33. Marisol
33
MARISOL
“Can you stop that?” I demand.
Camillo rakes a hand through his hair. “Stop what?”
“Stop clicking that pen. You’re driving me nuts.”
Camillo lobs the pen to the side of the couch. Great, now all I can hear is the distant thump of the club past the walls of Worm’s room. How does he deal with this?
“Can we go back yet?” I ask.
Camillo shrugs. He’s too fucking relaxed, and it’s pissing me off.
“Yeah, let me check,” Worm chimes in. “Nope, no news since three minutes ago when you last asked.”
He’s lucky. He has his entire computer set up to occupy him.
Dr. Macaluso came by an hour after we arrived to check on Camillo and me, but after he left, we’ve all been stuck in radio silence for the past two days.
I trust Salvatore.
But I need to do something . Worm’s couch can’t take any more of my destruction, and even Camillo’s getting snippy.
Worm’s got a bathroom and shower here, and his friend Jocelyn brought me some clothes. But I’m tired of sleeping on the couch and looking at Camillo’s and Worm’s stupid faces.
And I miss my husband.
I made Worm show me the video of what happened in the kitchen while I was underneath the tunnel.
Once Salvatore shot Junior in the arm, it was an all-out firefight. All four men dove behind the kitchen bar and table.
Junior fired off several shots before running after me. He shot Camillo in the leg and dove into the escape tunnel.
Without backup, Salvatore’s men swarmed Aldo like wasps.
It was over once Aldo saw he was overpowered. He held his hands up, one of them crimson, and tried talking to Salvatore, but Salvatore was already running toward the tunnel.
In the kitchen, Aldo didn’t get much out before Barbara shot him in the chest.
“Junior!” Aldo screamed out before Barbara shot him again.
Then Barbara spoke so quietly, it took Worm several rewinds to catch what he said.
“That’s for my daughter.”
The next clip Worm showed me was of Salvatore and the rest of his men dragging Junior, Davide, and Aldo’s bodies to the basement while his men made short work of Junior’s reinforcements.
Worm said he didn’t have access to the camera in the basement, but the way he held my gaze just a little too long made me think he was lying.
I glance at the clock. Camillo’s casually watching a soccer game on his phone. He’s like a fucking human Xanax.
I pull a particularly satisfying thread from the couch with an audible rip.
“Will you stop that!” Worm shouts.
“Text Giordana!” I yell back.
“I already have a hundred fucking times! I’m not going—oh shit.”
I perk up.
Worm comes out from behind his desk, staring at his phone screen. “Dom says he and Barbara have spoken with the other capos. They held a vote. Sally’s the new don.”
“That’s good news, right?” I ask, because Worm sounds like his grandma just died.
“He says you should come see Sally right now. Says he’s bad. Real bad.”
I stand up suddenly and wince at the pain in my feet, sinking back down. “Are you still sure Dom isn’t a rat?”
Worm rolls his eyes. “Yeah, for the hundredth time. Dom won’t even wipe his ass without a thumbs-up from Sally. He was following orders.”
I’m still unconvinced, but I’ll deal with it later. “So what do you mean, Sal’s bad ?”
Worm glances at Camillo uneasily. “It means he’s lost control. He won’t talk to anyone, and he won’t eat. Dom wants to see if you can break him out of it.”
I look between the two of them. It means I’m going to meet il Diavolo .
Worm offers me his arm. “Come on. We better not wait.”
An hour later, a sense of unease fills me as I step through the doors to my home. Giordana and Dom wait for me by the entrance with solemn expressions.
Nola sprints from the kitchen and crashes into Camillo’s arms. He staggers back, speaking to her in Italian while she sobs and covers his face in kisses. Worm makes a sound of disgust next to me.
Dom and I consider each other for a long moment. He gave me to Barbara back in the dining room, and he doesn’t look the least bit guilty about it.
“He’s in the basement,” Dom finally says, breaking our staring contest.
As we pass through the house, movement catches my eye. It’s Dr. Macaluso slumped over the kitchen counter. A bottle of whiskey sits just past his fingertips.
“What’s he doing here?” I ask, feeling my heart drop to my belly.
Dom glances over to the doctor. “He’s here to keep him alive.”
