Chapter 29 #2
“You were savvy enough to turn a room full of kingpins rabid to get a chance at you during the auction. So how come you never got laid before? There something wrong with you?”
“There is nothing wrong with me,” he snaps, nose lifting in the air as though I’ve offended him. “I just…”
“Just what?”
He puts down the bowl. “I’m tired, Dami. I need to sleep.”
“You finish that sentence and I’ll let you sleep.”
It takes a lot of hard eye contact for him to see that I’m serious. “You know why,” he says at last, clipped. “Because of my grandfather.”
I snort. “You had a thing for him? You Clemenzas are sick.”
“And you Giulianos live with your minds in the gutter,” he says, real anger in his voice. “You said it yourself—about Sammy. What you saved him from. You know my Family would have done it to me, too, if they’d known.”
I stop pacing, turn to him, fix him with a stare. “Yeah. I sure do know it. That’s another reason I hate them so much. And you fucking should, too.”
He smooths his hand over the quilt again, which Rosa made for me a few Christmases ago, the one she shook out and put over the unconscious Clemenza in my bed, just before I sent her off to call the nurse. “I told you before,” he says quietly. “Love and hate have nothing to do with Family.”
“You loved your father,” I point out.
“Yes,” he replies. The nose goes up in the air again.
“I loved him because he protected me from my grandfather. So did Nonna Mellie. My grandfather sensed that I wasn’t the hot-blooded hetero fucking-machine that his other grandsons were.
And I knew there was something different about me, too.
So that’s why I stayed away from—from experimenting.
I wanted to survive, Dami.” He looks me straight in the eye.
“I still want to survive. And I’ll do whatever it takes. ”
“Down to sucking my dick?”
“Down to sucking your dick,” he confirms.
I laugh. “At least you’re being honest about it now. Whoring yourself out for your granddaddy’s townhouse.”
“You can’t have it both ways, Dami. I can’t be both virgin and whore.” He gives a silky smile.
“Somehow,” I mutter, “you find a fucking way.”
His smile gets wider. “Have I hurt your feelings, Dami? Did you think I enjoyed sucking that barbaric club between your legs?”
I take a few quick steps toward the bed before I catch myself. He doesn’t even shrink back, just watches me approach with that joyless smile that turns into a laugh when I pull up abruptly.
“For someone who wants to survive,” I say, “you’re sure doing your best to make me kill you.”
“But you can’t. Can you, Dami?”
“You think I care about some Bratva contract? If I want to spill your brains—”
“Oh, I think you’d like nothing better. But still…you can’t. You won’t.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.” He looks up at me from beneath his lashes, eyes gleaming. “You told me yourself, just before—you’re under orders not to. From Luca D’Amato, of all people. The irony really is delicious.”
“You think I give a fuck what D’Amato wants any more than the Bratva?”
“I think you give a fuck what your own Boss wants. And he’s D’Amato’s bitch right now. Isn’t he?”
I could fucking slap myself. Running my mouth to him, all I did was make him see how much my hands are tied. I should have remembered, all Clemenzas are liars, manipulators, snakes.
I hear myself laughing. “Your gramps had no idea what a poisonous little viper you are. If he had, he would’ve paid attention. Made you his direct heir instead of wasting time on all those others.”
When I started talking, I could see I was pissing him off, just like I was aiming to. But by the time I finish, he’s looking thoughtful again.
“What is it now?” I ask. “What’s going on in that twisted brain of yours?”
“Heirs,” he says slowly. “Whoever’s doing this is making sure to eradicate the Family line of inheritance.
They haven’t gone for anyone not in line of succession.
And I’m the last one who could be considered a direct heir.
” He looks at me, chewing his lower lip as he thinks.
“What about those Loyalists you mentioned?”
Shit. Why the hell is he asking about them?
For a second I wonder if he actually does know about the Loyalist movement, and that he’s about to suggest the purge of his bloodline is just a kingmaker move on their part.
Because the more I learn about Caligula Clemenza, the more I think he might actually make a decent Boss someday.
He’s got his grandfather’s cunning and he’s cool enough to keep his head under pressure.
Maybe those Loyalists know Caligula would be a good pick, too.
“What about them?” I ask after a too-long pause.
“Well, are they all gone?”
I shrug, still unsure where this is headed. “Far as I know, they’re dust—like you said yourself. D’Amato killed them all.”
“That's a shame,” he continues, almost to himself. “They might've known who's next in line after me.”
“After you?” I echo. I pause to adjust my thought track, since he doesn’t seem to be heading down the Loyalist line. “But why would that be a motive? The money’s all gone. You Clemenzas are done.”
I didn’t mean it to come out so plain, but he takes it on the chin. “Yes,” he says after a moment. “But there are more important things than money to some people, Dami. A name. A birthright.”
He’s not wrong. I think about Seb and Big Gee, and where the Family might be now if Seb was in charge. “I thought you were the last,” I say slowly. “The last heir.”
“So did I. But we should find out for sure.”
It’s a smart move. Just one problem. “How do we find out something like that?”
The Clemenza’s golden eyes travel over me, head to toe and back again. “Surely a Giuliano Enforcer knows how to make people talk.”
“Of course I fucking do,” I say, but there’s no heat there, just an uneasy sensation that I’m about to get played.
“Then we visit Uncle Tony together, and you apply a touch of persuasion. Like I said, Tony Stuccio was the Family lawyer. If there’s anyone left who knows about the line of succession, it’s him.”
I don’t like the idea that Caligula Clemenza thinks he has the right to aim me at someone and pull the trigger. But his plan makes sense, and I have my orders from Seb.
“When you can stand up on your own again,” I tell him, “we’ll go visit this asshole.”
He nods. We’ve forged a truce that’s about as stable as a seesaw, but it’ll do for now.
“By the way, Dami,” he says as I rise to leave, “snakes aren’t poisonous.”
“What?”
“Snakes are venomous. I’m a venomous little viper.”
I stare at him, at his smug goddamn face, and shake my head. “Yeah. I’ll keep that in mind.”