10. Rocco
10
ROCCO
F or lunch, Leo made a prosciutto, marinated pepper, asparagus, and mozzarella quiche with a ricotta swirl and perfectly cooked flaky crust. The side salad’s light, lemony dressing was the perfect touch. So good that I almost forgot how my little lionheart taped over the camera in his room.
Little does he know, someone from Max's crew went into his apartment to install more cameras the minute he and his sisters left this morning. Now I can watch my lionheart in the kitchen, library, and from a second angle in his bedroom. Because variety is the spice of life, and one bedroom camera wasn’t cutting it anymore.
I pat my lap, smiling at my little brat as he stands in the corner, eating his quiche in a seething silence. “You sure you don’t want to sit and eat, toy? My lap has to be more comfortable than standing.”
“No thank you,” he grits out. When I raise my eyebrow, he adds on a half-hearted, “ Sir .”
“Really, I insist . Sit down, Leo.”
He scrunches his nose at the sound of his real name as he stiffly walks to my desk, wincing when his round, peachy ass meets my thighs. His eyes go wide, probably because he can feel my semi-hard cock through my chino pants.
I grab his face, pushing his cheeks together until his mouth puckers. My cum trickling from between his lips and down his chin would be the perfect way to defile his angelic face. I tuck the idea away for after lunch.
“You don’t look very happy, toy,” I comment.
“Because you spanked me so hard I can’t bear to sit down,” he snaps, putting his plate and cutlery on the desk. “Spanking me two days in a row made me lose my appetite.”
I pick up his fork and feed him a few pieces of the quiche he already cut. He’s smart enough to chew and swallow each piece instead of arguing with me. Sometimes you gotta learn a lesson the hard way. Nothing throwing him over my lap and turning his cheeks red can’t fix.
“Toy, one day you’ll learn that fighting me is useless.” He gives me a death glare and takes a fork full of mixed greens into his mouth.
There’s a knock on the door, and Leo moves to stand from my lap. I hold him down, tsking at him in disappointment.
“Did I say you could stand up?”
“No, but I don’t want to sit on your lap in front of people…” he trails off as a furious shade of red colors his cheeks. I love how his emotions so clearly show on his face.
“Hmmm, well what’s the number one rule of your job?”
He gives me a puzzled expression, his brows dipping as his bottom lip pushes out slightly. “Um, to cook your food?” His answer is unsure, sounding more like a question.
Because it’s incorrect.
There’s another knock on the door, followed by Guiseppe’s deep baritone voice saying, “Mr. Vettore, it’s urgent.”
I nip at the shell of Leo’s ear, then rub my hand over his exposed neck, pressing my thumb ever so gently on his Adam’s apple as I dig my fingers into the side of his neck. His sharp inhale of breath is asking for trouble.
“Wrong, your job is to do what I say, when I say,” I whisper as I put more pressure into my hold on his neck. Then I shout, “Come in Giuseppe.”
When he comes in, Giuseppe doesn’t even spare Leo a glance, directing his attention toward me like the consummate, boring professional he is. His bland, stern expression has stayed the same since he became my second almost a decade ago, which suits me fine. I have enough pizazz for both of us.
Leo however, averts his gaze and somehow gets even redder in the face. Most likely from his embarrassment—one of my favorite qualities of his to play with. I run my hand up his thigh, my fingers wedging between them.
“What’s in your hand, G?” I ask, gesturing to the chair across from me. He sits down and crosses his ankle over his knee.
He clears his throat before handing me a white envelope. It’s plain, made from a thin commercial paper, the kind you’d buy at a drug store.
“I found it at your front door on my way in for my shift, Mr. Vettore. No address, no stamp.”
It’s sealed using the adhesive on the back flap. So mundane .
“Toy, grab the letter opener from the top right drawer,” I direct him. It's an old fashioned letter opener from my father, one of the few things of his I kept after he passed. Whoever sent this is so fucking pedestrian they can’t even use card stock and a wax seal. Fucking amateurs.
It also means they somehow broke into our heavily guarded building and knew where to drop it off…or that we have a mole who did their dirty work for them.
Before I read the letter, my eyes drop to the signature at the bottom, and I find Ronan’s name. The whole letter is written in a chicken scratch handwriting I have to strain my eyes to read.
Rocco,
I see your new man. Let’s see if he can survive a second bullet.
The Vettore mafia is on borrowed time. When the few band together, we become one of many. Enjoy breathing while you can.
