Chapter 6 – DARIO
DARIO
“Y ou can turn around. She’s gone.”
Ray’s been facing the wall since Posy went to her knees. I didn’t have to tell him. He figured out before I did what she was about to do.
I don’t understand her. She doesn’t particularly like sex.
She’s always willing, but she only comes once in a while, and she has to play with her clit for ages.
She’s not horny wherever she’s hiding out; she’s not trying to make me miss what I can’t have.
She sees now what I am. She’s figured out that I don’t love her. I don’t have those kinds of feelings.
No, she’s playing a game.
My lips twitch.
I love to play games with Posy Santoro.
She thought someone else was watching her.
She was right. She flashed her tits to flush them out.
It was a decent maneuver, but built on faulty assumptions.
Ray’s seen her tits before, and I don’t care.
I’ve fucked her pretty pink pussy in every room in this house.
Most everyone in the house has gotten an eyeful at some point.
I guess she never noticed, face down with her ass in the air.
I drum my fingers on the desk. This has gone on too long. I want her back. I can’t focus on work. I’m taking ill-advised risks. For the first time in years, I’m getting trounced by the Dow.
She’s going to pay in flesh when I get her back. Every lost minute, every bad trade, she’s going to work out on her back.
I don’t want to wait anymore. I shouldn’t have to. I’m throwing hundreds of thousands at the problem, and the best investigative minds in the country are acting like she’s the Jackal. I shouldn’t be so critical. She is brilliant. They underestimated her at first. It’s a common mistake.
“Where are we?” I ask. I know, but I like to hear we’re getting close. It keeps my cock hard.
Ray sniffs and strokes his stubbled chin. “If I had to guess, within a ten-mile radius.”
“And where are Renelli’s men?”
Ray scoffs. “Exploring a hot lead down on the Gold Coast. They seem to think she’s in a strip club in Miami. They’re making sure to check them all.”
I shake my head. Renelli’s not going to stay on top much longer, not if his men have the audacity to waste his money with such impunity. He needs to replace Tony with Lucca now before Lucca decides the time is ripe to give himself a promotion.
It’s not my problem, though. As long as I’m left to my own devices, I don’t really care who wears the ring. I have my own concerns.
“How much longer?” I press.
Ray shrugs. “There’s an element of luck involved. Could be weeks. Could be tomorrow.”
“We should send more men.”
“You could spook her.”
“Then put more eyes on the tapes.”
Posy was clever, running to the middle of nowhere. In this modern world, no one disappears, though. There are cameras everywhere.
We found her on the subway CCTV, but we lost her on the platform when the recording glitched.
We found her again at the bus terminal. Tracked her to a rural county a few hours away.
She hadn’t even left the state. It should have been easy to find her once we were at the end of the line, but Stonecut is a small, sleepy town.
We’ve had to be discreet. We don’t want to tip her off.
Renelli’s men have been bungling their way down the eastern seaboard so I’ve been content to move cautiously. I’m not so patient now.
I click the “request private meeting” button again on this TopFollower app. I’m taking the two thousand five hundred dollars out of her ass, too.
No response.
I recline in my chair and exhale. I haven’t been sleeping.
I’m too wired. I should call La Dolce Vita and have them send some women over like I used to do before Posy.
Work out my energy. I’d spar with Ivano, but it’s late, and he’s probably asleep.
And my cock is hard with no sign of subsiding. It’d be weird.
The European markets open soon, though. And I hate strangers in my house.
“She looks the same,” I observe.
Ray’s eased himself into the armchair across from me, waiting for instructions. He grunts.
“She should have cut her hair. Dyed it, at least.” I stare at her ridiculous profile pic.
Her hair is still long with soft, golden blonde waves. She’s lucky she didn’t change it. If she did, I’d punish her for that, too.
“She’s lost some weight.” I scroll through the photos she’s uploaded.
Posy has a perfect hourglass shape, generous breasts, hips like the curve of a cello, a waist that nips in neat and tight.
A woman can’t have tits and an ass like hers if her body doesn’t carry a few extra pounds.
There’s always a gentle swell to her belly, a slight jiggle in her thighs.
I could count her ribs, though, when she arched her back to show me her hard nipples.
“That apartment looked like a shithole.” Ray grunts again in agreement. You couldn’t see much, but there was a crack in the wall behind her, and her bed was a sofa.
“She’s not in love with me anymore.”
