Chapter 26 Alessio
Alessio
Armando revs the engine of his Charger, answering the challenge of the kid beside us at the traffic light. “Ignore that pussy. It’s late and I want to go home.”
“This is the way home. I can’t help it if we’re heading the same direction.”
The light turns green and Armando floors it, leaving the souped-up Kia in our dust. My best friend chuckles to himself for the first time in days. “Good to know you haven’t lost your competitive spirit.”
“It wasn’t much of a contest but no, I haven’t. So, are you still in trouble with your wife over Matilde leaving?”
“Mind your business and watch the road.”
Caterina had been unhappy over the new arrangement for Matilde.
I’d made the mistake of dismissing her concerns when she’d been waiting on me to get home that night.
An argument had soon begun. “As long as he lives, my father makes the decisions for Vegas. What do you want me to do, go against him over a girl we barely know? Do you think your brother will mistreat her?”
She knows better than that. She just wanted Matilde to stay, but the other girls will have their own lives to live.
Meanwhile, every day, my father grows more impatient over the fact my wife has no bruises and doesn’t tremble in fear every time I walk into the same room as her.
I defy him for her. I can’t risk defying him for others.
If he imagines I’m not as ruthless as he is, he might decide I’m unworthy to be his heir.
He might decide to send someone to me. Not one of his favorites.
Maybe my bastard brother, Nerio. He’d probably do anything the old man asked of him to advance himself.
Or, it could be a friend, a man I trust. Fuck, it could even be Armando.
It’s foolish to trust anyone completely in the mafia.
And, if that should happen, then what would happen to my Caterina?
Her so-called silent treatment over our fight the following night had lasted approximately five minutes until I had her on her hands and knees as I ate her out on the floor.
She came, of course, but she was still angry with me afterwards.
“This is all you want from me. You don’t respect me,” she’d accused.
How can she say I don’t respect her when I’ve killed two men simply for speaking disrespectfully of her? Not that she knows about Lorenzo at all or knows the exact reason I decided Beso must die. But, I have tried my best to treat her with honor and protect her, haven’t I?
“Hell, she wears Beso’s fucking tooth around her throat as a warning that she will be brutally defended so long as I draw breath,” I grumble as we tear down the road toward home.
“Have you told her that in those terms?” Armando asks.
Women and words, they want so many of them. “Just fucking drive.”
My wife would be even more unhappy with me if she knew why my father had sent Matilde to Chicago. “Since you're strangely reluctant to cooperate, I’ve decided there’s more than one way to get to Nico Morelli. The hand that rocks the cradle,” he’d told me, ominously.
I’m not sure what the hell he thinks the little mouse is going to do.
The girl is no more a spy than she’s capable of hurting little children.
And Nico is no fool. Father’s likely sent Matilde on a suicide mission and doesn’t even care.
All he wants is his twisted version of revenge.
Why should girls be made to pay for Nico’s act?
And why does the thought of skinning Caterina’s big brother no longer hold the same appeal for me?
“Have you heard from your sister?” Armando asks, pulling me away from those thoughts.
“Which sister would that be, Armando?” He grumbles under his breath at my taunting. “No, I haven’t,” I finally answer.
I have known Armando nearly all my life, and he has never asked about any woman half as much as he’s asked about Gia since she left.
I’m not going to call him out but, whatever was happening between them before she flew back to Chicago, it’s better that it’s ended.
He’s an excellent soldier, and I will make him my right hand someday when I’m Capo, but my father would call it betrayal and put him down like a rabid dog for dishonoring his daughter.
Then, he’d probably tell Barzetti about it so he could punish his wife.
I close my eyes as the lights of the Strip continue to whip past us, thinking of that night with Caterina. How her eyes sparkled seeing the fountain and then the stars. Something about being with her, I’ve never felt such peace.
As we get closer to home, I focus on business and think over this evening some more.
There was a meeting with all the Trio’s underbosses and the captains in our territory and a later one for the very top men, my father’s inner circle.
He isn’t happy with me, and he made that evident to everyone tonight by pointedly not inviting me to that second meeting.
I went anyway. I’m still his heir. The fact that I’m not torturing my wife as he wishes doesn’t change that fact.
“If only Bibi would slip a little arsenic into his coffee,” I muse.
“Alessio…”
“Yes, I know. I’d be forced to punish her.” I detest Bibi but killing a Capo brings harsh consequences, and I don’t wish to kill her any more than I want to look at her. “How was Caterina earlier when you saw her?” I ask, hating that Armando has seen more of her lately than I have.
“Too much time by the pool left her sunburnt today.”
“You’re not supposed to notice my wife’s body.”
He smirks before sobering again. “She’s still sad.”
