Chapter 3
I devote my Saturday afternoon to digital conferences with my father and siblings regarding Pittsburgh operations.
Numerous complications have surfaced recently, with tensions mounting over connections to other “organizations” in Philadelphia and Newark, and, predictably, the LaRiccia Family out of New York.
Nothing I care to contemplate now that evening has arrived, so I dismiss work matters and drive to the Victorian estate our building firm spent twelve months restoring before my relocation.
A peace offering from my father for dispatching me to this godforsaken backwater. I wouldn’t claim I despise it—that wouldn’t be accurate. But it certainly doesn’t align with my vision for this stage of my life.
When I thrust the front door open and enter the foyer, cold, polished marble meets my feet. The chandelier captures the evening light, scattering fractured diamonds across the space. The Monet adorning the west wall exceeds the value of most mansions. The space stands perfect. Immaculate. Vacant.
Home?
The term rings hollow. This estate serves as a declaration, not a refuge. In Pittsburgh, the family estate buzzes with noise. Vitality. Here, silence carries weight.
I remove my jacket, fold it over my arm. My footsteps reverberate as I traverse the extended hallway toward the kitchen. The sound trails me like an unwelcome shadow.
The kitchen shines beneath embedded lights—all gleaming metal and stone. Top-tier everything. The massive Viking range remains untouched. The bespoke fridge purrs softly, the single appliance earning its place.
I pull it open, the seal breaking with a gentle suction noise. I reach beyond the unused meal containers Lucia organized and extract a beer from the rear. One beer. Each evening. My sole custom.
The top twists off with a pleasing fizz. I take a deep swallow, sensing the chill descend my throat. For an instant, I nearly unwind.
Then I catch it. A woman’s shrill laugh from the floor above, followed by Dom’s distinctive chuckle. There’s a reason I call him “Laugh Track.” When Dom discovers humor, everyone in the vicinity knows.
I take another gulp, deeper this time. The laugh shifts into a groan that reverberates through the ducts. Then another voice—masculine. Ricky, certainly.
This is their nightly routine throughout the week.
Every Sunday we return home. Not to my father’s residence, not since my mother passed. But to Dom’s family estate. His mother—now lovingly referred to as Mama Bavga—stands as the family matriarch. And every Sunday, following mass, we all gather at Mama’s place for dinner.
It unfolds exactly as you’d imagine. Complete Sopranos’ fashion.
But it’s worthwhile. I enjoy heading home. Visiting the family, the countless nieces and nephews—my eldest brother Angelo has five children, and my middle brother Marco has three. Plus, all the cousins.
Italian families are serious business.
It’s pleasant, though. This aspect.
But it’s what follows dinner that I’m growing tired of.
The origin of the moaning and laughter that plagues me here, night after night.
Dom imports women from Pittsburgh. Every Sunday we head back to the family estate, deliver the exhausted girls to their original locations, attend church, eat at Mama Bavga’s table, and when we depart to return to Riverview, Dom’s got three new women in the rear of his Escalade. New faces, new diversions.
It’s a pattern as reliable as the changing seasons.
And I’m tired of it.
My grip on the bottle strengthens. The moisture makes it slick between my fingers.
Initially, there was some appeal, but I detest unfamiliar people. I have no fondness for these women. When I do grant them attention, it’s detached and brief.
What purpose does detached and brief serve?
That’s identical to me and my palm in the shower.
So I’ve grown weary of this custom and now simply find these guests irritating.
I could voice my objection. It’s my residence. My boundaries.
But Ricky and Dom transcend friendship, they’re my everything. It’s the three of us against the universe until the end. And if they desire to fuck random women like porn stars every evening of the week, what right have I to intervene?
Another moan, louder this time. A thump against the wall. Then Ricky’s voice, “Come on, baby. You can open wider than that.”
Gagging noises come next. Ricky’s kind of a freak. Likes to fuck his girls in the throat.
I advance toward the staircase, prepared to ascend and call it a night. Perhaps I’ll imagine a scenario involving Little Miss Take.
A door bangs shut, trailed by additional chuckling.
I take another swallow of beer, each footfall on the stairs a calculated decision.
The glossy timber groans beneath my Italian leather footwear.
These aging residences communicate. They retain memories.
This one formerly murmured about the coal tycoon who constructed it, about his wealth, his downfall.
