Connected (The Pastore Crime Family)

by Janine Infante Bosco

  Remember me.

  “Fuck,” he groans, holding my head steady as he thrusts past my lips and into my open mouth. I slowly take him, sucking and licking until the head pushes against the back of my throat and I gag. In one quick move, he pulls out of my mouth and pushes me down against the bed, spreading my legs.

  “Knees against your tits, Pilar.”

  I’ve always loved the way he takes control in the bedroom, almost as much as I love the filthy things he whispers when he’s fucking me, and normally, I wouldn’t think twice. I’d draw my knees to my chest and watch him pound into me, craving the fullness I know I’m sure to feel based on the angle, but not this time.

  This time our bodies are fighting a war against our hearts.

  “Not without a condom,” I grind out.

  “Pilar— ”

  “You weren’t there,” I interject.

  Those three words are all I need to say before he reluctantly reaches into the nightstand and produces a condom. I turn my head at the sound of the foil crinkling and again, tears fill my eyes.

  “You trying to punish me, love,” he questions as he hooks his hands under my thighs and bends my knees. Giving me his weight, I turn to meet his gaze and note how dark his eyes appear.

  “Punish you . . . ” I repeat, narrowing my eyes in confusion.

  “I’ll let you,” he continues. “You can revenge fuck me all you want, sweetheart, but it won’t change anything between us.”

  “This isn’t a revenge fuck. It’s goodbye.”

  I wait a beat for his words but all he gives me is his cock, roughly pushing his entire length in one thrust. A gasp expels from my lips as I hug my legs to my chest as my pussy stretches to accommodate him.

  Leaning forward, he takes my head in his hands, the lower half of his body remaining perfectly still.

  “Never that,” he growls.

  Desperate for him to move inside me, I arch my back, pushing my pelvic bone against his.

  “Please,” I whisper.

  “Please, what?”

  Let me go.

  “Fuck me,” I whisper.

  And that he does.

  He fucks my body.

  My mind.

  And lastly, he fucks my heart.

  Chapter 4

  Joaquin

  After flushing the condom, I make my way back to the bedroom and stop in my tracks when I spot Pilar fully dressed in one of the few spare outfits she keeps in the bottom drawer of my dresser. Yesterday, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but watching her remove the few articles of clothing from the drawer, I realize that’s all I’ve given her.

  Here I am, living alone in this huge fucking penthouse and all I’ve given her is a fucking drawer. I don’t even let her keep a toothbrush here.

  Nothing.

  “Pilar,” I call, my fingers tightening on the door jamb over my head as I stare at her. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m leaving.”

  “Baby, let’s talk.”

  Pausing, she lifts her eyes to mine.

  “Why, so you can say you’re sorry, again? You’ve said it in English and Spanish, what language are you going to use this time?”

  I part my lips to reply, but quickly smack them together when I realize she’s right. Another useless apology dies on my tongue as my hands fall from the door jamb and I start for her. She takes a step back and I sigh, dropping my ass onto the foot of the bed. Hanging my head, I try to figure out how to begin.

  “I don’t want you to leave,” I say softly.

  “I’m tired of adhering to what you want, Joaquin. What about me and what I want?”

  I turn my head to look at her. After three years, I should know the answer to the question I’m about to ask her.

  “What do you want?” I ask.

  She looks taken aback by the question and I immediately rack my brain trying to recall a time when she shared her wants . . . her dreams. This can’t be the first time I’m asking her that question.

  “I want the impossible,” she whispers.

  I close my eyes.

  The baby.

  I should’ve prepared myself for that answer. She hasn’t been right since, and while I felt her slipping, I did nothing to reel her in because I thought it was a knee-jerk reaction to the loss.

  “You could’ve said no,” I tell her and as soon as the words leave my lips, I realize they’re a mistake. Her mouth drops open and tears well in her eyes. “You could’ve thrown the money in my face and told me to fuck off, but you didn’t, Pilar, and that’s because deep down you know a child deserves more than we’re capable of giving. I can’t take care of you like you deserve, and you . . . goddamn it, Pilar, you could’ve fucking died last night. We’d ruin a child far worse than we could ever ruin each other.”

