Chapter 16 Antonella
ANTONELLA
PLAYLIST: DARK ROOM – MICHELE MORRONE
Isit in the back of a Range Rover. One car behind us, another in front of us. I am official. I am the one now to be protected at all costs. Salvatore sits next to me, a driver in the front. I employ so many people I can’t count them.
My fingers wander over my lips. The lips that just touched her.
The woman who tortured me. Abducted me. And I did what I did because I needed to prove something to myself.
I needed to know what it was she caused me to feel.
Causes me to feel, because whenever I think of her, a jittery sensation of tingling desire appears in my core.
I have desires. Desires I need release from. But I don’t have anything I could use in the masseria.
Well, but I have people now who do whatever I tell them to.
“Salvatore,” I say when I am done with a list of toys. “This needs to be organised, yesterday.” In any other circumstance, I would have felt weird instructing a brother to organise something for me to play with, but I don’t really know him, nor do we have a normal brother-sister relationship.
He looks at it, draws an eyebrow.
“You don’t need any of that,” he says.
“You don’t get to decide what I need or not,” I say.
He chuckles. “I don’t, I was merely saying the acquisition is not necessary.”
“And why is that?” I ask, staring intensely at him.
“Wait until we’re back, I will show you.”
I’m not sure I want to know. I can imagine what it is. And sure enough, when Salvatore opens the door to a room in the west wing, I walk straight into BDSM headquarters. Crosses and benches, torture chair and things I can’t name. I am not entirely averse to it, but I personally don’t need it.
I have written a paper on how healthy dominance can have positive effects on people with different psychological conditions, and therefore deep dived into that world, but I am not getting off on any of that.
I can see where the interest in submission and dominance stems from, but the part where all those tools and furniture are needed is not my cup of tea.
“How many women have been in here?” I ask.
“That will stay a mystery no one can ever solve,” he says as he pulls open drawers.
“Here,” he says and throws a vibrator at me. I don’t catch it on purpose.
“I don’t want stuff that has been in other people,” I say. “Restock everything, and get rid of that chair thing; no one needs that.”
“Whatever you wish, sister,” he says.
“Don’t tell me you use it,” I say.
“When would I have the chance for it? I can’t be open with who I am. Giuseppe had the same talent as you for knowing stuff; otherwise, no one can know.”
“Statistically—“ I begin.
“Statistically, you should not be a Capo,” he says.
“Yet I am proving the point I tried making. I don’t care if you’re are. I prefer it.”
“Because you grew up in a city like London,” he says. “Was different in New York for me, too. But the world here is different.”
“Believe me, I know,” I say and take him in. “Would you leave if you could?” I ask after a moment. It is the first closer talk we have had, and I want to use it.
“You don’t leave. That’s it. You cannot leave until you are sent.”
“And what if I send you?”
“You are lost without me,” he says. “So, don’t. I am fine the way I am.”
“If you say so,” I say, turning to leave, but a thing that looks like gym equipment on the wall distracts me.
“What’s that?” I ask and point at it.
“A pulley,” he says. “For pet training.”
“Pet training?” I ask.
“On a leash, for a sub. Gets fixed on the collar and therefore has a range of motion to please different people in the room, but the dom has the control to pull the sub back at any time.”
“You know, forget I asked,” I say and leave for the door. “I think I need a moment to process that.”
Salvatore laughs.
I lie in my bed, half an hour later, door locked because I trust none of them and can’t sleep.
I am staring at the ceiling, restless. I don’t scratch the itch very often, but when I do, I need a vibrator for it.
“Meh,” I say at some point and get up to sit at the desk and look outside into the darkness of the Sicilian countryside.
Right this moment, I miss London. The buzz. The lights. Everything is within arm’s reach. I mean, Palermo is a bigger city, but it’s not comparable to London.
And right now, I am not in Palermo but in the nothingness of nowhere.
Because I have to lead an empire.
“I have to lead an empire,” I repeat my thought. “I am the Capo. I can do whatever I want.”
Well, almost.
I take my phone and call Salvatore.
“Do we own a residence in Palermo?” I ask when he answers.
“Yes, several, why?” he asks sleepily.
“I want one. Tomorrow. The countryside is making me sick.”