Ray shifts in his seat and coughs into his fist. He’s been with me since I became a made man, but he doesn’t understand what I am. He treads lightly, careful of my feelings. He hasn’t accepted that I don’t have any.
“I’m sure you’ll win her back, boss.”
I laugh. “I’m going to break her.”
Ray bends, bracing his elbows on his knees. He’s exhausted. He’s been keeping my hours, but he’s not a young man anymore.
“Not if you’re careful,” he says.
Is he deliberately misunderstanding me?
I shrug it off. It hardly matters. Soon enough, Posy Santoro will be under my roof again. Mine to do with as I please.
I held back before.
I don’t have any reason to now.
My mouth waters. I can hardly wait.
* * *
It’s been a week, and the investigators I employ are no closer to finding her. She won’t accept my requests to chat live, but she’s playing with me. I check my phone. No new pic. She usually posts late at night. She can’t sleep either.
I straighten my tie and slip on my jacket.
Renelli has requested my presence at a dinner in town.
We’re entertaining a new cartel who’s looking to do some business.
I never understood why I’m needed at these things.
My equivalent in their organization has access to our numbers. They know what we can do for them.
“I’m driving,” I say to Ray, holding out my hand. He tosses me the keys.
“Any word?” I ask.
“None.”
I knew that, but I need him to feel the urgency. No one rests until Posy is back where she belongs.
I shift into gear and peel off, enjoying the squeal of rubber and the dismay on Ray’s grizzled face.
“You got a complaint, old man?”
He’s clutching the grab handle. He shakes his head. “It’s your car, boss. You strip the tires, it’s your business.”
I glance over. “That’s right. It’s mine. I do with it what I please.”
Ray is soft when it comes to Posy. I’ve noticed him cover for her. Kick shoes she carelessly left in the foyer under a bench so I don’t see. She’s going to be home soon. He needs to understand how it’ll be.
“If I want to handle my ride a little roughly, it’s my prerogative.”
“Yes, boss.”
I flash him a tight smile. He almost conceals his discomfort.
I enjoy Ray. He’s an oddity in our world, a man motivated by loyalty and honor. The mafia code that exists only in his mind and in the movies. It makes him predictable. Reliable. Comfortable like a broken-in pair of boots.
When we arrive at Il Destino, I don’t hassle him about insisting he park the car. He doesn’t trust valets. He thinks they’ll burn the clutch.
I make my way to a private room on the second floor. It’s a Wednesday evening so the club is low key. The happy hour crowd. This is where I had decided I wanted Posy, but it was packed that night. Past midnight in the middle of a heat wave.
She was out with the girls, barely decent in a short white dress, side slits cut up to her hip, the neckline draping almost to her belly button. The thinnest spaghetti straps. It must’ve been held onto her tits with tape. She had looked like a porn star in a Greek goddess costume.
I’d been watching her for a few months. I knew I wanted to fuck her, but she’d been with Frankie Bianco. And she’s a Santoro. There were good reasons not to scratch the itch.
She noticed my eyes on her. She wandered closer and closer. She’d smiled at me, drunk and giddy. I told her to dance for me, and she did.
I drove her home, fucked her face, then took her pussy. She made these fake little moans. She was tight, and it was good, but not earth shattering.
Her place was cramped and disorganized. It made my skin crawl. I didn’t even take my pants off. I was buckled and set to bail when I saw the chess set on her coffee table. A cheap plastic and cardboard number.
We played. She beat me. Twice in a row. I won the third time because she started drifting off to sleep.
It was like finding a twenty lying in the gutter. A diamond in the rough. I moved her in with me as soon as I could, and I started polishing.
I grind my teeth so hard pain shoots through my jaw. It was a fool’s errand. She’s messy like her apartment. The kind of woman who lets her boyfriend tape her taking it up the ass. Who lets a mook like Frankie Bianco smack her around. And I was going to marry her?
I was out of my mind.
When I get her back, things are going to be different. She’s going to know her place. She’s not going to dare to pull a stunt like this ever again.
I check my phone one last time before I join the party. No new posts. My left eye twitches.
“Here he is now!” Renelli greets me, his cheeks flushed from wine. Antipasti has been served. I’m not late enough. I like to arrive when the entrees are served.
“Gentlemen.” I incline my head and take my seat.
My role here is easy. I stay sober. I nod. I accept the plaudits for my financial acumen. They ask me jokingly for a hot tip. I give them a stock, and then I buy heavy and run it up the next day to reassure them that I am a genius.