  “How dare you?” she spats.

  “It’s true,” I continue.

  Anger and despair rage inside of me and every emotion I’ve tried to bury since I found out she was pregnant surfaces. I’m a monster, this I know. I deliver death with my hands and smirk at the sight of blood. But I wasn’t always this way. Once upon a time, I aspired to be more than a mediocre mob associate. I wanted to play ball. I was a decent pitcher and dreamed of donning pinstripes and riding on a float at a ticker-tape parade through the Canyon of Heroes with my wife and kids just like Yankee greats Tino Martinez and Paul O’Neil.

  Then the mob happened and those dreams died, but after Pilar told me she was pregnant, for a split-second, I was that kid from Brooklyn with high hopes.

  “You think I don’t regret it? That part of me doesn’t wish things were different?”

  “You don’t,” she argues. “You couldn’t possibly.”

  “Don’t fucking tell me how I feel,” I bark.

  “Oh, that’s not what I’m doing,” she argues. “I can’t speak on what I don’t know. I have no idea how you feel about anything. You don’t show a single emotion, Joaquin, and you sure as hell never utter one either.”

  Scrubbing a hand over my face, I shake my head.

  “I cut and bleed just like you, Pilar, and I know it’s easier to place blame on someone else, but you need to quit blaming me for the abortion.”

  “Who else should I blame?”

  “How about no one? How about you realize we’re both too screwed up to bring a baby into this world? I know it hurts, that it will always hurt, but we did the right thing.”

  “The right thing would’ve been loving the child we created.”

  This isn’t about love.

  It’s about the choices we made in our lives and the consequences that hang over us like a dark veil. Pulling on my boxer briefs, I straighten my frame and glare at her.

  “You’re an addict, Pilar, and I’m a fucking criminal,” I shout as I stand from the bed. “There’s no room for a child in all that shit.”

  “I wouldn’t have relapsed if I wasn’t looking to numb the pain you inflicted on me. Don’t you get it, Joaquin? Don’t you fucking see . . . loving you is killing me?”

  Those words paired with the flashback from last night cut, and the epiphany I had after draining the life from Pablo and holding her in my arms, suddenly flee my mind. I can’t give her more. I can’t be better. I can’t make things right.

  I cut and bleed just like you.

  “And you know what I finally realized?” she continues. “I don’t want to die. Not for a man who doesn’t love me.”

  My eyes snap to hers.

  “Is that what you think?” I ask as I take a step toward her. “That I don’t love you?”

  She purses her lips and straightens her shoulders as I take another step closer.

  “Yes,” she replies. “And for a long time, I thought it was my fault, that I was unlovable, but it isn’t me. I have my faults and I’ll admit I need help, but I’m worthy of love, Joaquin. I am,” she insists as her voice breaks. “You’re the one incapable of love. Receiving it and giving it.”

  “You got it all
wrong, Pilar,” I growl, reaching her. “I love you and I hate myself for allowing that to happen because it doesn’t matter how deep my love for you runs, I’ll still find a way to break you. In my world love isn’t enough, it’s a casualty and you deserve more than that.”

  I pause to stare at her. There have been many nights when I wanted to tell her how I felt, many nights I clamped down the urge. So long as I’m connected, I’m no match for the lost dreams of the boy I used to be. It would be selfish of me to think otherwise.

  “You need to let me go,” she whispers, tearing her eyes away from mine. I watch as she wipes away her tears.

  Let her go.

  The thought is crippling.

  “And what happens when I let you go?” I reply hoarsely, my voice sounding broken even to my own ears. “Where do you go then? Do you go score some drugs and pretend we never happened?”

  “Don’t do that,” she cries.

  “You need help, Pilar.”

  “I’ll get help,” she says, lifting her eyes. “I can kick the drugs, Joaquin. I need to learn how to beat you, though, because loving you is my greatest addiction.”

