for a disorienting second I don’t see a Clemenza.
I see a twenty-one-year-old kid who’s completely alone in the world, chained to a bed, asking the man who bought him if he’ll be safe.
“I promise.” It comes out too soft, so I add, “And unlike you Clemenzas, I keep my word.” I stand, ready to let him sleep. “Get some rest,” I tell him, heading for the elevator. “You’re going to need your strength.”
“For what?”
I enter the elevator, turning back to revel once more in the sight of him—golden-skinned and chained in steel and mine. “For everything I’m going to do to you this year.”
The elevator doors close on his sharp intake of breath, and I smile as I rise up again to the land of the living, leaving him there with his memories of the dead.
Because there’s another kid I need to keep in mind. A boy of thirteen, also left alone in the world, who deserves to know that justice was meted out in the end.
My rooms are everything the dungeon below isn’t: spacious, high-ceilinged, with walls of windows overlooking the East River to let in warm sunshine during the daytime and the lights of both Queens and Brooklyn at night. But there’s only one view I’m interested in right now.
It’s late, and I’m already drunk on power and half a flask of bourbon, but I pour myself another drink anyway and head to the viewing room that comes off my bedroom.
I settle into the chair in front of the wall-mounted monitors.
Multiple camera angles give me a complete view of the Clemenza and his surroundings.
I can see the shower area, the mock-up of his dead grandfather’s house, and my personal favorite: a close-up of the bed, where I can read every expression on his face.
Except right now there’s nothing to read. He’s curled on his side, chain pooled beside him, and sleep has done what I couldn’t—stripped all his armor off. He looks younger with his guard down.
Innocent.
But he’s not innocent, I remind myself.
He’s a Clemenza, and that alone is enough to justify what I’m doing. If I can’t kill the man who took my father from me, I’ll do the next best thing and break his son.
And he looks so breakable lying there. My hands clench hard until I take a breath and re-center myself. Control. Control is everything.
But fuck if that arrogant, clever, lying little shit doesn’t make me want to lose it.
In the early hours, after I’ve given up on sleep, I go up for breakfast to the sunroom, where I find Rosa setting a second place at my breakfast table like she’s expecting company.
“Get rid of that,” I tell her.
Rosa purses her lips. “But you have a guest.”
“I have a prisoner.”
The lips purse harder. The woman could crack walnuts with that expression.
I take my seat, watch her bring over my coffee. “It’s the one I’ve been preparing for,” I tell her. “You’ll send food down in the dumbwaiter, like we talked about.”
I know I’m gonna get pushback here, based solely on the mulish look on her face. “The dumbwaiter is broken.” I don’t believe that for a second, but her voice carries that edge that means she doesn’t like what I’m doing. “So unless you want me carrying food down to your basement—”
“You don’t go near the basement. You hear me?” No one knows what’s down there except me. And now the Clemenza, I guess.
I plan to keep it that way.
Rosa doesn’t look at me, but I can tell she’s pissed by the way she clatters a few dishes together. And still she pushes. “Then you’ll have to bring your guest up here to eat.”
“Get Vito to fix the dumbwaiter today. What the hell am I paying him for?” I grab the extra plate from the end of the table and pile it with food, ignoring Rosa’s disapproving stare.
She’s been with me long enough to know when to stop pushing. So I’ll let it go, this disrespect. She did good last night, when I texted her from the Obelisk as soon as I realized what was happening. She got that meal cooked and set out, just like I asked, despite the late hour.
But I feel her judgment following me all the way to the elevator.