Chapter 25
DAMIANO
I lead the Clemenza prince back upstairs to my bedroom and I close the door. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Given the circumstances, I think my voice sounds very calm.
Caligula folds his arms. My robe hangs loose on his smaller frame, the front gaping to reveal the golden skin of his throat and chest. And that infuriating, casual confidence radiates from every line of his body like he’s still somebody instead of property.
“I was getting Rosa,” he says, and gestures. “Your arm. You’re bleeding again.”
I glance down. Blood has soaked through the white bandage, a spreading stain I didn’t even notice. Like I didn’t notice Caligula Clemenza slipping out of my bed and prowling around my house.
My own body was failing me while I slept, weak and vulnerable. The fact that he saw it is humiliating. The fact that he went down and shot his mouth off to Rosa is worse.
I don’t need tending.
“You think that gives you permission to wander around my house unsupervised?”
Caligula shrugs, the gesture making the robe slip off one shoulder. “You were asleep. Rosa and I didn’t want to wake you. We decided you needed rest.”
We.
The casual suggestion that he and Rosa are a “we,” that my household operates by committee, that decisions get made without my authority…
All of it makes me angrier.
“You decided, did you?” Even wearing my robe, wearing my marks, he carries himself like he’s doing me a favor by existing in my space. It makes me want to remind him again how far he’s fallen. “You stay where I put you unless I say otherwise.”
Caligula flings out his arms, letting the robe gape open without shame. “What was I supposed to do? Stay there quiet and awake, staring at the ceiling, while you snored and bled?”
“Someone wants you dead,” I snap. “Any time you leave my side, you’re in danger. Do you really need reminding?”
“Oh, I don’t need reminding that I’m stuck with the Bad Mood Bear for a year. Don’t you worry about that.”
Snarky little shit. He’s got such a mouth on him. And before I can speak again, he tilts his head and narrows his eyes.
“Who’s Sammy?”
“Where did you hear that name?”
“I met him. In the kitchen.” Caligula’s voice seems neutral, but there’s something underneath—I can’t read it. “He wasn’t very friendly. Seemed to think I was one of your disposable booty calls.”
“Sammy should watch his fucking tongue.”
“In case you cut it out? That was mean, by the way, what you said to Rosa. She worships you. You don’t need to threaten her to keep her in line.”
“You don’t talk to my people without permission,” I snarl.
The Clemenza’s grin is pure provocation. “But Rosa likes me. I can tell.”
That’s it.
I grab him by the arms, fingers digging into my own robe as I yank him forward until our faces are inches apart. He makes me feel like an animal, like all I am is claws and hunger, ready to rip him apart.
“You will obey me,” I tell him, low and dangerous, “or you will be punished.”
He doesn’t try to pull away. His lashes drop and his voice goes soft, teasing—deliberately pushing me. “Are you going to spank me again, Dami?”
My grip tightens involuntarily. The little viper is getting off on this. On pushing my buttons. On making me want to throw him down and…
“My property has forgotten its place.” My fingers dig in even harder, hard enough to make him wince. “I went too easy on you last night, letting you sleep in my bed. Now the little prince thinks he can run my house.”
His smile falters. Understanding flickers in those amber eyes. “Wait—”
“No.” I squeeze tighter, making him wince. “A few days in chains is what you need.”
“Damiano—please,” he says quickly, and now I hear real panic threading through his voice. “Please don’t put me back down there. I was just trying to help—”
“Too late.” I shove him toward the elevator doors. “Maybe next time you’ll think before you speak.”
Inside, the elevator is mirrored on all sides, trapping us with infinite reflections of this moment—him in my robe, me gripping his arm, both of us breathing hard.
He stands rigid in front of me, chest rising and falling rapidly, honey eyes wide and worried.
I don’t look at him directly, at his pleading expression.
If I do, I might stop.
The elevator stops and the doors open. I drag him to the far wall where another chain and collar hangs from an iron ring embedded in the reinforced concrete. He doesn’t get the bed this time. He deserves the wall. Cruder. Colder. More degrading.
The chain clinks as I secure the collar to him. He doesn’t beg, doesn’t fight—doesn’t even try to resist. If anything, he helps, bending his head as I secure the lock behind his neck.
And that small submission just angers me more.