Ronan
How dare that piece of shit even think about my lionheart, let alone threaten him. If he wants to try to be a big, bad gang boss, he’ll sure as fuck regret playing pretend with me. Because I’m the real fucking deal, and I’ll make him pay for this.
Leo inhales sharply again, but not from arousal this time. His back goes ramrod straight, and he audibly swallows. Obviously, my toy is not only a brat, but a nosy brat who reads over my shoulder.
Immediately, I pull up my phone, and check the surveillance feeds from his apartment in my security app. His bedroom, kitchen, and library are all empty. I know his sisters are still at school, which tracks for a weekday afternoon.
“I want more security put on Leo and both his sisters. They don’t leave the house without a guard and one of the Cleavers will stay stationed at the school for the girls.” Giuseppe nods, then pulls his phone out, most likely to start arranging more guards with my cousin Luca, Don Vettore’s middle son that handles security and weapons.
“Thank you,” Leo murmurs sheepishly. I grip the back of his neck firmly to center him like I did last night. Within a few seconds, he seems calmer.
“I have more news, boss,” Giuseppe says after pocketing his phone. There’s a slight smile on his face most people wouldn’t notice, but he’s been my right hand long enough that I pick up the subtle differences on his otherwise stone face.
“Do tell. You always bring me the best news.”
“That’s my job,” he flatly says. “The Cleavers found out through a friend of theirs that Ronan has an off-the-books drug den in Queens. One he never ran past the Vettore famiglia and isn’t paying dues on.”
“Oh no!” I sarcastically cry. “That won’t do.”
“Agreed.” His tone is flat, void of any dramatic flare. “It’s in the basement of a run down corner store. Piero said he’s putting pressure on a store owner to trade use of the space for protection .”
“Hmmm, do you have the contact information of the store owner?”
“I texted it to you a few seconds ago.” His smile widens, and his warm brown eyes crinkle at the sides. “I also let the Cleavers know to keep tonight open, in case you need them.”
This is why he’s my right hand. Always prepared and thinking ahead.
“Round the crew up. We’re about to have some fun. I’ll see you at our three o’clock meeting,” I dismiss him.
He closes the door on the way out. Leo doesn’t say anything, but I can tell from the distant look in his eyes and his heavy breathing that he’s deep in thought. The kind of thoughts that won’t help in the long run.
I rub the side of his neck with my thumb and wrap my other arm around him, bringing him into my chest. He relaxes a bit, but not much. He sniffles, and a tear runs down his face.
I’m going to rip Ronan’s head off and mount it on the wall across from my desk, so Leo and I can look at it while I fuck him over it. How dare that two-bit piece of shit threaten what’s mine.
“Lionheart, look at me,” I order him. He burrows further into my chest, soaking my shirt in tears. I pull his face away, and my need for vengeance grows tenfold. “I promise, you and your sisters are always safe with me.”
“Are you sure?” he asks me, his voice laden with suspicion. “My sisters are the most important people in the world to me. I took this job to give them a better childhood than I had. A safer one where the only person they have doesn’t die!”
He starts crying in earnest now. “You have no clue how much I sacrifice for them. How fucked they are if anything ever happens to me.”
“That’s true,” I agree with him, much to his shock. “When our enemies shot both my parents dead in a home invasion, Don Vettore took me in and treated me like a son.”
I have no clue why I’m sharing this with him. I never talk about my parents’ death, ever. But the more I talk, the softer his features get and the less he cries.
“I was supposed to be home too, but I left to play video games with my cousin Franco. I never got to say goodbye.”
“Me too. My dad left for work like he did every day, and then one day he never came home,” he says wistfully. “I may not have seen eye to eye with my dad a lot, but I still loved him. I’m angry at him just as much as I miss him.”
“What about your mom?” I ask. I know the general story with her, but not the details.
Leo’s face darkens, his light blue eyes turning a stormy gray. “My mom left in the middle of the night without saying goodbye. Now that I look back, I realize she always had a prescription pill problem—depression meds, sleeping meds, pain pills. Then she moved on to harder shit after my dad died. She’d leave for a few days at a time so she didn’t get high at home and upset the girls. One day she called us from wherever she went and told us she’d be home in a week… she never came home or called us again. Her phone number doesn’t work anymore, either.”
What kind of mother willingly lies to her children and leaves them to fend for themselves? I tamp down my urge to drive to Vermont, slit that lying bitch’s throat, then give her larynx to Leo as a gift. Fucking cunt.
“I promise you, nothing will happen to you, Julia, or Lucy. You’re all safe. I’ll make sure Ronan knows to never threaten what’s mine.”
He leans in and kisses my cheek. “Thank you. Please be safe tonight.”