“I’ll schedule a visit for tomorrow after breakfast,” he says. “Now sleep, this is an ungodly hour.”
I laugh and hang up.
Morning comes, and I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck. I couldn’t fall asleep until a glimpse of the sun lurked on the horizon, and the few hours of sleep I got were restless.
I kept tossing and turning until I sat up straight from the sound of a slap that happened entirely in my head.
A nightmare where I was in that BDSM room with Rosalia, where she attached me to the pet trainer, and she slapped me with a paddle until my ass burned in pain, just like in her torture chamber.
I am sweaty and gasp away the memory of it.
Fuck.
I draw my shoulders back.
“I am not my past,” I tell myself as a random affirmation, and get up and shower. The images of the dream, however, don’t vanish. They even worsen. The darkness. The pigeons. Rosalia’s voices. Flashes of a gun. Dead people.
“Urgh!” I curse out. I’d rather scratch my eyes out than see any of it. Which would make no sense, because everything is happening inside my head.
My heartbeat feels like I just ran five miles as fast as I could, beating against my chest and into my throat.
I need to get out of this room.
I need to—forget.
When I step out onto the sandstone terrace with a view over the landscape of dry Sicilian nothingness, the breakfast table is set with fresh fruit, coffee, and everything else a person could desire.
But all I see is an apple that looks like the one Rosalia had in her house, the one I ate, and somehow, this apple triggers more images to run through my mind.
Slap. I even feel the pain in my ass as if I were spanked right now.
“Urgh,” I groan again.
The sun is too bright, it’s too warm already, and my dream haunts me continuously. I go back inside and come back with sunglasses and a glass of whiskey.
Salvatore and Rosario both look with drawn-up eyebrows at me.
“Someone had a rough night,” says Salvatore.
“Don’t talk,” I say, gulp down the whiskey, shudder, wash it down with a cup of coffee and then take the three apples from the fruitbowl and throw them over the hedge framing the terrace.
“What did the apples do to you?” asks Salvatore.
“Shut up,” I say and walk back inside and bring the entire bottle of whiskey with me.
I have officially become a day drinker. But I don’t care.
Because I am a criminal now. One with an empire of drugs and money and all the illegal shit to run.
A criminal who killed and lay awake the entire night lusting for a woman more than twice her age, who wants to kill her, while her mind is running through the torture she put her through, while being physically stuck on an island with all the conservative catholics who think being gay is a sin.
Day drinking is the reasonable choice.
Half an hour and the entire bottle later, I have arrhythmia and slightly slurred speech.
“Youeew knnoow,” I say and get up, swaying slightly. “I amm going to shoooottt those aaappples in piecesss.” And with that, I pull out the gun I have with me at all times. One of them.
“Okay, that’s enough,” says Salvatore, grabs the gun in my hand and takes the glass from me. “Whatever it is, go sleep it off.”
“Givvvee me my gunn,” I say.
“We don’t handle guns when drunk,” he says.
“Weeee do,” I say, bending down and pulling a small spare gun from my leg band. I come up, sway just a little bit and point it at him.
“Ooookay,” he says, his hand outstretched. “Calm down, okay?”
“I’mmm nnot ssshooting youuu,” I say and gesture wildly with the gun in my hand. “Applessss. Theseee applesss need to beee destoryeddd.”
I lean over the hedge to see where they have fallen, and then I fall.
I scream, I land. Not too hard. On some really green grass. It’s so soft.
I look at the blue sky.
The sun is burning my skin.
I stare up.
I am Antonella Amato. Capo. Criminal. Killer, I recite in my head. Images from before vanish. I am finally at peace.
Two heads in my view, interrupting my thought.
“Thattt is veery green grassss,” I tell them before I close my eyes. It’s warm. It’s soft. And I am tired.
When I wake, I stare at the ceiling in my bedroom again. I sit up. My head is throbbing horribly.
“Here,” says Salvatore, holding a glass of water and a pill in front of my face, “Put it in your mouth and swallow.”
I snort, but do as he says.
“Are you going to tell me what made you become a drinker?” he asks as he sits down on the bed next to me.
I rub my eyes.
“The sun,” I say. “Everything is so bright and warm here. I am used to London. It’s grey and dull and has normal temperatures, and there is rain.”
