Chapter 18
DAMIANO
I go directly to the viewing room in my quarters, where I settle into the leather chair, loosen my pants again, and turn on the monitors. I don’t think. If I think, I’ll stop, and I don’t want to stop.
Didn’t want to stop just minutes ago when his mouth was on me, when I had my hand threaded in his bright hair, a prince on his knees for me.
Caligula Clemenza is still kneeling right where I left him, lips wet, looking straight at the camera.
I lean in closer. He’s hard.
Even now. Even after everything I said and did.
He shifts slightly, gets to his feet, then walks a few steps to collapse on the bed. He touches himself slowly, wrapping those long fingers around his sweetly curved cock, and starts to slide up and down. He looks right into the fucking camera while he does it.
And I watch.
I shouldn’t. There’s nothing useful here. No tactical advantage. And worst of all, it makes Sebastiano’s accusation correct: I’m no better than the Bratva who wanted to buy the Clemenza. I’m devoid of honor, of anything good.
But that’s not news.
So I watch, because the Clemenza belongs to me.
Why shouldn’t I use my own property? His body belongs to me.
Those sounds he’s making? Mine. The pleasure coursing through him is mine to give or to take away.
It doesn’t belong to him, and he knows it.
He’s doing this on purpose. I told him not to touch himself, and here he is, doing it when he knows it’s forbidden.
I should go back down there and punish him.
But if I go back down there, he’ll know he’s won.
Besides, my hand is already on my dick. I’m still rock hard, still slick from his spit, and I stroke myself in time with him, watching him twist and strain and press his face against the mattress like he’s ashamed of what he’s doing.
He should be fucking ashamed.
Just like I should be ashamed for wanting to go back down there, shove his hand away, and taste him.
He comes first. I see it in the way his body locks up. The small sound he makes. The tremble.
And then I follow, muffling my gasp against my wrist, biting into myself so that the pain is my punishment.
The post-release spiral hits hard. Shame. Fury. Disgust. What am I doing? He’s a tool for my vengeance, that’s all. An enemy I want to grind into dust, not jack off over him like some horny teenager. This doesn’t serve the plan. Using his mouth? That’s control. That’s different.
Watching him get off while I do the same?
That’s weakness.
I wipe myself off. Trash the tissue with more force than necessary, but the rage isn’t clearing my head the way it should. Instead, I’m thinking about the way he moved, the way he sounded, the way he tried to hide his face like he had any right to privacy from me.
And then the intercom sounds. I stab the button and snarl, “What?”
“The Big Man is here,” Rosa says, and she says it in Italian, so I know exactly who she means.
Well, this is all I fucking need.
Big Gee. In the flesh. At my house.
I guess his brother waited about as long as he could. Seb’s never been much good at letting things fester. He’s more of a “bring it to a head” man, which I used to like about him.
Not so much today.
Big Gee is sitting in my armchair in my great room, tie loose and eyes blazing, and points at the seat opposite when I walk in as though I need to be told where to sit in my own damn house. Rosa’s already poured him a coffee, and she’s waiting by the door with a mutinous face.
“Would you like anything—” she begins, and Big Gee cuts her off with a wave of his hand.
“Get outta here,” he snaps at her. Yeah, he’s pissed. Royally pissed. As soon as the door closes behind Rosa, he turns on me. “You’re lucky I don’t fucking kill you right now. I heard about the auction at the Obelisk, you sick fuck.”
“I was going to come to you—”
“Shut the fuck up, Orsini. You’re a fucking perv for buying that kid, but even worse, you’re a disloyal shit as well. Did I or did I not tell you to stay the hell away from the Clemenzas?”
“You told me not to kill them.” I lean back, forcing myself to look relaxed even as fury burns through me. “The Clemenza is alive. Unharmed. And he offered himself willingly at that auction. I’m not some degenerate kidnapping virgins for personal entertainment.”
Except that maybe I am.
Big Gee is already thundering on. “You expect me to believe you ain’t already put that kid six feet under?”