It’s like a blade in my guts having my friend confirm what I knew.
My wife is lonely and misses her companions.
Sofia left for New York the day before yesterday to spend time with the women of the Vicini family before the wedding this Saturday.
Gia and the little mouse are gone and Frankie’s still in Reno.
What can I do to fix this for her? Make her smile again? I miss her easy smiles.
I know one thing that would make her melt like butter in a hot pan, and it isn’t anything to do with fucking her until she screams my name.
I could repeat those words that were shining in her eyes the first time we had sex, the ones I shut down before she could even utter them.
I had to. She’d only regret saying them someday.
I’m not a man who deserves love, especially not from a heart as pure as hers.
I never expected her to truly care for me at all.
Armando drops me at the door before hopefully heading off to fuck Gia out of his system, and I climb the stairs to our bedroom.
Silently, I listen at the bedroom door before entering.
I half expect to hear her crying in there and, fuck it, if I do, I might say the goddamn words she longs to hear just to make it stop.
The soft sounds I hear though aren’t sobs. It’s humming, a happy sound. I hope the sight of me doesn’t sour her mood. Pushing open the door, I walk in like there’s glass scattered across the carpet and whisper her name. “Caterina?”
“OH!” she shrieks, slamming a heavy book closed and whirling around to face me.
Goddamn, that babydoll nightgown she’s wearing is designed to bring men to their knees.
Her skin is noticeably pinker as Armando suggested.
“You surprised me,” she stammers, trying to hide the book behind her. “How was work?”
Her nonchalant tone doesn’t fool me. “Work was work. What is that?”
She backs away. “Nothing.”
I narrow my eyes, pacing toward her. Is she up to something? Could her sweetness be an act after all? “Show me what you’re holding. Now.”
She obediently offers up the book, looking guilty. I half expect it to be one of her romance novels while the darker part of me fears it will be proof that damns her as a traitor. It’s neither. “Where did you get this?”
“I was helping Valdo look for something in the attic and found it. That’s Sil, Jr. and that’s you, isn’t it?” she asks, pointing at the picture of two boys; one a toddler being held by his mother and the older one standing beside his father many years ago.
I stiffen and nod. “My mother put this old photo album together.” I’ve often wondered if she meant to keep it as a memento once she escaped or if she was going to leave it behind, too.
“Why was it in the attic?”
“Because my father never goes up there. Frankie’s mother, my Aunt Beatrice, gave it to me after she died.”
Caterina moves closer, concern shining in her beautiful doe eyes. She sets the album aside and places her small hands in mine. When I meet her gaze, my heart flips inside my chest. I don’t like how… powerfully she affects me. It’s easier to be hard and indifferent.
“What happened to her? Your father married Bibi when you were little, but Frankie said your mother didn’t die until you were nine.”
“Frankie has a big mouth,” I grumble but Caterina just stares at me, waiting for answers. “She was going to leave him. She convinced one of my father’s men to help her. They were lovers, you see. They thought they could run from the Trio and escape this life. They were fucking idiots.”
“Was she planning to take you with her?”
That’s what she’s curious about? “No. Why would she… she didn’t want his sons.” Her face crumples up like she’s going to cry. Fuck that. “Don’t cry,” I say, harshly. I don’t deserve her tears. “They weren’t successful. My father caught them.”
“Did he kill her?”
“No, he killed the man. As for my mother… this isn’t something I want to talk about tonight.” It’s been a fucked-up day as it is. “Are you still angry with me over Matilde?”
I can tell she wants to ask more about my mother, but she shakes her head, still holding my hands. “No, I’m not angry with you about that now.”
“You probably should be,” I mumble with that increasingly familiar sensation of guilt wrapping around my throat.
“I was mostly sad about losing the other girls’ company. You never came home last night. Why not?”
“You were angry with me when I left yesterday morning.”
“So, you don’t come home?” she asks, cocking her head to the side. “When we have a problem or an argument, it’s easier to resolve if we talk about it.”
“What do you want me to say, Caterina? Do I look like a man who has all this marriage shit figured out?”
She bites her bottom lip in amusement, and it teases a small smile out of me. “No, but I’d rather you come home and try than avoid me, Alessio.”
“Very well. I’ll do that next time, okay?
Last night, I was at a place in the desert we use for…
work.” From the age of sixteen, rarely has a day passed without me being expected to torture someone.
I’ve never regretted it, never questioned it.
I’ve relished the thrill and madness of it, in fact.
But lately, there are things I would much rather do than torture and they all involve this woman.
“Did you miss me last night?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. She smirks and nods and why does that make my heart constrict in my chest? “How much?”
With a grin, she licks her lips and slowly sinks to her knees. “Let me show you.”
Fuck…