Salvatore laughs.
“I don’t think the sun is the problem,” he says.
“Can we go check out the Palermo residences?” I ask.
“Touch your nose,” he says, and I snap both pointer fingers to my nose one after another.
“See, all good,” I say cheerfully, “Remind me next time not to mix whiskey and coffee.”
“I’ll remind you now, once. This is not a fun-and-games situation. You have responsibilities. An image to build. You can’t gamble like this.”
I scoff, get out of bed and draw myself up.
“One question,” I say. “Would you have told me the same if I were a man?”
“That’s not the point—“
“It’s exactly the point,” I say. “Because you wouldn’t have dared. Because men are allowed to do whatever they want, while women need to be silent and agreeable, not draw attention to themselves and always be perfect.”
“You want the men to respect you, so act like it.”
I chuckle dangerously.
“You better put on some big boy pants,” I say. “Because I am not making myself small to make the life of men easier.”
And with that, I open the door, gesturing for him to leave.
“I’ll be ready to roll in five, have the car ready,” I say and slam the door in his face.
The moment it’s closed, a wide grin appears on my face, because I am actually pretty good at this whole Capo thing, and I haven’t felt more alive than right this moment.
“This is it,” I say the moment we come to a halt in front of it. I get out of the Range Rover, and the black wooden doors with embossed harps are opened for me. The door is framed by beautiful sandstone columns, palms, and olive trees in pots, making it look like a dream.
I enter, and my eyes fall onto a beautiful staircase with mosaic steps.
“It spans three floors,” says Salvatore. “Eight bedrooms and it’s in the historic centre of Palermo. Living space, mezzanine area with frescoed ceiling, dining room, kitchen, a vault and catacombs downstairs if needed,” he says, emphasising the last word. I understand.
“Who has lived here?” I ask.
“No one,” he says. “It was meant for Adria one day, but she fled and cut the family ties.”
“Understandable,” I say.
“Adria? How do you know about her?”
Apparently, no one knows Adria is with Rosalia. And I won’t be the one to drop it.
“Our father raped her,” I say dismissively. It’s a truthful non-answer.
“He did. Giuseppe fucked her, too. Everyone had her.”
My head twitches, and I roll my shoulders back when Giuseppe’s name falls. And I am painfully reminded of what circles I am in. But I can’t think about any of it right now, because if I did, I’d circle down and probably fall apart. Something that cannot happen, because I have an empire to run.
“I want this set up,” I say, harsher than I meant to. “And I want a proper AC in every room, especially my bedroom.”
“Which room will be yours?”
I stroll through the two upper floors and look at every bedroom.
“This here,” I say when I return from the upper second floor to the first floor.
“I want the entire level. This here stays a bedroom, it has the best en suite bathroom, that one—“ I point at the room next to it, “This will be my study. The other one over there, make a gym space out of it. I want different doors. Make them heavier, a grandmother can kick those in. I want more plants. This is all too slick.”
I don’t know why I am so annoyed, but I want to be done with this. I have a dire need to feel at home somewhere.
While I would have generally preferred the upper floor, I decided on the first floor because the rooms there have balconies. Meaning, if necessary, I can escape.
“Salvatore,” I say. “There was something about nightclubs in the books, we own them, yes?”
“Some, yes.”
“Which ones?”
“Please don’t tell me you want to go party,” he says and rolls his eyes.
“It is exactly what I am going to do.”
He groans.
“It’ll be fun,” I say.
“Not if you don’t know the etiquette,” he says.
“I am sure you can tell me beforehand.”
“Let me rephrase it,” he says. “Not if you give a damn fuck about etiquette.”
“Salvatore,” I say, and grab him by the shoulders on either side. “You need to relax, really. Let us have some fun. The commission approved. We’ll exceed the quarterly goal. Everything will be fine.”
“Nothing is fine,” he says. “The threat potential is the highest possible somewhere with so many people; you need to be careful. Many people held a grudge against Giuseppe, and they see you as an ant they can crush without lifting a finger.”
“Well, let us show them I’m no ant,” I say. “I’m not hiding for the rest of my life. We are partying tonight, this is an order.”
He groans again, and I tap him on the shoulder.
“Let’s go,” I say. “We have things to organise.”