39. The headlines
MICHELA
39
Having sex, even the oral kind, with Corrado was so intense that I napped for an hour afterward. I wished he’d joined me since he needs to rest, but I fell asleep to his deep voice in the kitchen speaking with Drago, the man I met earlier who owns this house.
Since only men come here, apparently, I wear boxers and a white undershirt before I show up in the kitchen, this time ready to actually start my day, coffee and all.
Which Corrado already brewed.
He’s standing in the kitchen checking out his wound dressing.
“Good morning again,” he says.
Barefoot and wearing a pair of black sweatpants, he’s holding a white T-shirt between his teeth while cleaning the oozing wound. It looks like some stitches opened.
It happens when one has oral sex right after they get shot.
I’ve never come from someone touching me there the way Corrado did, and to be fair, I had no idea that would even turn me on. But it did, not once, but twice.
“I said good morning,” he repeats, looking amused as I pour myself a big cup of coffee.
I sip. “Good morning.”
He pads toward me, takes the cup from my hand, and puts it on the counter before he steps between my legs. He cradles my face and kisses me on the lips.
“You brushed your teeth,” he says.
I nod. You bet I did.
He kisses me again, this time more heated, tilting my head. He kisses my mouth gently as if making up for the times he fucked it hard.
We make out for a while, fevered, almost like teenagers in their parents’ jacuzzi. He’s hard against my belly, and I run my palms down his sides, accidentally touching his wound.
Corrado hisses.
“Oh no, Corrado. I’m sorry.” I bend to check his dressing. It’s bleeding a little, and my fingers where I touched it are wet.
“Ignore it.” Corrado tries to kiss me again.
“I can’t.”
“Had no problem ignoring it in the shower.”
Sensing he’s getting irritated, I narrow my eyes. “You pushed me onto my knees and shoved yourself down my throat.”
Corrado laughs. It’s such a sudden and pleasant masculine sound that I laugh with him even though I’m not trying to be funny.
I press a palm in the middle of his chest and gently push, trying to move him away. Corrado grabs the back of my thigh and lifts my leg, then settles between my legs, his hardness pushing against my clit. Violence and being hurt due to violence make this man horny.
I give him my profile. “I’m afraid you’ll bleed more.”
“Let me worry about that.”
“I can’t because I worry about you too.”
His eyes crinkle at the concerns. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Fine.” He pushes away from me and leans against the counter. “Help me dress this thing again.”
I gulp down more coffee before I work on his wound.
Slowly, I start peeling away the blood-soaked dressing from the back, and once done, I see the damage. “At least three stitches popped.”
“It happens when a man can’t resist his wife.”
I might melt into the floor. “Do you mean that?”
He casts a gaze over his shoulder and nods.
I like this Corrado. The one who wears sweatpants and has messy morning hair and an amused expression.
“It’s bleeding quite a bit,” I tell him.
“Then close it up,” he says.
I kneel so I can get a better view, and the wound’s swollen, looking worse than it did yesterday. “You need a nurse.”
Corrado hands me some sort of gun-like object. “I have you and Drago. He says this sears wounds shut.”
I examine the futuristic instrument. “How does it work?”
“Don’t know. Laser, maybe?”
“Okay, and how do I use it?”
He shrugs. “Point and shoot.”
Last night’s events flash through my head. Flickering lights. Dom pushing me into the car. Popping noises, and then the vision of Dom’s shoes.
“Hey,” Corrado barks. “Stay with me.”
I shake my head. “Sorry. I started thinking about last night.”
“It’s okay. Try to grab ahold of your thoughts before the bad ones grab you.” He guides my hand toward the wound, and as I aim the gun at it, he depresses my finger over the trigger switch.
At first, a pointy, circular, green light shoots out of the barrel. The color changes to red, and the beam spreads all over the wound. The sizzling noise makes me cringe, and he hisses as his skin burns. Yet he doesn’t stop. He guides my hand over the entire wound. Front, then back, while he grips the counter with his other hand, his knuckles turning white.
I try to pull away, but he says, “Continue.”
“It’s causing you pain.”
