Chapter 34 Damiano
DAMIANO
Vito puts his foot down, throwing us back in our seats as he pulls out into a quieter street with minimal traffic.
Vito knows New York like the back of his hand, and he knows the best routes when you’re in a hurry.
So when I turn to see the security guards appear at the mouth of the alley and rapidly become smaller as we drive away, I grin. “Too slow, motherfuckers.”
“What the hell did you do?” Caligula sounds horrified, staring at the shredded jacket wound around my arm, the horror growing as he takes in the rest of me.
I look down at myself. I’m covered in ash and goop. My brand-new shirt is splattered with gunk, there’s something yellow smeared down my pant leg, and I’m pretty sure I’m bleeding, judging by the wet warmth spreading down the middle of my back.
“It’ll wash out,” I tell him with a shrug and a grin.
He doesn’t return it. He looks pretty pale, actually. Maybe he’s not as strong yet as I thought he was. “You stink,” he says bluntly.
“That’s what happens when you land in a dumpster. It was that or cause a major fucking incident fighting my way back out. I see you managed to slither away quietly.”
He studies my face. “Please tell me the destruction of a Lorenzo Benedetti masterpiece was worth it.”
That dampens my spirits a little. “I got a name. But it didn’t mean much to me. Tiberius.”
“Tiberius?” he repeats, his brows knitting in confusion.
“That’s what he said. You got any Tiberius Clemenzas in your poisonous family tree?”
He shakes his head, frustrated—and then freezes. “No Tiberius Clemenzas,” he says slowly. “But I have a cousin on my mother’s side…Tiberius Vicario.”
“Vicario? Shit, I haven’t heard that name in years.”
Carmine Vicario used to run the whole eastern seaboard. He was the Boss of Bosses, the Big Kahuna, before he got himself scattered into pieces in that infamous Chicago bombing that took out a lot of the fat cats, including Jimmy Giuliano, Big Gee’s old man.
“What happened to his Family after he died?” the Clemenza asks, and the way he says it, I can tell he’s not asking about the guy’s progeny. “They were so powerful—or seemed that way.”
“Dead, fled, or assimilated. Just like you Clemenzas. That’s how it goes. One empire falls, another one rises, then falls, so another one—”
“Yes. Thank you for the history lesson,” he says. “But what about Carmine Vicario’s sons?”
It’s hard to think when the pain in my back is getting worse with each hard turn Vito makes. “Dunno,” I grit out.
“There were three of them. All of them would have been in their sixties when their father died.”
“I remember the eldest wasn’t worth a good goddamn. Dumber than a box of rocks, and soft along with it.” A bit like Big Gee, truth be told, though Big Gee at least has a survival instinct, and he’s in the prime of life. “Where does this Tiberius fit in?”
“Tiberius is Carmine Vicario’s great-grandson, and my cousin through my mother’s sister.”
“They really had a thing for the Roman Empire, your mom and her sister, huh? Tiberius and Caligula.”
He gives a slight grimace. “Actually, that was my grandfather’s idea.
Nonno Lou thought it would flatter Carmine Vicario, who had suggested my cousin’s name to my aunt.
Tiberius is a few years older than I am.
Anyway, that’s how I got stuck with Caligula.
” He looks down, muttering, “It’s ridiculous. That’s why I usually go by ‘Cal.’”
“I like Caligula,” I offer. “Not a name you forget easy.”
“It brings with it certain…expectations,” he says ruefully, and then his eyes narrow. “You’re hurt.”
“Just a scratch. Rosa’ll patch me up.”
He reaches out to my shoulder and nudges me forward in the seat, his eyes going wide. “Dami, you’re really hurt.”
I twist around as though I’ll be able to get a look at my back. Of course I can’t. But I can see the smears all over the seat behind me, and when I swipe at them, hoping it’s just more slime from the garbage, my hand comes away red. “I’m fine,” I say automatically.
“You’re not fine.”
“You don’t need to worry about it,” I snarl at him, wriggling away from the pressure he’s trying to apply.
He grabs me by the arm with the other hand. “If you die, I’ll have no one to protect me,” he says, so cold I feel like my veins are shriveling up—but at least then the blood would stop.
“We’re nearly home,” I grumble, but I let him press a hand into my back. Vito knows what he’s doing; he pulls into the garage ten minutes later, and Caligula hustles me up to the kitchen.
Rosa is in there waiting. I asked her to be prepared tonight. I strip off the shirt, which is pretty much soaked with blood now. And the look on Rosa’s face tells me the injury is pretty serious.
“Maybe we should call Darla,” Caligula says nervously.
“Yes,” Rosa agrees quickly. “We should get the nurse.”
“I don’t want anyone hearing about this,” I growl at them both. “Last thing we need is more cooks in the kitchen. Just patch it up.”
She makes me sit backward on one of the tall stools, leaning onto the countertop so she can sew me up.
Vito comes in, watching Rosa work, and after a moment, he goes to the coffee machine and starts grinding up beans to make coffee for us all.
It’s a sign of Rosa’s concern that she doesn’t chase him away from the machine, her baby.
“This will hurt,” she tells me. “A lot.”
Caligula leans over the countertop from the other side and holds out his hands to me. “Hold onto me,” he tells me, those golden eyes boring into mine.
I want to argue, but the needle begins to drive through my flesh, and I realize how much deeper this cut is than the last one Rosa stitched up for me. I grab onto the Clemenza’s wrists and squeeze. His hands clasp my wrists and squeeze back. “Breathe,” he reminds me.
He takes in a long breath and blows it out, then does it again, until I do it with him. It does help, a little. Or maybe it’s just staring into those pretty amber eyes that distracts me.
