Chapter 26
DAMIANO
The restaurant Seb has called me to is Family-owned—not in the way online reviews like to highlight, but in the way that every server, every chef, even every customer is carefully vetted.
Outsiders who walk in and try to get a table will find that the place is fully booked, even when completely empty.
The owner who greets me on entry has respect in his eyes.
He knows who I am. And everyone here owes the Giuliano Family something—money, information, silence.
Just like Caligula Clemenza owes me everything now, whether he wants to admit it or not.
Sebastiano sits alone at a back corner table, already halfway through a glass of red, the bottle waiting on the table. When I approach, he shoots to his feet.
“Jesus Christ, Orsini.” He grips me hard, and I have to try not to wince when he squeezes right over the area with the knife wound. “After last night at the opera—and then no replies to my texts—”
“I’m fine.” I slide into the booth, and he pours me a glass of wine.
I take a few gulps. I never learned how to drink it.
Always tastes the same to me, and it’s not something I want to savor, just swallow.
Get the effects faster. That’s the point of alcohol, no matter how wine snobs might talk it up. Booze is to help blunt reality.
“You and the Clemenza boy…” Seb begins slowly.
He’s not a boy, I want to say, but I hold my tongue.
And before he can find a way to finish his thought, my usual meal appears before me without having to order it—lasagna, steaming and simple.
But my stomach churns looking at it, because Seb’s relief at seeing me is already shifting into something else.
“Look, I’m sorry about the Red Hook job,” I say, trying to deflect further conversation about Caligula. “I know I went too hard on them.”
Seb waves his hand, almost irritated. “They got the message. That’s not why I called you in. It’s about last night. Everyone seems to think that street rat was after D’Amato or his husband—but he was clearly headed for the Clemenza. So why the fuck were you there with the boy in the first place?”
“He’s not a boy,” I growl, and take another few swallows of wine.
I don’t want to get into another argument with Seb, but he’s sure making it difficult.
“I was there because Big Gee told me to be there. He wanted me to take the Clemenza to a public place to show him off, show the Families I’m still playing ball. ” Still on the leash, I don’t add.
Seb’s voice sharpens. “Big Gee told you to take him to the opera?” I just nod, my mouth full of meat sauce. When he speaks next, he almost sounds distracted. “You spoke to him?”
I nod again, reaching for the wine to pour myself another in my now-empty glass.
Seb runs a hand over his face. He looks troubled. “Listen. I saw you last night.”
He saw me fondling the Clemenza? I have to set the bottle down before I spill red wine everywhere.
“When I heard you’d bought him, I…” He looks away with a grimace.
“Well, I thought some pretty nasty shit about you—and hell, I know you want to do right by your dad. But a man who wants someone dead doesn’t take a knife for them.
” He looks me right in the face, eyes sincere.
“You really did protect him last night. I watched you do it. And I want to believe you, Orsini. I’m choosing to believe you, that you acted out of honor when you bought him at the Obelisk.
But if I find out that you’re hurting that kid—”
“You won’t,” I say. Because he won’t find out.
“I still wish you’d come to me or Big Gee before buying him…but you were right to keep him from the Russians.”
I have to drink down a whole glass again while I take that in.
Sebastiano Conti is way too good a man for this life he’s in.
He likes to see the best in others. And now he’s convinced himself that the lie I told him was true, that I only bought the Clemenza for the good of the Family, out of loyalty instead of…
“Yeah, well,” I say at last, setting down my empty glass again.
“I owe you an apology, too. I spilled to Big Gee because he rolled up to my place wanting an explanation, and so I assumed you’d told him.
Kinda threw you under the bus without meaning to.
I guess he heard about it from somewhere else. ”
A look of understanding passes through Seb’s eyes, and he actually chuckles. “Well, that explains a few of the side-eyes Big Gee’s been giving me the last few days. I’ll have a talk with him, smooth it over.” He extends a hand. “As for you and me—I hope we’re good.”
I take his hand and shake it. “We’re good.”
We’re not good. Not at all. If Seb knew I had Caligula Clemenza chained to a wall in my basement right now… Hell, if anyone in the Family finds out about that lovingly-crafted torture chamber I put together just for him, they’d put me down without hesitation.
Not because I broke ranks, but because I am, as the Clemenza himself put it, fucking insane.
I don’t know what this twisting in my gut is and I don’t like it.
It makes it hard to shovel down the lasagna, but I figure the fuller my mouth is, the less I’m likely to spill something I shouldn’t to Seb.
Seb still seems troubled, anyway, his fond smile about his younger brother dying away as he toys with his linguine.
“Luca D’Amato’s been putting the heat on about the Clemenzas. ”
“Wants them all dead?”
Seb looks up at me with surprise again. “No. That’s not how he operates.
He’s an honorable man, despite what Big Gee might think about him.
D’Amato took them down, but he was restrained about it.
No innocents caught up in the purge. And besides, you know he put out that order months ago that the Cees are untouchable now.
Anyone kills a Clemenza, they answer to him. ”
I do know. I wasn’t happy about it at the time. “Fat lotta good that’s done for them,” I snort.
Personally, I think D’Amato only ordered that to give his own Morellis a clear run. He wanted to keep the pleasure of eradicating the Clemenzas all to himself.
“Still,” Seb goes on, oblivious to my dark thoughts, “maybe it’s a good thing the Morellis were there last night to see you protect the kid. Show them that the Gees are playing nice, that these murders have nothing to do with us.”