I don’t ask what he means. I take a deep breath and key in my door code to the basement.
Dom helps me forward, and we lock ourselves inside.
The smell is what hits me first—caustic and metallic. Then the scent of meat, cooked and sickening in the way it makes my mouth water. I hold my breath, but it doesn’t help. I can feel the poisoned air seeping into my pores.
There are three chairs in the room.
Davide sits in one. He could be sleeping, if it weren’t for the bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. I swallow back the emotion swelling in my throat. He was a rat , I tell myself, but I can’t help but think of my midnight guard playing sodoku in the hallway and the man who saved me from Junior in the tunnel.
A second body is wrapped in a black trash bag against one wall of the room. Aldo.
The third man is unrecognizable. He’s naked, strapped to a chair. I don’t focus on him for too long, because the split-second image of raw human muscle and bone has my belly churning and saliva pooling in the back of my mouth.
I focus on the only man standing upright.
Salvatore.
He towers over the body in the chair. His hands are completely coated with blood up to the elbow—the viscous red so dark it’s nearly black. He holds a small, thin knife in one hand and with the other, shoves back a lock of hair from his face before steading himself on the arm of the chair. He’s tired.
“Salvatore,” Dom says.
Salvatore whirls—the raw emotion on his face makes me stagger back, glad for Dom’s presence behind me.
The whites of his eyes are visible, and his teeth are bared. Blood streaks up his temples like war paint. He takes a step toward Dom first and then seems to focus on me. His shoulders sink as some clarity seeps back into his eyes. His lips press together, and he flicks his gaze back to Dom.
“Why did you bring her here?” he croaks in an unused voice.
“You need to kill him, Turi. We don’t have time for this. The men need orders, and we still have to do damage control.”
“When he’s suffered enough, I’ll stop.”
The man in the chair behind Salvatore groans, and I realize two things in a heart-stopping moment: it’s Junior, and he’s still alive.
Salvatore grins, and it’s a cruel, menacing thing.
I understand now. The Devil .
How many men saw his face smiling down at them before dying in hellish misery?
And of all the people, it was Junior who warned me.
“That’s who you sleep with at night?”
“Send for Dr. Macaluso,” Salvatore says, turning.
I hold a hand out to Dom to stop him and step forward to Salvatore, gritting my teeth through the pain in my feet. “Sal, listen to Dom. It’s time to stop.”
Salvatore freezes. His gaze zeroes in on me like a jungle cat sizing up its prey. He sees me—really sees me for the first time —and his hands fall to his side like a puppet whose strings have been cut.
Fear tingles down my neck and spine, but I push it aside. I take two more steps forward and gently slide the knife out of his hand. I set it on a tray next to Junior, and then I turn back to Salvatore and touch his chest.
“It’s time to stop.”
I rub a hand up his neck to cup his cheek. He leans into the touch, eyes shuttering closed.
“I can’t, passerotta . They hurt you.”
I pull his head down, this machine of a man, designed for suffering and pain, who still softens at my touch and bows his head for me. I press a tender kiss to his lips. They’re cracked and dry.
“It’s all done now. It’s time to let them go,” I whisper.
After a moment, Salvatore raises his hands to brush against my hips and kisses me back weakly.
“I love you,” he whispers. “I’ll never let anyone touch you again.”
Tears brim in my eyes. “I know. I love you too.”
Salvatore inhales sharply, crushes me against him, and kisses me. He stinks of blood and he’s ice-cold, but I don’t care. I hold him against me tightly.
Junior groans.
Salvatore stiffens and turns from me. With brutal efficiency, he takes the knife and slits the throat of the Chicago Outfit underboss. After, he gathers me up into his arms. His first step is faltering. I clutch the back of his shirt, worried we’ll fall, but after a few more steps, he regains his usual grace and strides out of the room.
The rest of the household watches us cautiously from a distance. I barely spare them a thought. I’m too focused on biting back the desire to call Salvatore’s name or touch his cheek as he glides through the house with the detached familiarity of a sleepwalker. Once we’re inside our bedroom with the door shut, he stops. He looks lost.
“I have to get clean,” he murmurs.
“Let’s go to the bath,” I offer.