  The greatest and apparently the deadliest.

  “I do love you, Pilar,” I murmur, losing my will to argue. As much as I want to see her through her recovery and prove how much she means to me, there’s truth in what she says and any way you slice it, the outcome is still the same . . . I’m not good for her.

  A whimper escapes her lips, and she quickly tears her eyes away from me, moving toward the bed to grab the rest of her belongings. I reach out, taking hold of her wrist, and close the distance between us, pressing my front to her back. She goes still against me and I bend my head, touching my lips to her shoulder.

  “I know you don’t want to hear it, but I’m sorry. For everything. For the choices I made and the consequences you suffered as a result of them. All I want is for you to be happy,” I whisper. “And if the only way you can get there is by walking away from me, then I’ll let you go.”

  She doesn’t turn around, nor does she respond. I release my hold on her and take a step back, waiting for her to make a move. A moment passes and I watch as her shoulders shake as a sob wretches free from the back of her throat.

  It would be so easy to reach out to her.

  So easy to take her back to bed and make her forget.

  So fucking easy.

  She hitches the bag over her shoulder and starts for the door without ever looking back. I follow her out of the bedroom and through the massive apartment, waiting . . . hoping . . . praying she’ll turn around and change her mind. That I’ll miraculously be a man worthy of something more than the blood on his hands and sins webbed to his soul.

  Fumbling, she pulls the door open and halts. Not because she’s had a change of heart, but because she collides with Rocco. Dressed in the same clothes from last night, looking even more disheveled than when I left him, he steps out of her way.

  “Well, good morning to you too,” he grunts as she brushes past him.

  I take another step and then another, ignoring Rocco’s perplexed expression. The elevator pings and as I reach the door, I watch her step onto it.

  And just like that.

  The broken girl breaks the already broken man.

  Chapter 5

  Joaquin

  “Are you just going to stand there, staring at the elevator doors?” Rocco questions, snapping me out of my trance.

  I turn to him abruptly and narrow my eyes.

  “If you had paid attention to anything but your dick, you’d know her leaving me was a pivotal moment.”

  “Leaving you?” he scoffs, walking further into my penthouse. Instead of heading to the kitchen for a cup of coffee like a normal person, he heads for the rolling bar and pours himself a glass of bourbon. “It’s Pilar, that girl hangs on you like a fungus. I give it twenty-four hours before she’s at the club, looking for your dick.”

  The urge to punch him in his face and break all his teeth tugs at me, but before I can lay a finger on him or tell him what a worthless fuck he is, he spins around and raises his glass.

  “Now, put some fucking clothes on, motherfucker. I’m about to flip your world upside down and I prefer to do it without your junk staring me in the face.”

  I don’t move, mainly to prove I don’t take orders from him, but then I realize the man I do take my orders from, showed his face unexpectedly last night and no good ever comes from that.

  Making my way into my bedroom, I ignore the scent of Pilar that still lingers in the room and quickly pull on a pair of lounge pants. The open drawer once filled with her clothes catches my eye and I silently wonder if I can stay away from her. Shaking the thought from my head, I kick the drawer closed and go back to the living room where Rocco waits for me.

  “You should probably pour yourself a drink,” he advises.

  “It’s eight o’clock in the morning,” I growl.

  “It’s five o’clock somewhere,” he argues, pausing. “On second thought, don’t drink. One of us should have a clear head and seeing as I haven’t slept in, oh, forty-eight hours, I’m going to elect you to be that person.”

  I guess he needs to be reminded that out of the two of us, I’ve been the one with the clear and level head for the last six years.

  “Look, I’m not in the mood— ”

  “Uncle Vic is dying,” he reveals, cutting me off.

  Sure I heard him wrong, I narrow my eyes and wait for him to elaborate.

  “Stage four cancer,” he continues, diverting his eyes to the amber liquid sloshing around in his glass. I try to picture the man I’ve looked up to for nearly half my life, frail and sickly, but I can’t. Yesterday, he appeared to be a picture of perfect health, dressed immaculately as usual. His color was good and there was no fault in his demeanor. I suppose it’s like that for everyone, though.