“Thank you, sir ,” I remind him, ignoring his request. I won’t guarantee my own safety, mostly because it’s an empty promise. “Now get on your knees. I want to feed you dessert before I go back to work, cumslut.”
The darkness and worry melts away from my lionheart’s face as he drops to his knees between my legs. Seems being treated like a dirty whore is the way to make him feel better.
The roaring fire across the street is so hot, I have to unbutton my camel skin overcoat. The flames dance and spread, lighting up the dark residential street. People gather around, far enough away to be safe, but close enough to watch the destruction. It crackles and spits before a beam in the ceiling falls in, all but ensuring Ronan’s drug den will be condemned property by the end of the night.
If you want to sell drugs in this city, you get permission from us and pay us our share. And you sure as fuck don’t mess with me.
The exorbitant fees Don Vettore had to pay our contacts in the police and fire department to give us a half hour head start were worth every penny. Burning that slimy fuck’s drug operations to the ground sends a message.
No one threatens my lionheart.
It turns out that the owner of the store, Vince Amante, didn’t want him there, like I suspected. The Amante family passed the convenience store down through three generations. Vince’s grandfather owned it, then his father. He took it over this past year when his father passed unexpectedly. We worked out a deal, giving him a brand new store front in our territory and a good deal on protection.
Look at me, being an upstanding citizen and caring about my community.
“You can handle the rest?” I ask Giuseppe. He and a few of my other men are standing at key points around the store, making sure no civilians try to enter it and no one from Ronan’s crew comes around.
“Of course. Have a good evening Mr. Vettore.”
As soon as I hop into the back of my car, I direct the driver to take me back to my penthouse. I pull up my surveillance app to check the cameras in Leo’s room. The screens are black. I check the second camera in his library and the third in the kitchen, and all three are black.
I immediately call Milo, who’s heading Leo’s security detail tonight.
“Update.”
“Everything is fine, Mr. Vettore. Leo and Lucy are inside playing board games and eating death by chocolate cupcakes. Julia is at her friend’s house for a sleepover,” he mumbles, as if his mouth is full.
“And how do you know what type of cupcakes they’re eating, Milo?” I huff around an exasperated sigh. Leo baked a double batch today before he left this evening, leaving half of them for me. Milo shouldn’t know how they taste.
“Leo offered me some with a glass of milk. He said I may as well enjoy myself if I’m going to be standing out in the hallway all night.”
A twisting green jealousy weaves around me like an insidious vine. He’s talking to the guards and telling them to enjoy themselves. Was he flirting with them?
“Milo… Next time you take a cupcake from Leo, I’ll shove it down your throat and choke you with it. Then you’ll know what death by chocolate actually feels like. Unless it’s directly related to his safety, don’t talk to my toy,” I bark.
“O-o-okay, sorry Mr. Vettore,” he stutters before I hang up the line.
That little fucker covered the cameras. Then he flirted with my guard and offered him fucking cupcakes. Unbelievable .
Halfway through the ride, my driver gets us tangled in the slowest moving traffic. It grates on my nerves. Every moment I’m away from Leo without being able to see him through the cameras drives me insane with worry. With the need to throw that brat over my knee again and turn his ass so red and full of welts he won’t be able to sit again, let alone cover the cameras.
After spending twenty minutes imagining his breathy little sighs and cries of pain, I text him.
Me: I told you not to cover the cameras again, toy.
Minutes pass, and he doesn’t respond.
Me: I’m going to beat your ass so red the city will be able to use it as a traffic light.
By the time the car parks in the garage, he still hasn’t responded. No matter how angry Leo is at me, he knows to always respond to my texts.
My gut tells me something isn’t right, and it’s never wrong.
I pull my gun out of a hidden side compartment in the car, then take the regular elevator to his floor. I take the hall down to his apartment, and growl when I see the door is wide open and covered in bright red blood.
Where the fuck is Milo?
I enter the apartment and see him fighting a man roughly the same size as him. His head is shaved on the sides, with tattoos on his scalp. None of them seem gang affiliated, but I know without a doubt he’s one of Ronan’s men. I shoot him in the kneecaps, so we can interrogate him later.
“Where is Leo?!” I shout.
“I told him and Lucy to hide in the ensuite in his room. There’s at least one other intruder still active.”
I run through the living room and hallway, jumping over an unknown, bleeding body in the hallway. He isn’t one of my men, if his casual clothes are anything to go by. I hear shouting in the bedroom, and see Leo standing over a much larger man with black hair and a mustache. His nose is broken, with blood gushing out, and his hands are tied behind his back. A chef’s knife protrudes from his shoulder, in just the right position to cause the maximum amount of pain without killing him.
