19. Go Toe-to-Toe With the Godfather?
"Go Toe-to-Toe With the Godfather?"
Bianca
I’m a big heaux for bacon. Mama Vee’s in her good wig, rolling in her grave at my lack of resistance to temptation. I wanted to knock Benny’s teeth out for putting me back in the dungeon last night, because how dare he after he’d fucked and fed me.
I prepared to count the cracks in the ceiling and replay every episode of The Parkers I remember. My silent protest ended this morning when Benny came to my cell with a yellow sundress, sandals, and an invitation to join him for the day.
Anger left my body faster than I asked, “Is that turkey bacon?” Thick, savory strips rest next to scrambled eggs, pancakes, fruit, and turkey sausage.
“If I didn’t make you dinner last night, I’d think we were starving you,” he teases from his desk. “Don’t eat the container.”
“Fuck you,” I say to his smirk.
“We already played that game last night. You lost, but I’m open for another go.”
Benny rocks in his executive chair as he twirls a pen between his ring-clad fingers.
The look he fixes on me is a dare to act like he didn’t hump the gravity out of my body while I was levitating in the air.
My thighs clench at the reminder of his weight pummeling me into a gate.
His scent embedded itself into my skin with his moans after each thrust. Everything about him is a red flag I choose to ignore for reasons unknown to me.
But did you die after he kidnapped you?
He cooked you dinner from scratch. That’s a love language.
The dungeon has good toilet paper, moisturizing body wash, and an area rug. Some hotels could never.
Delusion is clearly on the menu with this tasty-ass bacon.
“Don’t be mad, love.” The timbre of his voice rattles his chuckle and the Adam’s apple I’m ashamed to admit I’d sucked. Twice.
“I’m not.” I cross my legs and face a shadow. My coochie needs a blunt and a muscle relaxer, but I’m not telling him that. “Do you have an infatuation with death or vampires?”
“What?”
“Who works in an all-black office with no windows? You’re either a sadist or have a hard-on for vampirism.” There’s no way these dim lights are good for the eyes.
He considers me, his thick thumb rolling over his lip.
“I enjoy torturing the people I kill, but I don’t get off on inflicting harm.
Unless it’s consensual. Bondage. Biting.
Spanking. Choking. I like it all. Do you enjoy getting wet for me, Trouble?
When my hand wraps around your throat or when your pussy convulses around my dick?
I enjoy your cries, the way your nails drag through my skin when I hit your spot. ”
“Why is it hot—I mean, dark in here?” I swallow hard to tell the heaux who’d happily taken bacon that we have morals.
Benny’s lips twitch. “It serves a purpose.”
Observant prick.
Pillowy eggs coat my tongue. “Do you always work in suits on Saturdays?” Of course it’s all black.
“Business doesn’t stop because the workweek ends.”
I snort. “That’s a good recipe for burnout. Trust me, I know.” Wherever life takes me next, it will not include a work schedule at the expense of rest.
Benny’s casual demeanor melts at the knock on the door. “Enter.”
Two men in black polos and cargo pants step inside. The one with a curly ponytail looks from me to Benny. I wave, because what the hell does one do while eating breakfast in a crime boss’s office?
Benny shakes his head when I stand. “Speak,” he commands in Italian.
There are no TVs in the house, so I do what any kidnapped person would do. I turn myself and my to-go plate to watch the show.
I’ve only seen Benny in action once, with the man hooked to the ceiling.
Technically, twice if he and his friend interrogating me in his kill container counts.
I knew I was leaving without a scratch and didn’t evoke the menacing glare he pins on the men in his office who are seconds from shitting themselves.
What’d they do?
The man with coiled black hair clears his throat. “There was an issue with a recent shipment, but we took care of it.”
“What kind of issue?” Benny walks around his desk to sit at the front.
I fork a bite of egg.
“An unmarked car was outside the shipment yard, but I took care of it,” Ponytail says with more confidence.
Benny’s arms fold over his suit, his biceps flexing against the tailored fabric. I grab my container to sit in a chair closer to his desk. Far away from the line of fire should he pull his gun.
