11. Milan
MILAN
ONE HOUR AGO
I was unaware that a bath required two hours.
Adriano and I had spent one hour in the home conditioning unit, showered, and had managed to get an hour’s work completed in my office, but Sicily had still not emerged from her bathroom. I had not even heard the floor creak to indicate that she had not passed away in the bathtub.
It was not a requirement of mine, or hers, that I knew what her schedule was like, but logically, it was unacceptable for her to die in my household.
No more women would die under my roof.
“She has drowned,” I stated, shoving up from the desk to retrieve my wife’s dead body from the bathtub.
Adriano made that awful snorting sound. He leaned back in his chair beside me, yawning as he said plainly, “She’s a girl, Milano. They take their time.”
“I am aware. Sicily spends a godforsaken amount of time choosing between three pairs of pants that look the same, but what options of activities does she have in the bath?”
He shrugged. “Maybe she’s sleeping.” Then, he choked on a laugh. “Or…”
I frowned. “Or what?”
“I don’t know, Milan.” He smirked.
“Yes, you do.”
He continued laughing. “Maybe her activities involve something she’d rather not have you walk in on.”
I thought about this for a few moments before I understood. He was suggesting that my wife was masturbating in the bathtub. Not only did this sound incredibly impractical, but I also noted that if it took her over an hour, she may be struggling.
I experienced a flush of heat through my lower stomach and thighs as my brain involuntarily created the image of Sicily touching herself in the bathtub. That was unacceptable, and I mentally scolded myself to ensure it did not occur again.
Clearing my throat, I clasped my hands together, quickly removing them when Adriano raised a brow at me. “It does not take hours to reach an orgasm, Adriano.”
“Maybe it does for her,” he countered, setting his forehead onto the desk. “Look, I don’t wanna talk about your wife fucking herself. Just wait ten more minutes, then go see if she needs any help.”
His wink was unnecessary. I would not be assisting my wife with her orgasm.
My seat caught me as I sighed back into it and opened my emails.
I had checked and responded to all my mail already, and I was aware that it was an attempt to stop thinking of Sicily.
I was almost convinced that nothing would take my mind from her, but a new email appeared and everything inside of me silenced.
One of my brothers, Cesare, had emailed me.
I opened it immediately.
Cesare had always been the softest, most caring of my brothers.
Our mother had always said that Cesare would marry first, become a parent first, and that it would fulfill his heart rather than work like me and Brenno.
That was why his coldness toward me at the wedding had caused a severe malfunction, because it was not supposed to be him.
This hatred was not supposed to be any of us, but it was.
Cesare had emailed to speak of our contract, the one that had put the final nail in the coffin of our relationship, the one that haunted my dreams. He stated that the anniversary of the contract was approaching and that we were required to set a date to discuss its terms.
My eyes squeezed shut.
It had been ten years, ten years, and they did not know the truth.
They could not.
I opened a draft to respond, not knowing what I was supposed to say other than that I was still as bound to silence as they were, even past my father’s death, and that I could not relieve them of the burdens I placed upon them.
My phone buzzing was a saving grace.
I snatched it into my hand immediately, and my brow rose at the notification.
Adriano Sansone has arrived in Manhattan
Adriano Sansone was pretending to work right beside me.
I opened the tracker, noting that the car in Manhattan, at the Gioffres’ penthouse, was Adriano’s unacceptably expensive pink one. I had almost chosen not to fit a tracker in that one because he never used it.
Cars were my passion, and the Lucca car business was mine.
It had been the only idea I had kept separate from my father when he was Don.
Made Men who required specialized, tailored vehicles would request them from my business, and my men would locate that car, steal it, or auction it for pennies, and then we would customize it in the workshops around Brooklyn and sell it to them for millions.
At first, when I had been required to do the tailoring myself, I had customized all of Adriano’s dream cars but had fitted most of them with trackers; his presence was non-negotiable, and it was necessary to know where to find him at all times.
“You are in Manhattan,” I said.
Adriano looked up from his laptop. “I am?”
“Your Bugatti is visiting the Gioffres.” I turned the screen to show him.
Adriano leaped from his chair, snatching my phone from my hand. “Why is she there with those crazies? Wait…why are you stalking me?”
“I am not stalking you; you are right here,” I said, already pushing through the room, down the corridor, and running up the two flights of stairs to Sicily’s bathroom.