Now it murmurs about me.
The second-floor corridor extends before me like a catwalk. Five entrances, all shut except one. Ricky’s door remains partially open, illumination flooding into the hallway alongside noises nobody should have to hear from their business associate.
I don’t mean to look. I don’t want to see. But my eyes catch it anyway—a flash of bare skin, tangled limbs. Two women, not one. The blonde meant for me is on her knees in front of Ricky, his cock in her throat, while the redhead works her mouth on his neck.
“Fuck, that’s it,” Ricky groans, his eyes closed, head thrown back as he pumps his hips. The redhead is now humping his leg like a dog, rubbing herself all over him.
I halt. Not out of curiosity. From assessment. This marks the third instance this month he’s claimed my share without permission. A trend developing. Something to register.
The blonde turns her head slightly, catches my silhouette in the hallway. Her eyes widen. She doesn’t stop sucking his cock, but something changes in her expression. Hope. Like I might rescue her from Ricky’s punishing attention.
I step away. Not my business. Not my problem. Ricky can have them both.
The staircase to the third floor is narrower, steeper. Original to the house. I take these steps faster, wanting distance between myself and whatever’s happening below.
Dom’s laughter booms from behind his door, followed by a high-pitched squeal that makes my jaw tighten. The third girl—a brunette Dom picked specifically because he thought I’d like her eyes. As if eye color matters when you’re trying to fuck away the emptiness.
“Oh my god, your dick is soo big,” the woman gasps, her voice pitched to flatter.
Dom’s laugh again. “Baby, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
His dick is big. I’ve known him my whole life and he went through a let’s-measure-our-dicks stage when he was fourteen. Ten inches.
Bigger than me, I’ll give him that. But only by half an inch.
The bed frame crashes methodically into the wall as he drives into her with that enormous cock. The noise trails me down the hallway like an indictment. Like defeat.
My room occupies the corridor’s end. The master suite. The summit of this empty mountain I’ve constructed for myself. I swing the door open and enter.
Stark lines. Sparse furnishings. A king bed with black sheets folded with military exactness.
No pictures. No personal effects visible.
The walk-in closet door remains ajar, rows of matching suits discernible in the faint light.
The expansive window provides an unobstructed view of Riverview—the community stretched below resembling a miniature village. My village.
I place my beer on the nightstand and slacken my tie. The ceiling fan rotates idly above, circulating chilled air that perpetually stays cool. I can still detect them—Dom’s chuckling, Ricky’s moans, the rehearsed excitement of the three women.
The noises penetrate through the ducts, the floors, the walls.
Unavoidable.
I enter the closet, select a suit for tomorrow—charcoal gray—then meticulously place it into my garment bag.
I seal the carrier with one crisp, definitive motion. The noise is conclusive. Resolute.
Another explosion of laughter bursts from Dom’s room, followed by what appears to be someone tumbling off the mattress. The snickering grows louder.
I drape the bag across my shoulder, toss the vacant beer bottle into the waste bin as I depart the room, and proceed toward the rear staircase to avoid witnessing the woman being gagged by Ricky’s dick again.
This marks the fifth occasion in fourteen days I’ve departed.
It’s not a positive indicator.
I descend the stairs rapidly, my footfalls intentionally forceful. Let them hear me leave—I’m indifferent.
I reach the foyer, key fob in my hand. The chandelier captures the illumination differently now, the broken diamonds more severe, more cutting. The Monet appears as merely colored blotches in the low light.
The front door swings noiselessly on its well-lubricated hinges. The evening breeze strikes my face. Brisk, pure, bringing the aroma of pine from the woods that surround the property. I breathe in deeply. My lungs fill. Something within my chest slightly relaxes.
The Aventador waits in the circular driveway like a hunched beast, its Nero Nemesis finish swallowing the moonlight.
I toss my bag onto the passenger seat and slip behind the wheel.
The motor ignites with a snarl that pulses through the steering wheel and into my arms. The noise obliterates everything else—the mansion, the recollections, the void.
For three seconds, nothing exists but the flawless mechanical harmony of Italian craftsmanship.
I don’t glance back at the mansion as I drive away. The headlights slice through the blackness, brightening the private lane that curves down the hillside toward Riverview. The trees generate moving shadows that flutter across the car’s hood.
The journey takes six minutes.