I guide him through setting me on the edge of the tub so he can undress himself and sit inside. Avoiding the bandage wrapped around his shoulder, I wash him gently with warm water.
I know I shouldn’t feel sympathy for him. For what he did.
But with each stroke wiping away the blood and flesh and gristle from my husband’s face and hands, I remember he did it all for me.
And instead of feeling upset, I’m proud .
“You did good,” I murmur as I rinse conditioner out of his hair.
Salvatore blinks several times. He focuses on me as he captures my wrist with his hand. We both sit still for a moment, the air thickening with humidity from the running faucet. The washcloth in my hand is stained pink.
“I’m… sorry,” Salvatore says in his calm, velvet voice. His touch on my wrist is feather-light. “I’m sorry I dragged you into all of this. I never should’ve taken you just so I could let you get hurt. I failed you.”
I try to hold it in. I really do.
But I laugh.
Salvatore’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Sal, I spent my whole life hiding who I was—craving excitement and challenge and love and thinking I couldn’t have them all at the same time. Then you came into my life and you… you understood me. Better than anyone else in my life. Better than I understood myself. And even though you’re way too tidy and a bossy control freak, and I’m still pissed at you… you’re my other half. You didn’t take me—you reunited two pieces of the same twisted, shriveled heart, and I’m so fucking glad you did. Don’t be scared I’ll break. And don’t be scared to lose me. You are never, ever getting rid of me.”
As I talk, his expression lightens, like a sunrise, from confusion to admiration.
“Does this mean you’ll take your ring back?” he asks, glancing hopefully toward his pants on the bathroom floor.
I laugh. Loudly. “No. But murdering Junior for me was a very good start.”
Despite himself, a smile ghosts over his mouth.
“My bloodthirsty little wife,” he murmurs.
He takes the rag from me and finishes scrubbing himself down. When he’s done, he gives me a look that has me rising from the edge of the tub.
“Don’t do it,” I warn. “I’m serious.”
Salvatore lifts himself, water streaming from his body in rivulets. He looms over me. Before I can take a single step back, he snatches me into his arms and carries me to the bed.
“You’re all wet!” I scream as I fight to roll away from him.
He lowers me onto the bed.
I eye him. “Don’t you do it, Salvatore Luporini. You’re dripping wet.”
The corners of his mouth twitch as he lowers his wet body on top of me.
“Sal!”
He takes my jaw in his hand and steals my breath with a kiss.
“You really need to sleep,” I mutter against his mouth. “They said you haven’t slept for two days?—”
“What I need,” Salvatore says as he shoves my leggings down to my ankles and notches himself at my entrance. “Is to hear my wife say it again.”
“That you’re a… oh … b-bossy control freak?” He pushes into me, torturously slow. He nips at my neck before soothing the sting with a kiss.
“Not that.”
“That your tidiness borders on compulsion?”
Out. In. Out. Salvatore pushes so deep inside me that I’m crawling up the bed for relief, but he seizes my hips and pins me down.
“You can take it,” he says. “Can’t you, passerotta?”
Heat blooms across my face. I remember how much I like what a compulsive, bossy control freak he is.
“Y-yes. Yes, sir.”
Another slow joining.
“That’s my girl. Tell me again you love me. How you love all of this .”
“I l-love you,” I stammer as he picks up the pace. “I love getting to work right… oh , right next to you. I love how you watch me. How you take care of me in every way.”
His thumb finds my clit, and suddenly, all the built-up pressure spikes up. He buries his face in my neck and groans. “Tell me you’re mine. Please, Marisol.”
“I’m yours, Sal. I’m not going anywhere. Ever. I’m all yours.”
“I’ll spend the rest of my life earning a place at your side.” He shudders and clutches me against him. “I love you.”
I love you. I love you. I love you.
The pressure under my skin swells and swells until a wave of emotion crests and breaks over me, dragging me underneath its massive weight. I gasp and drive my nails into Salvatore’s back, fighting hard to keep my body from being torn apart. Then his strong hands hold me against him, and I hear him groan Marisol into my ear.
And I recognize the sound.
It’s devotion .
I stop fighting and simply let myself be swept away by the ecstasy.
Afterward, he holds me close on the bed and whispers gentle praise into my ear until we both drift off into a heavy sleep.