“You want me to get him in here so you can see him yourself?”
“Fuck, no. I don’t give a shit about him. My problem is you. You disobeyed a direct order, Orsini. What did you think was gonna happen to you when I found out?”
Pretty much this, actually. But I’m not stupid enough to say that. “I bought him because it was the only thing I could do.” I’ve been working on this story, but I’m not sure how convincing it’ll be. Still, I need to try. “The Bratva had a lock on him. Did Seb tell you that?”
He just looks at me for a second, and I wish like hell I could take back what I just said. Because I see at once it wasn’t Seb who told him. So now I’ve gotten us both in hot water with the Boss.
“Come on, Boss,” I say, hoping to bring his attention back to me, “I’ve done everything you’ve asked, every time. I haven’t touched the Clemenzas, and I’m not gonna kill this one. But you can’t blame me for taking what little scraps of justice are left on the table for me. For my father.”
Big Gee’s silence stretches, thick and grim. He sips my coffee from my cup, studying me over the rim. Then: “You’re gonna have to show him off.”
“What?”
“You heard me. You’re going to have to take him out somewhere public.
Soon. Stamp out any rumors that you iced him.
Because if D’Amato hears about this, there’ll be hell to pay.
So you let everyone know that the Clemenza heir is still breathing—and that you’re still following my orders. You hear me?”
“Where am I supposed to take him to prove all that?”
“The fucking opera. Tomorrow night. D’Amato will be there with all his cronies. Some charity thing he insisted we all attend. I’ll send over some tickets.”
It’s true, Luca D’Amato has been encouraging all the Families to attend shit like that, make donations, play nice with the city. But I hate the fucking opera as much as Big Gee does, and I don’t want to drag the Clemenza around just to show everyone that I’m behaving myself.
The Boss must see something in my face, because he stabs a finger at me again. “You’re on a short leash, Orsini. You so much as twitch, I’ll yank it hard enough to break your fucking neck.”
I’ve wondered sometimes what would happen if Big Gee tried to throw down with me.
He has a rep built on good honest bone-breaking, just like mine.
But the truth is, he hasn’t been involved in the grunt work for a long time.
He works out at a boxing gym downtown, where his bodyguards all let him punch their lights out to feed his ego.
It’s making him soft. Soft in the middle and soft in the fists.
Me, I’m more like Seb. I’ve got no aspirations. I like where I am, and I like that I don’t have to lead a crew. I’m no good at that shit. I’ve got one talent, and I get to exercise it regularly.
So I just nod my head and tell the Boss what he wants to hear. That I’ll show up and parade my prize around like a show pony, make sure the Giulianos stay in good standing with the New York Commission—and Luca D’Amato.
“And one more thing,” he says on the way out. “I don’t like the way that old bitch of yours looks at me.”
“What, Rosa? She looks at me the same damn way. What do you want me to do about it, take her eyes out?”
He brays with laughter. “Make a good match for that driver of yours then, eh?” He shakes his head, still chuckling hard enough that he doesn’t notice I’m not laughing along. “Anyway. You tell her to watch herself.”
Big Gee leaves. I go down to the kitchen to find Rosa, who’s scrubbing already-clean countertops and pursing those lips again. “That man has no business giving you orders in your own house,” she mutters under her breath, as soon as she knows I’m in hearing distance.
There’s no love lost between Rosa and the Giuliano Dons. Still, I can’t have her disrespecting the Family.
“You mind your damn manners around the Boss,” I tell her. “And call Lorenzo Benedetti. Get him over here this afternoon. Tell him I need a rush job.”
She scrubs harder and purses those lips until they disappear, but she nods.
I go back upstairs to the viewing room to check in on my property. Part of me wants to leave him down there alone in the dark for the rest of this year, let that flame flicker and die. But I’ve been given instructions by my Boss, instructions I have to follow.
The Clemenza has curled up on the bed. Spent. Small.
Vulnerable.
But Clemenzas are never really vulnerable. I need to remember that.