“Continue,” he pronounces slowly.
The result is a neatly closed wound and a very pale Corrado.
“Can you see the stitches?” he asks.
“Mmhm. They’re holding.”
“Use a forceps and take them out.”
“Oh no. Let it heal.”
“Fuck, Michela, do what I say.”
I stick out my hand palm up. “Give it.”
Once he hands me the forceps, I’m as careful as a surgeon removing last night’s stitches from a mostly seared-off wound.
“You know,” I say once I’m almost done, “you can take something for the pain.”
“Pain meds interfere with my thinking process.”
“Wow. You can’t let go of your self-control, not even when it’s counterproductive to healing and feeling better.”
“I’m not here to feel better. I’m here to feel my best. And I’ll get there when I figure out my next move. This thing with Dom and his father screwed up my plans. I’m strategizing new ones, and for it all, I need a working body.”
Corrado releases the counter and goes to kiss me again, but I press two fingers over his lips. “Are you hungry?”
He doesn’t even take a second before he sits behind the bar. “Only if you’re cooking.”
I grab the eggs from the fridge, find cheese, then look in the pantry for dried bacon bits. Bingo. “This house is well stocked.”
“Mmhm.”
“But people don’t really live here.”
“You’re right. Drago restocks it.”
“Is it a house kind of like the one I house-sat for?”
Corrado purses his lips. “Kind of, yes.”
“How many such safe places are there?”
“What’s with the 411?”
I shrug. “Never mind. Just making conversation.” I oil a pan and scramble us some eggs with bacon and cheese. We don’t move to the table. I eat standing in the kitchen like a starving dog while watching Corrado hoover the breakfast at the kitchen bar. We were both hungry, our bodies screaming for nourishment.
Not long after, I’m washing the dishes when Drago walks in carrying my brother’s duffel and a smaller leather briefcase that I presume is Corrado’s.
“Thank you.” I wipe my hands on a towel, then extend my hand to take the duffel, but he looks at Corrado and doesn’t give it to me until Corrado nods.
Drago, the obedient soldier. It’s no wonder Corrado’s having a hard time with me voicing my opinion and opposing him. Nobody tells him no, and everyone awaits his approval with bated breath.
To be fair, I like Corrado’s approval too, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to please a man who pleases you, as long as I don’t lose sight of who I am and what I want out of my love life.
“Are you all right?” Corrado asks, and I turn, not realizing I’m standing there like a statue while holding a military duffel in my hand.
“I’ll be right back.” Intent on getting dressed, I carry the duffel to the bedroom, but when a woman says my name, I drop the duffel and, with a pounding heart, step back into the kitchen. I expect to see a woman there.
Maybe Isabella found Corrado.
So I’m confused when I don’t see anyone.
The TV anchor keeps talking, saying my name again.
Corrado’s in the living room already, turning up the volume.
The dark-haired, dark-eyed, popular anchor whose very presence tells me something serious is happening speaks about an event from last night. Behind her, the police and the FBI are going in and out of Club Keystone while the emergency crew is moving people out on stretchers. And in bags.
In the upper corner of the screen, my picture pops up.
I gasp and cover my mouth.
The anchor is saying I’m missing and that my family is looking for me. If anyone has information about my whereabouts, they should call the toll-free number. She says I was last seen in the parking garage with Domenico Benvenutis, a known mobster.
“The police are treating her case as kidnapping,” the anchor reports.
“Kidnapping?” I turn to Corrado for an explanation.
“They think Dom took off with you as a hostage.”
“But Domenico is dead,” I say.
“He is,” Corrado says calmly. “Nice work,” he tells Drago, a quiet presence in the house.
Drago scrunches up his nose. “Remains to be seen if it’s good work, however.”
“You did the best you could, I’m sure,” Corrado says.
“I did, yes, but you could’ve attracted less attention.”
Corrado hooks a thumb over his shudder and sits on the sofa with a groan. “There’s eggs in the pan.”
“Thanks,” Drago mumbles as he walks past me. “Don’t bleed on my furniture.”