  You look good until you don’t.

  Here today, gone tomorrow.

  “No one knows and apparently, he has no intention of telling anyone,” Rocco continues.

  “What about Grace?” He shakes his head. “Adrianna and Nikki?”

  “What part of no one don’t you understand,” he says before knocking back the contents of his glass. Cringing slightly, he sets it on the coffee table and looks back at me. “No one in the organization knows either.”

  That doesn’t surprise me. If word got around that he was so sick, his enemies and the other families would see it as a sign of weakness and likely put a bid out for his territory. But him not telling his wife and daughters, now that’s a shock. Victor might be one of the most notorious mobsters to ever walk the streets of New York, but he’s a family guy first and foremost.

  While other bosses may have wives, they also got a side piece— the Italians call it a Goomah. They keep them shacked up in fancy apartments just like this one and shower them with designer handbags and stolen furs. Monday through Friday they’re with their families, but Saturday nights are reserved for their mistresses.

  Not Victor.

  Every day is family day for him, and so long as that man is on this planet, he only has eyes for his Gracie. It’s always been the thing I respect most and if I’m being honest, it’s the thing I envy the most too. But it’s because of men like Rocco and me, that he gets to live that life. We’re the guys on the front lines, the men who drudge through the shit and take the bullets and do the federal bids so he can remain hunkered down with the woman he loves, watching his daughters live their cushy lives.

  “So that’s why he’s here,” I say, taking a seat in the armchair across from him.

  “I suppose that has something to do with it,” he says, drawing out a sigh. “He wants to have dinner with the both of us tonight.”

  That isn’t anything unusual, whenever he visits, we usually hit one of the steakhouses on the strip, but I can tell I’m missing something by the way Rocco pauses and leans his elbows on his knees. He lifts his eyes to mine and fixes me with
a hard stare.

  “I need you to tell me what happened with Pablo Rodriguez. You don’t just off a fucking guy like that and not tell me about it.”

  I raise an eyebrow at his tone. The balls on this motherfucker. If he wasn’t too busy getting his dick sucked, he would know about the situation with Pablo and the countless other problems I’ve dealt with since we took over Temptations. But his lack of appreciation is my own fault, in my quest to be part of Victor’s world, I fucking spoiled Rocco.

  “All you said was there was a problem and the next thing I knew, you were changing your clothes, but I don’t remember seeing any blood, so what kind of fucking problem was there?”

  Clucking my tongue against the roof of my mouth, I meet his gaze.

  “First off, don’t fucking talk to me like I’m beneath you. I don’t give a fuck about bloodlines— we both know I do a fuck of a lot more around here than you do and if it weren’t for me, you’d be fucking dead.”

  “Should I tell you where you’d be if it weren’t for me?” he counters, cocking his head to the side.

  Oh, I know where I’d be and suddenly, it’s a lot more appealing. Grinding my teeth, I lean forward and match his stance.

  “I didn’t know Pablo was even in the club until Miguel came to me and told me Pilar was unresponsive in one of the VIP booths. I immediately took her off the floor and brought her downstairs, he gave her a shot of Narcan, and I played back the surveillance tapes. Luckily, Rodriguez is a greedy motherfucker and stuck around after he sold to her. I knocked his two guys out and grabbed him when he was taking a piss, his dick was still in his hand when I dragged him to the basement. You want to know his last words too?”

  Swiping a hand over his face, he mutters a curse. I lift an eyebrow at his response and laugh bitterly.

  “I’m sorry, should we grieve the motherfucker who was dealing drugs in our club and nearly killed my girlfriend? Wait, maybe I should’ve paused before I pulled the trigger and asked your permission.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Joaquin, I’m not fucking busting your balls for taking him out. You should’ve seen Uncle Vic’s face— he lit up like a Christmas tree. He was so proud and thanks to you, I’m nephew of the year and— ”