“How would anyone know where the shipment is, unless someone tipped them off?”
“Mhm.” I shake my head at a piece of bacon and freeze at three sets of eyes. “My bad.”
Ponytail presses a hand to his chest. “Who would tip them off?”
He’s lying.
I crunch into a piece of bacon.
“I swear to you on my grandmother’s life.”
Crunch.
“I would never betray you, Mr. Bennici, but I can only speak for myself.”
So he did it.
“Why are you looking at me?” The other man frowns. “Thirteen years I’ve worked for Mr. Bennici without incident!”
“You scheduled the delivery,” Ponytail counters. “I’ll tell you exactly what happened.”
“Start from the beginning,” Benny says.
“No.”
Did I say that out loud?
I push my food away. Benny’s glare is still deadly but shows no signs of immediate harm. I’m eighty-nine percent sure.
“What’s your name?” I ask Ponytail, who’s mugging me.
He glances at Benny for approval. “Dante.”
“Hi, Dante. Would you mind starting from the end and working your way to the beginning?”
“Why would I do that?”
I lift a shoulder. “Humor me.”
“Do what she says.”
It’s not my proudest moment to admit I’m turned on, but my kitty purrs, like these men won’t get chopped up and thrown into a garbage bag. In seventeen years as an HR manager, no one has defaulted to my recommendation so easily. It took crossing an ocean for a crime boss to do it, but my God today.
I want to thank Benny while dragging my fingers through his thick hair, but I refrain for the sake of my dignity and to stand on business.
Dante narrates an over-the-top story that’s missing explosions and a Hans Zimmer score. The man next to him narrows his eyes at the part about him running an errand.
“What store did you go to?”
“Mr. Bennici. I respect you, but who is this woman to question me?” Dante snarls. “Was there a change in leadership I don’t know about?”
Pow.
He’s on the floor, clutching his leg. Blood spills over his hands as he wails.
“Watch your fucking mouth if you want to make it out alive.” Benny lifts his gun to Dante’s other knee. “Answer her question.”
Lord, I know you’re not done with me yet, but please forgive my heaux thoughts for wanting to suck the skin off this man’s dick.
“Okay, okay!” Dante cries. “What was the question?”
“Trouble.”
And if you could keep me alive, I’d appreciate it—with a new living arrangement that’s not a dungeon. A villa would be preferable; the pool is optional.
“Trouble,” Benny says again.
Amen.
“The store,” I clarify. “Which one did you go to?”
“Lupardo’s! I grabbed milk for my mother before work.”
Pow.
“Ow! Fuck.”
“Why did you shoot him again?”
“His mother lives in Palermo, two and a half hours from here. In Preda territory,” Benny snarls.
He fishes his phone out of his pocket to type a text. The gun is still on Dante with no kneecaps and a pending funeral. Of all the lies that could get a man killed, buying milk for his mama was the best one?
A man in an all-black suit enters the office. Benny says something to him in Sicilian before Dante gets dragged out by his foot.
“Your loyalty does not go unnoticed,” Benny tells the last man standing in Italian. “Luiggi will take you back.”
“Thank you, Mr. Bennici.” The man bows twice, like he saw the Prince of Zamunda, and shuts the office door behind him.
“That wasn’t tense at all,” I huff. No wonder the furnishings are dark. “Where is Dante going?”
“To the basement.”
Ew.
“Can I not be down there to hear the screams? I don’t need to add nightmares to my saga.”
He pockets his phone. “How did you know he was lying?”
“People tell on themselves. Responding to a question with another question. Feigning outrage. Deflecting to others. You’d be surprised how many liars swear on a grandparent. I’m offended for his grandmother.”
Benny motions for my trash. “And asking him to tell what happened in reverse?”
“Oh, that. It’s a cognitive strategy I learned,” I say.
“People who lie usually practice the story they tell from beginning to end, not the other way around. It’s harder for them to stick to their story when they have to deviate.