Unless someone twists the knife and rips it out…
I put a pin in that idea when I see the anger and ferocity on Leo’s face. It’s covered in blood that better not be his, zoned in on the poor fuck screaming in agony on the ground.
Pulling my gun out, I slowly come to his side so I don’t scare him. “Leo, where’s Lucy?”
“Locked in the bathroom, alone. He tried to attack her. She’s fine, thank God. But this poor fuck won’t be. I want him dead, Rocco. I want to fucking watch this sick piece of shit get cut to bits!” He sounds borderline hysterical. I can’t blame him—his sisters mean everything to him.
I bend down in front of our unwelcome guest and twist the knife in his shoulder, just the slightest bit. He cries so profusely I can’t understand what he’s saying.
“Who sent you?” I already know, but I need confirmation before I act.
The man shakes his head as he struggles to breathe through the pain. I twist the knife a little more, plunging it deeper into his rotator cuff.
“Ph-ph-illipe,” he sputters. “Stop!”
I take the heavy lamp off the bedside table and hit his skull so hard he blacks out. Then I do a cursory check to make sure Leo isn’t injured. There’s no obvious wounds, but that doesn’t rule out a concussion or something internal. I need to get Doctor Caruso in here ASAP to check him out.
All three Cleaver brothers come into the room with Piero leading the line. Milo looks worse for wear as Elio helps him walk.
“Elio and I came as fast as we could, Mr. Vettore,” Piero tells me. “The apartment is secure—Giuseppe is waiting outside for more backup. What can we do for you?”
“Piero, take this asshole to the basement for questioning. Elio, call Doc Caruso up here, then get the cleaners here ASAP for the bodies. When you’re both done, take Milo home.”
After firing a quick text to Giuseppe to bring Julia home right away, I take in my little lionheart. He’s still covered in blood, a bruise starting to form on his jaw. He stares at his opponent on the ground, a grin of victory on his face and a feral gleam in his icy blue eyes that seem miles away.
Knowing he held his own by wielding the weapon nearest and dearest to my heart makes me want to take him to my room right now and ravage him.
But then I hear a soft voice crying, and all those thoughts fall to the wayside.
“Leo, your sister.” I try to get his attention, but he’s frozen in his own thoughts. She calls his name, her crying getting louder, and I can’t bear to leave her alone.
Using the pin from my tie clip, I quickly pick the locked bathroom door. Lucy sits in the tub, her head in her knees as she quietly cries. When she lifts her head and sees me, she sobs.
“Please, don’t hurt me!” she squeaks, pressing herself to the back of the tub to put as much distance between us as possible.
I have no clue what to do with a child. Especially one who wasn’t raised in the life the way I was. Strange men came into her home, and she’s probably terrorized. Her whole body shakes and her breathing quickens.
“Hey, Lucy. My name is Rocco, and I’m Leo’s friend. The bad men are gone. It’s safe to come out,” I say, trying to coax her out of the tub. The last thing I want to do is scare her more by removing her myself.
“Rocco… Leo’s boss?” she asks.
I nod, then she shakes her head, a scowl crossing her adorable little face that so resembles Leo’s. “No. I don’t want to go out there.”
Smart kid, never trust a stranger…especially me. In most situations, I’m the most dangerous person in the room. But right now, I just want to make sure she’s safe and unharmed.
“Okay, I get it. I’m sure you’re scared. I’ll wait here with you.” I sit on the ground, a few feet from the tub.
We sit in silence for a couple minutes before a panicked look strikes her face.
“Where is Leo?” tears start to roll down her cheeks again.
“He’s fine, but my doctor is checking him out just to make sure. He’ll be here soon,” I lie, internally refusing to tell her he’s covered in blood, caught in some kind of mental dissociation or whatever it’s called. Either way, he’s not really fit to be in here.
We sit in silence, but at least she stopped crying. She isn’t visibly injured, but I won’t assume anything until Doctor Caruso checks her out.
I try to think of anything specific about Lucy from the file I had my cousins Max and Maddie compile on Leo. When Giuseppe arranged for the interior design people to decorate the apartment, I remember him saying something about unicorns.
“Hey, Lucy, was that your cool unicorn I saw sitting in the living room on my way in?” In truth, I have no clue what the stuffie I saw on the armchair was, but it sorta looked like a horse so…
“Yeah, Ulysses. He’s a Pegasus, actually. That’s a special type of unicorn with wings. Julia thinks they’re stupid, but I love unicorns,” she says, her voice pepping up a bit.