“You don’t have to do this,” he says quietly. There’s something in his voice. Not fear—something like disappointment.
I lean over him, letting him see exactly what he’s dealing with.
“I don’t have to. But I want to.” I straighten, step back.
“Think about how you want the rest of this year to go, golden boy. Because it will go like this if you don’t behave.
You’ll stay chained there to the wall instead of having the luxury of a bed.
Now, when I feel like it, I’ll come back down and see if you’re ready to apologize. ”
I leave the light on, a small kindness that he’d better fucking appreciate. I’m almost at the elevator when his voice stops me cold.
“I was worried about you, you asshole. That’s all.”
I don’t turn around, but my finger pauses over the elevator button until I have to force myself to push it.
He was worried.
About me.
Or so he says.
I go straight back to the kitchen so Rosa can look at my damn arm, which is bleeding. But when I get there, she crosses her arms and gives me a look that tells me exactly what she’s thinking.
“You need anything for the boy?”
“He’s not a boy.” I pour myself out a coffee from the drip machine rather than ask her to make me an espresso like she did for Caligula—judging by the abandoned cup on the counter. But after one sip, I set my mug down. I feel off-balance.
It’s the disrespect he showed. It’s got nothing to do with how he begged me not to put him back down there. Or the way he said he was worried about me.
Rosa’s disapproval wafts over to me along with the scent of her special tomato sauce. “I need to check your arm,” she says.
“You need to remember your place!” I snap. “And he needs to learn his.”
She shakes her head. “I know my place,” she tells me. “And you can get out of it. Go on—get out of my kitchen. Let me get on with my work if you don’t want my help.”
I dump out the coffee in the sink before I go, just to show her that she can’t bully me like she bullies Vito and Sammy. Who the hell does Rosa think she is? She’s been pushing back more and more since Caligula got here, acting like a mother who can guilt me into doing what she wants me to do.
Well, she’s not my mother. And I don’t feel guilty. I’d need a conscience for that.
A soul.
I’ve done the right thing. Reasserted control.
Reminded that manipulative little snake who’s in charge.
I head up to my bedroom, go into the viewing room, and check him on the monitor.
He’s slumped against the wall, still in my robe—which I forgot to strip from him, damn it—head down, arms wrapped around himself.
So what if he noticed me bleeding? That’s not why he was down there in the kitchen pestering Rosa. I’m no fool, though he keeps treating me like one. Still…maybe he wasn’t trying to escape. Maybe he was just bored. Curious.
No. He’s a Clemenza. They always have an angle. And I confirm it by playing back the video of this morning, watch Caligula Clemenza wandering around my house as though he owns it, looking in each room, testing locked doors…
He’s looking for a way out.
That’s what he wants. Escape.
That’s why he offered himself to me last night. And that’s why he was down there flirting with Rosa. Buttering her up so he can use her. I bet if Sammy hadn’t arrived, he would have persuaded her to raise the shutters and let him walk right out of here.
I catch myself. That, at least, is unfair of me. He was right about that one thing—Rosa is devoted. She would never willingly let him leave the house.
And as for Sammy…
I play the video forward, watch Sammy come into the kitchen and stop dead at the sight of Caligula.
He didn’t hang around pestering Rosa this morning, when usually he likes to wait until I come down for my coffee.
And he barely spoke to Caligula—but that clever little Clemenza picked it up fast, the stupid crush Sammy has on me.
Like all Clemenzas, he was looking for leverage. Sammy gave it to him unconsciously. But…there was something strange in his voice when Caligula asked me who Sammy was. Not just curiosity—something sharper.
Or was it calculated?
I need to know. I want to get under his skin. Into his brain. Eat him from the inside out.
My phone buzzes angrily against the desk.
Messages have been coming in all night and all morning, news about the attempted assassination, which everyone seems to think was meant for someone higher up the food chain.
D’Amato, probably, or Big Gee. They were both nearby. But I know who the target was.
I know because I took the knife for him.
This message, though, can’t be ignored: a direct summons from the Underboss. Sebastiano isn’t even requesting a response with his terse instructions.
Ristorante Aglio. 12:30.
But as I head into the bathroom to strip off the blood-soaked bandage so I can change it myself, Caligula’s words still echo in my head.
I was worried about you, you asshole.