“Any news on the fool who tried it? Shame he got silenced, but there was no other way that was going to end. He was shit at his job.” Whoever that moron was who came at Caligula last night, they must have had a death wish to try it in a room full of mobsters.
Seb looks even more troubled. “No ID. Not a Family man. Didn’t seem like the Bratva’s usual choice, either.”
“Maybe not. But the Bratva were pretty pissed when I won the Clemenza from them.”
“Mm.” Seb is unconvinced. He leans in close, dropping his voice, even though this restaurant is one of the safest places in the city for us outside our own homes. “I want you to look into it.”
“Me?” I dump my loaded fork back into my bowl.
“You. You got skin in the game now, after all.”
Blood, too. My arm’s been killing me all damn day. I should’ve gotten Rosa to clean it out again this morning. But still… “I’m not your guy,” I tell him. “I’m a head-kicker, not an investigator.”
He grins in appreciation. “If you need to kick a few heads along the way, have at it. Besides, you’re the only one with an inside line.” At my blank look, he adds, “You have the Clemenza right there in your home. He must have some ideas about his enemies, surely?”
I just shrug at that. If I refuse again, Seb will start to wonder what’s up. “Fine. I’ll talk to him. But he wasn’t much involved in his granddaddy’s business. He was way down the line of succession.”
Seb nods. “All the same. Doesn’t hurt to ask him. And let’s keep this between us, eh?” he says casually.
Too casually.
He doesn’t think it’s the Russians. Maybe he’s suspicious of us Italians. If so, I see why he wants to keep it quiet. If it turns out to be a made man—from any of the Families—it’s going to cause problems.
I don’t go home after lunch.
I don’t want to think about Caligula Clemenza chained up in that basement.
Don’t want to remember how those golden eyes were like warm honey last night when he looked at me, or how that smartass mouth curves when he thinks he’s getting under my skin.
Don’t want to acknowledge that sometimes, in my weakest moments, I think about the way he says my name. Dami.
But I need to check on him. Because what I keep saying is true: Caligula Clemenza is my responsibility now.
I have a contingency in place for when I’m out, because no one goes down to that basement but me.
Not long after I leave Seb at the restaurant, I tap into the app on my phone and hit the button to release the collar.
There, he has his freedom. He’ll be able to reach the food I now order Rosa to send down, and he can drink water from the fridge.
Hell, he can even wander around the set I made for him, his Family’s graveyard. Reminisce.
I walk around the city for a long time. Well after nightfall, I call Vito to pick me up. On our return, I make him wait a while outside the house with the engine idling.
Caligula Clemenza is in that house. Waiting. Waiting for what he deserves.
But those words feel hollow now.
I get out of the car eventually and go into the kitchen, where Rosa immediately points at a tray full of food. “He hasn’t eaten.”
All the soft thoughts I’ve been having about Caligula Clemenza evaporate in an instant. Of course he hasn’t eaten. He’s trying to manipulate me. He knows that if he doesn’t eat, I’ll go down there, give him another chance to drip poison in my ear, to persuade me to take him into my bed again.
I grab the tray. “I’ll make him eat.”
But when I get down to the basement, he’s lying on the bed asleep. Even when I put the lights up to full, he doesn’t wake. I stand over him, studying the clammy sheen of his skin, the way his breathing seems too shallow.
“Caligula,” I say at last.
He starts awake, holding up his hand to shield his eyes from the light. “Dad?” he croaks, and something that had died down roars back to life in my chest.
I seize his wrist, angry not at him, but at the broken, lost sound in his voice. “Your father is as dead as mine,” I tell him savagely. “He won’t save you.”
He’s still blinking at me, his eyes clouded. “Sorry,” he mumbles at last.
The apology shouldn’t affect me, but it does. He looks so young and so lost…
Oh, he’s good. He’s good, this little Clemenza.
“Get up. Why didn’t you eat? Or shower? You will take care of yourself, or you will regret it. You hear me?”
He looks around as though confused. “I’m tired,” he says, and there’s something wrong with his voice, with the way he’s swaying slightly as he gets to his feet.
“You’ve had enough sleep. Go and shower.”
He gives me a glassy look and then struggles off the bed, heading for the shower stall. I go to my chair and sit there to watch. Once he’s clean, I’ll feed him. I’ll shove the food down his throat if I have to.
He turns on the water and stands under it, leaning forward with his hands on the back wall, head down.
And then he stumbles to the side, slamming into the glass wall. It holds, but he slides down it to land in a crumpled heap on the tiled floor.
He stays there, unmoving.
Fuck.
I bolt over, dropping to my knees beside him. Water soaks through my clothes, but I barely notice. His skin is burning up, fever radiating from him in waves.
“Hey,” I say, gathering him against my chest, and he’s so light, too light. “Caligula. Wake up.”
He doesn’t respond, head lolling against my shoulder like a broken doll. Something rises up in me, completely alien. I think it’s panic.
I never panic. Not since I was thirteen.
I lift him easily, water streaming from both of us as I carry him back to the bed.
His breathing is too fast, too shallow, and his skin is paper-white except for the fever flush on his cheeks.
My hands shake as I check his pulse, as I smooth the wet hair back from his burning forehead. He’s not faking it. He’s sick.
He’s very, very sick.