I tore open the door to the first bathroom, my chest beginning to ache from the assumption I had been forced to make.
It was empty, as I had predicted.
My heart was beating so loudly that I was conscious of it against my shirt.
The second bathroom was empty too.
Her bedroom was also empty, her wet towel strewn over her bed.
“Sicily!” I called sharply, aware that my tone was unfriendly.
It got no response.
“Adriano, call her from my phone.” He did as I asked, and I heard it go to voicemail. Twice. “Call her from yours.”
When his went to voicemail too, I concluded that my wife had driven Adriano’s Bugatti to Manhattan, and the ache traveled to every limb in my body.
My mind replayed every second of the day, trying to identify where she had frowned, or moved away, or quieted herself, but I could not find what I had done wrong.
You are capable, Milano.
You are capable, Milano.
You are capable, Milano.
“Hey.” Adriano’s hands stopped mine from wringing as usual. “We’ll find her.”
“We do not need to find her, Adriano, she is in Manhattan and…she is having sexual intercourse with Otto or Oratio Gioffre!”
Adriano followed closely at my heels as we rushed through the house, following the same path that Sicily would have taken toward the fleet of cars in the garage.
I wondered how she had chosen that pink car out of all the sensible cars available, but I did not have time to contemplate each individual action that led her to commit such a disastrous one.
I had several cars, all black, all uniform and fit for purpose, but I favored one, the Porsche, and I knew it would get us to Sicily in no time.
Adriano threw himself into the passenger seat beside me with the tracker open on my phone. “I’m so glad we didn’t overreact or anything,” he said as I spun the wheels out of the garage.
I pointed sternly at the two guards when I reached the gate. “You are fired, and you are fired. Unemployment is effective immediately.”
“Awesome,” Adriano muttered. “We are such coolheaded people in this household, right? Cool as a cucumber.”
“Your vocalization is very much unrequired at this time, Adriano. I am not a cucumber.”
I heard the music from three blocks away. I saw the lights from even farther. Purple, pink, and blue were accompanied by the aggravating low bass of a song that truly nobody could enjoy without their hearing becoming impaired.
I winced as I pulled up to the penthouse and reluctantly exited the car.
The slam of my car door appeared to be almost silent against the noise emanating from the house, and shoving open the apartment complex’s front door with my sleeve covering my hand didn’t seem to make it feel less dirty considering there were people crowding the staircases.
All of them were obviously inebriated or high and touching one another all the way to the top.
I knew these kinds of parties; they were unfortunately common with the younger men in our society.
My stomach sickened as I tore open the apartment’s front door and spotted a head of curly blonde between the Gioffre twins, one holding her steady by the waist, the other with his tongue lodged in her mouth.
I stormed toward them with blurry eyes, knocking scandalously dressed dancers out of the way, until I had Oratio Gioffre by the collar against the staircase railing.
“Milan!” he growled, clawing at my hands.
My fist tightened. My brain malfunctioned. “Who are you talking to, Oratio? Who is the one holding your future and your brother’s in his hands?”
“I mean, Capo! Fuck!”
A small hand ripped at my arm, and dagger-like nails dug into my bicep. “Enough, let him go, jackass!”
The voice was not familiar. Sicily did not refer to me by this title; I was ‘asshole’ if anything of the sort. She smelled differently too. My neck craned instantly to the side, and my arm released Oratio as I came face-to-face with my sister-in-law.
Fiorella glared at me, her arms crossed in defiance. She was the spitting image of her sister, though after spending days with my wife, I noticed how my internal programming filed Fiorella in a different category and cataloged how different they were.
For one, Sicily would not wear this hideous neon green dress.
“Remove your hand from her, Otto,” I ordered the brother who had slid to her side and placed his hand on her backside as if she would protect him.
He did as he was told.
“Don’t just do what he says, idiot!” Fiorella hissed at him.
Otto shrugged and moved away, closer to his brother’s side. “He’s my Capo, Fiore.”
“He’s also yours,” Adriano said loudly to combat the music, raising one brow at Fiorella.
My wife’s sister rolled her eyes, and it was evident this was some display of defiance against me. She had not behaved this way before I became Capo dei Capi, or rather, she had not behaved to this unnecessary extent before.