“Hey, guys, I hate to interrupt your chill in light of the disturbing news of my kidnapping, but can you please explain what’s going on?”
“Come here, Michela.” Corrado pats the seat next to him.
“I can’t.”
“You can and you will. Sit down next to me.”
“My brother is going to see this.” I clasp my cheeks. “Gordon will see it and go crazy. I need to get ahold of him.” I rush into my room and search for my phone, but I can’t find it. Even so, it’s the phone Corrado gave me that has no contacts.
I close my eyes and try to recall Jesse’s phone number, but he’s gone through so many lines that the ones I remember have all been disconnected already. I unzip the duffel and fumble through the mess of clothes in search of my dress pants, blouse, and flats. Most of the stuff here is my work clothes, so that’s all I have, though I wish Drago had brought my leggings and sneakers. Maybe also Gordon’s oversized army T-shirt.
Dressed in work clothes, I fix my hair and leave the room to find Corrado in the living room, still watching TV.
I sit on the opposite end of the couch.
The sun shining through the blinds makes his hazel eyes appear the color of imperial jade.
“Going somewhere?” he asks, his voice laced with an edge, his demeanor cold and distant. His gaze flicks away to the TV.
“My twin watches the news. He’ll see this and think I’ve been taken.”
“You have been taken.”
I frown. Corrado means that he took me away from the incident, but that’s not what I mean, and my brother has no idea Corrado is keeping me safe. “The taking is called a kidnapping, and I’ve made the headlines. Gordon will think Dom took me.”
Corrado groans as he shifts on the couch and reaches for a remote control. With the press of a button, he shuts off the TV and picks up another remote, which he flips in his hand.
“Tell me something I don’t already know.”
Cold. Distant. Asshole. I want my Corrado back, if he ever was mine at all. “Gordon will come looking for me.”
“From prison?”
I shake my head. “He has friends who are loyal to him. They’ll start looking, and when they find out I’m here with you, I don’t know what we’re going to tell them. That’s if they allow you to tell them at all. Jesse will shoot first and ask questions later.”
Corrado nods. “And what do you plan to do about that?”
“I’m going to visit Gordon.”
Corrado’s eyebrows shoot up. “Your face was all over the news in connection with a new and violent cartel that attacked a Cosa Nostra club, and you want to walk into a prison?”
“Yeah. I can’t have Gordon thinking I’m in danger before his parole hearing. It’s his chance at release, and I’m looking forward to it.”
“The parole board won’t approve his parole.”
I gasp. “Don’t say that.”
“I’m not saying that. They told me.”
“What…what do you know about my brother?”
“I know he committed a violent crime for which he’s not remorseful. They want him humbled and brought to heel, and your brother is extremely proud, with a strong belief system about what he feels he should and shouldn’t do. Like you.”
I shake my head. “Maybe they’ll change his mind. And even if they don’t, it’ll destroy him knowing I’m in danger. He is in prison because of me.”
“Are you guilty of disappointing him? Is that why you want to tell him you’re fine and going back to work like a good girl who stays out of trouble? Hm? Pretending like your life is worth something more so you can feel better about him rotting in prison?”
Tears sting my eyes. “Stop.”
“He’s not in prison because of you. He’s in prison because he made a choice.”
I want to hurt him as he’s hurting me by talking about my brother with such nonchalance, as if Gordon’s life means nothing. “You can’t stop me.”
Corrado’s face takes on a whole new dangerous expression. “What was that?”
“You can’t stop me. You’re not my husband.”
“Careful.”
“The marriage is a lie.”
“Shut up, Michela.”
“I want to see my brother.”
“Not today.”
Something in Corrado’s voice makes me think that if I tried to run, he’d capture me. Like, really capture me and not let me go.
“But I must see him.” I hug myself. “I want to see him.” I start rocking. “I can’t do this alone. I don’t want to do this alone. I don’t…”
Corrado’s arms come around me, and he hugs me, moving my head to rest on his chest. “You’re going to be okay. I’ve got you. I do.”
He rocks with me, and I hear the sliding door open and close as Drago exits the house for the backyard.