Okay, that’s something I can work with… “You know, my cousin Maddie had one just like it growing up. I’d love to see more of your stuffed animals. Can you please come out of the tub and show me?”
Lucy eyes me for a moment, unmoving, yet slightly less resistant than she was the first time I ask.
“I know you’re scared, but I promise all the bad guys are gone. Leo told me you had cupcakes, and I won’t know where they are unless you tell me…”
“And you’ll let me have another one? He only lets me have one,” she grouses.
“Yes. You can have one more, and a glass of chocolate milk to wash it down.” If Leo doesn’t have any, I’ll make one of my men run out and get it.
At the promise of sweets, Lucy grins from ear to ear as she shakily gets out of the tub. She stumbles, and I offer her a hand. When she takes it, a breath of relief washed through me, although I couldn’t tell you why. I’m the least paternal man you’ll ever meet—practically a lizard person, I’m so cold-blooded.
I peek around the bedroom door and confirm the bodies of Ronan’s men are gone, although some of the carnage remains. Thankfully, Lucy seems not to notice, because she only has eyes for her brother. He sits on the couch, his head in his hands.
“Leo!” she squeals, running toward him and jumping into him. “Rocco told me I can have another cupcake and chocolate milk!”
That snapped him out of it. “ Oh did he? ” he snarks. “Sure, why not. Today has already gone to hell in a handbasket. Let’s add a ton of sugar on top of it.”
She rushes to the kitchen, gets some plates out of the cabinet, and pulls the cupcake container to the edge of the counter. She sits at the table with three plates, each with a death by chocolate cupcake on it. The irony of the cupcake name in the current situation is not lost on me.
Leo follows her in, grabbing three glasses and filling them with milk. His hands shake, making the milk slosh around. Lucy beckons me in with a wave of her hand, and I sit next to her.
“You ready for an extra cupcake, Lucy?” I ask her, just to needle my little lionheart. Leo skeptically glares at me while he sips his milk. She already bit into her cupcake, giving me a puffy cheeked smile instead of a real answer.
My phone buzzes with a text.
Lionheart: I can’t believe you promised her another cupcake and chocolate milk this late. I have to deal with this dumpster fire and a sugared-up hyperactive ten year old!
Me: No you don’t. I have men for that. As soon as you’re done eating, start packing. All three of you will stay at my place.
Leo’s face falls, as if the rug was being swiped out from under him. He looks up from his phone with a conflicted expression on his face.
Lionheart: The fuck we are! Move us somewhere else, or better yet, we can stay here.
“Lucy, Leo and I are going to step into another room real quick. How about you get a second cupcake?”
“And more milk?!” she asks excitedly, bouncing up from her seat.
“Of course!” I reply over my shoulder as I lead Leo into his room with my hand on the small of his back.
As soon as I shut the door, he rounds on me, stopping inches from my face.
“We are not moving into your apartment. I don’t want the girls knowing about our arrangement,” he snaps.
“I burned down Ronan’s drug den about an hour ago—which means this attack was planned beforehand, not in retaliation. Something bigger is coming down the pike. You’re my toy,” I remind him by wrapping my hand around his throat. “And part of being mine is obeying me, especially when it comes to you and your sisters’ safety. Do you understand me?”
Leo glowers at me, as if his very gaze could put me six feet under. I tighten my grip, and walk him back to his bed, until his thighs touch the back. My chest presses into his, and he’s forced to crane his neck to hold his death-glare.
“Ronan is gunning for me, and you by extension. The minute you put yourself between his bullet and my heart, you put yourself on two psychopath’s radars,” I explain to him. “Pack a bag for today, and tomorrow the three of you can direct the movers on what to pack.”
I don’t wait for a response, but let him go so he can get to work. He pulls a black duffel bag out of his closet and carefully folds in a few outfits.
“Lucy is going to be traumatized from this.” His voice is hollow.
“And think of how much worse it could have been. That’s why you’re staying with me. Indefinitely .” I leave no room for argument, because I know if I give this brat an inch of wiggle room, he’ll run a mile away from me.
“For now,” he tries to correct me, but there’s no bite in his words. “You better keep us safe, Rocco, or else I’ll end you.”
Usually, I’d slit someone’s throat for threatening me, but hearing his version of a menacing voice is a strike of lust straight to my warped, fucked up heart. I come up behind him, pulling his back into my chest. His bite mark is showing over the neck of the clean sweatshirt he changed into.
“I promise, toy. You’re all safe with me.”