I’ve used that trick occasionally at my old job. Easier to catch them off guard.”
The beginning of a smile tips Benny’s mouth. “I found a way for you to pay me what you owe, Trouble.”
Why do I already know it’s a bad idea?
This must be a trauma response. It explains why I’m twirling pasta around my fork like I’m on a date and not being held against my will.
“Are you done laughing?” Benny’s forearms flex on the table. Black ink snakes across his arms toward the white dress shirt rolled to his elbows. He swapped out all black for a navy suit before taking us to his restaurant. The dress code is different when not shooting off people’s knees.
I cackle harder.
Owing millions isn’t what’s threatening a fart to slip. It’s how Benny wants me to earn back my freedom that has me laughing in his face.
“I’m going to help you take down Sicily’s biggest mafia?” Tears scald my eyes through a wheeze that stretches into a snort. “You want me to go toe-to-toe with the Godfather? Did I get that right?”
My fight-or-flight response is somewhere playing Rock, Paper, Scissors.
There is no logical reason I, Bianca Marie Harris—first of her name and raised by a Black woman who taught me better common sense—am not scaling the balcony.
I’ve already climbed down one this trip.
Pantyless and free is where I want to be.
Benny’s lips press into a thin line. He hasn’t said a word since asking me—with a straight face—to embark on a covert mission that will end with me inside a barrel of acid.
I’m not Jennifer Garner and this sure ain’t Alias!
The metal rings on his tattooed fingers catch in the sun. The balcony off his office in his restaurant shields us, but he didn’t want to risk the sun in my face.
He adjusts his sunglasses and strokes his beard. His jaw ticks, a precursor to bullshit on the way.
“You don’t have a choice, Bianca,” he says, tone clipped. “If you want to go home, you’ll do as I say.”
My nervous system should hide under one of the ivory tablecloths around the balcony. The scowl carved into Benny’s cheekbones is menacing, but not enough to stop my cackling.
“Is there a diamond heist in Monaco you want to throw in while we’re at it? I’m free the rest of the weekend.”
He has the nerve to ask, “What about this is funny?”
“Everything!” I double over. Yeah, this is a trauma response. “You, me, and what army are whacking these people? Your little mafia isn’t getting me killed.”
“I don’t have a little mafia,” he grunts.
I pick up my fork. “Get someone else to do it, Mr. Non-Don. My answer is no.”
This pasta is delicious.
“No?”
“That’s what I said. Get one of your goons to do it. Whatever is going on doesn’t involve me.”
Benny’s gaze drifts toward the sea. A haze of low clouds hovers near the shore. Catania is gorgeous, at least the parts I’ve seen .
“I don’t negotiate, Bianca. I’m in charge.”
“Keep thinking that, Benny.”
Should I order dessert? Gelato sounds good.
“I’m serious, Trouble,” he says more sternly.
“Uh-huh.” I peek over the dessert menu and fight a smile. He’s adorable when mad. “Why me? There’s got to be someone else who wants to be here.”
“I want you.”
The words hang between us with a level of affection that shouldn’t be here. Benny doesn’t care for me, but his tone says otherwise.
“There is no one like you,” he says, quieter. “Your instincts. The ability to extract information from people. Make them feel. It has to be you.”
Dick remnants, I tell myself. Wayward emotions reaching beyond an itch I scratched, cracking my toes and having me singing into a ceiling mirror. That’s what this is.
“You might think you’re in charge, but you can’t force me to do shit.”
Benny leans into his chair and smirks, looking like the tailored devil he is. “Do you know what I think?”
“Not really,” I throw out, to piss him off.
We grin.
“Some level of my life excites you, makes you feel alive.”
“And I plan to stay alive on my own, far away from mafia business. I’m too cute for bullet holes.”
“You’ll get bored. You won’t go anywhere unless I give you permission.”
“Which you will. You aren’t the monster you think you are, Benny. You like being around me and aren’t dumb enough to piss me off.”
His grin widens. “Don’t push me, love.”
I wish he would try to keep me locked up for my entire vacation.