There’s a shadow in the hallway, and Sammy’s frightened face looms out of the dark.
“Get back in your room,” I tell him. Of course, he does completely the opposite. He rushes into the kitchen and takes my face in his hands, looking me over for more cuts and bruises. “What happened?” he cries.
I yank my face away. “I’m fine.”
“You keep saying that,” the Clemenza observes calmly. “But you’re clearly not.”
Sammy glares at him. “This is your fault. Nothing like this ever happened before you came here.”
Caligula’s eyes don’t even move toward him. He doesn’t take his gaze from my face. “I’m sorry you feel that way,” he says, and it’s soft and kind, like he really means it.
“Sammy, go get the iodine,” Rosa says.
Sammy backs away, but he’s still glaring at Caligula. He comes back with the iodine and passes it to Rosa. “Hey,” I tell him. “It wasn’t the Clemenza. It was me. I did something dumb, that’s all.”
He doesn’t look convinced, but he backs away to the wall where he stands pressed up against it and just watches the proceedings.
At last the torture is over. I release Caligula’s wrists, and I’m a little startled to see red marks ringing them. “You should’ve told me I was squeezing too hard.”
“I’m tougher than I look.” He’s not as cold as he is sometimes, though nowhere near warm, and yet I find myself relieved at the middling temperature he’s chosen. It seems designed to reassure Sammy that nothing is going on between us, although whether Sammy believes that or not, I don’t know.
Vito pours out coffee for all of us afterwards, and at least three of us—me, Caligula, and Rosa—have to wash our hands free of blood before we take up our cups.
“What happened?” Sammy asks again. He’s not going to let it go.
“What happened,” Caligula says, “is that Damiano jumped out of a window, fell three stories, and landed in an open dumpster.”
He sounds mad at me again. Like he did in the car. “I told you, we can get the suit cleaned.”
“Who cares about the suit!” Sammy breaks in. “That was dumb as hell, Damiano.”
“I fully agree,” Caligula says.
Vito is nodding as well, and Rosa, giving me an evil little pat on the scar she just stitched into me, says, “You need to take better care of yourself.”
I’m about to tell them all to go to hell when I realize that all of them are glancing around at each other with tiny smiles.
“Well,” I say, pain and exhaustion coming over me. “I don’t plan to do it again.”
That actually gets a chuckle out of them. I’m not sure why my misadventure is so funny, but I’ll take that over the atmosphere that’s been percolating ever since I brought the Clemenza into my house.
We all drink our coffees, and Rosa tells us about her late husband, and a time he had to dive off the Brooklyn Bridge.
It doesn’t sound very likely to me, but it’s a good story, and I find myself grinning along with everyone when she ends that he was sick as a dog for weeks with some bug he picked up in the water.
We’re all crowded around the counter, huddled over our coffees, and it feels…good. Homey. Like a family. The Clemenza catches my eye, just as he’s laughing about Rosa’s story, and I’m smiling too, and it feels almost natural.
Like this is how things really should be.
I look away quickly. Unfortunately, the direction my eyes go, I end up glancing at Sammy. He obviously saw the Clemenza and me looking at each other, because he’s stopped laughing. His face shutters again, and the moment, whatever it was, is broken.
“Okay,” I say, putting down my cup. “I need a shower. Rosa, can you get together a tray for dinner? I’ll take our guest back upstairs.”
“One or two meals?” she asks innocently.
“Two,” I say after a second. The Clemenza and I need to talk more about this Tiberius, whoever he is. Might as well do it over food.
Caligula follows me up the stairs this time and I feel his eyes fixed on my naked back, on the stitched-up skin that everyone’s making too much fuss about. When we get to my room, I gesture to the bed. “Get in there and eat while I shower.”
“And how exactly are you planning to wash your back without tearing Rosa’s stitches open?
” Caligula asks, not moving toward the bed.
“You can’t reach it, you can’t see it, and you’re covered in garbage juice that’s teeming with bacteria.
If you take that waterproof patch off accidentally, it’ll get infected. ”
I open my mouth to argue, but he’s already talking over me.
“You took care of me when I was sick. Consider this repayment.” He’s already shrugging off his jacket. “Unless you’d rather call Rosa up here to scrub your back for you.”
It’s the threat of Rosa that does it. And hell, it’s not like we haven’t been naked and wet in each other’s presence before.
I strip down and start the shower, turning my back to him at the door.
I’m glad I’m facing away. He might see the reaction my dick has otherwise.
It’s the way he’s washing me down, all careful and soft, that gets my body thinking the wrong thing.
I put up with it as long as I can and then I grunt, “That’s fine,” over my shoulder.
He doesn’t argue, for once, just leaves me alone to finish up my shower.
When I come back out, buck naked, he doesn’t look up. And he’s had a few mouthfuls of food, which I guess is a good sign, if he’s hungry.
“So this Tiberius,” I say. “Where is he?”
Caligula pokes at his osso buco in frustration. “I don’t know. And I have no idea where to even start looking.”
“So that’s it,” I say. “Another dead end.”
He says nothing. I guess he’s sulking because he knows what that means. I’ll put him away in his underground kingdom while I sniff around for a new lead.
Not tonight, though. He had a rough day. I’ll keep him up here tonight, but I’ll be damned if I sleep in a bed that’s not my own, because I’ve had a rough day, too.
He’s still poking at the food instead of putting it in his mouth. “Eat,” I tell him. “Or I’ll pour a fucking protein shake down your throat.”
I slide into the bed next to him and take up my own bowl. I’m fucking starving after the day I’ve had. But then Caligula says something that kills my appetite dead.
“We have one last lead. The Obelisk.”