“Yes, Master,” I mutter as we walk to the corner. I catch a glimpse of Deacon, nodding in defeat, and my heart sinks to the bottom of the Earth. I want to run back, hop on his bike to anywhere other than here, and just breathe.
But the only air available is trapped within Salvatore’s flames and aggressively guarded by a Saint.
42
split*ting UP
His Butterfly
We’re holding hands and walking the path as Sal picks up my one shoe. “The other one is over there.”
“I know.” He grins. “It almost hit my head.”
“It wasn’t that close,” I tease, smiling. “I guess I need more practice with shoes.”
I hate being on his arm because I believe I can love him forever, but the reality is always different. The truth bites and stings like a vicious swarm of bees as I stop walking.
“You promised you wouldn’t cheat on me.”
“I fucked up,” he readily admits, which is good, but it is still too late.
“It never should’ve occurred in the first place.”
“I fucked up bad. I got so twisted up after Atticus’ death. Shit just started spinning…New Orleans and Houston…and all the blood. And fuck knows, Iris, I am not making an excuse, but you need to understand why it happened. Before I knew it, I was popping pills and using coke again, and then I saw you and Cruz getting closer, and I didn’t know how to put on the brakes and keep you both.
“You’re talking to me,” I softly whisper as his change hits like a landslide. “You’re actually doing it.”
“I’m fucking trying here, Angel.”
“You’re talking to me,” I cry, partly from pure joy. Partly because I’m not sure it matters now. “You have to be able to do the talking-to-me-thing before some bitch is sucking on your dick.”
“I know,” he pleads as tears come to his eyes. “I know. And I’m not going to ask you to give me another chance. I just wanted to talk to you and try in whatever way I could to explain why I spiraled like it did.”
“Did you fuck her?”
“No, Ma’am.”
“You swear to me?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” he says, shaking hard. “I did plenty of shit I shouldn’t have.”
I breathe as the tears trickle down my cheeks. I can only imagine how bad I must look now with mascara stains.
From inside his jacket, he pulls out a handkerchief, and I smile, knowing how they’ve influenced one another. Deacon always has one, but I’m not sure which one started it. “I’m in love with Deacon.”
He licks his lips and shifts his weight between his feet. “I know.”
“And I am sorry for that.”
“Don’t be,” he dismisses, acknowledging that it all may be too little too late. He paces around in a circle and grips the bridge of his nose as he cries. He stops, several feet away from me. “I was going to tell you to go be with him tonight. Find happiness because you will never find it with me. I am misery, and you deserve better than being my company.”
“I can’t do that,” I stress, taking sullen steps towards him. “Because he is so locked into you—he is so in love with you—he will never be happy with just me. He would never leave you for me, and I don’t know if I can be around you. So, where does that leave me?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
“Do you know how to make my coffee?”
His brow furrows as he shakes his head. “Why are you asking me this?”
“Because you forget the little things that matter the most,” I contend, knowing I am right. “All the time.”
From buying my dresses to feeding me, Deacon has done it all since Florida, and even before if I am honest. Deacon takes care of me. Not Sal…not Sal…not when he is like this. He falls apart, and any need I have gets immediately handled—quite nicely I might add—by Deacon.
Sal isn’t enough, not by his choice, but does that diminish my love? Can I blame him for the crippling effects of men like Cesario and Atticus? And where do I draw the line?
Certainly, at blow jobs and drugs—but maybe not.
He didn’t lie, and he is trying.
I don’t know where the line is…I wish I knew where Deacon’s line was…how far would his Master push before he walked away? Is there even a line?
He’s Deacon. There must be a line. He exists in lines. Parallels. Perpendiculars. Triangles.
Sal is the one with no track.
“Do you know how much this meant?” I stress, grabbing the diamond collar on my neck. “There was a time when you were the guy who bought me a white coat and would burn down an army just to make me smile. You did things with people you didn’t want to, for money, to destroy men like Cesario and Cristos. You were a killer. You were hungry. You were a fighter. What happened to you?”
“That guy went to prison for ninety days to save your precious ass and kept my father…Cesario from killing you for three years…”
“But was it worth it?” I question barely audible, needing him to think. “Was it worth it if it was going to destroy us?”
He bites his lip and looks down. “I’m not the same.”
“No, Boston wore you down,” I contend, fighting to save the man I love. “I don’t want this…what you’ve become…I want the guy who fought with me in Florida. I want the man who put these diamonds on me. And if you fall—if you trigger, then you come to me. Not Deacon. Not some whore in the night. Not lines of coke. Or bottles of zannies. Are you hearing me? Are you listening to me?”
With the tips of his fingers in his pockets, he nods, complacent.
“Say something,” I beg.
He shakes his head. “I have nothing to say. You should go be happy with Deacon.”
“Stop telling me to go to Deacon because it is your easy solution!” I scream, determined to get through to him. “I am not an easy solution.”
His eyebrows lift high as a slight grin upturns on his lips.
“Don’t say it,” I sass. “I am not a problem you can solve in your super machine. I am a woman, Salvatore. Love me. Love me hard. Love me fierce. Love me long.”
He pivots away.
“Where is my anger?” I shout, stepping closer as his jaw sharpens. “Where is my rage?”
“I’m scared I’m going to hurt you!” he fumes like a wild man.
“I don’t care if you hurt me,” I bellow, spreading my arms wide. “You are already hurting me! If you’re so scared about hurting me, then at least make it fucking worth it. Stop ducking your tail and running away from me. Because if this is the best you’ve got, they are going to eat you alive.”
“Iris…”
“No!” I furiously condemn. “Do better.”
With a spark in his eyes, he challenges, “What did you say to me?”
“I said, do better, Trotter.”
The shift in his stance hits like flames erupting into a firestorm before my eyes. He rips the suit coat off and drops it on the ground as he stalks towards me.
With his left hand, he undoes the buttons of his shirt with each step until he sheds it from his body. Grabbing hold of my arms, he seethes, “I went to prison for you. I spent almost three years with Cesario for you. So, forgive me if I’m a little fucking melancholy!”
“It’s more than depression,” I argue.
“I endured my flesh being burned for you!”
“I know,” I whimper. “You did.”
“Without any drugs!”
“I understand,” I whisper as my lip shudders in fear.
“No, I don’t think you do!”
With one quick swoop, he hoists me up and carries me the quarter-mile to the shack. He gently sets me on the rickety table. “We keep coming back here.”
“Because you still don’t get it.”
“… Me?”
“Yes,” he declares, unbuckling his belt. “You seem to think I am just some guy you can play like a pawn.”
“No.” I shiver.
“And it started when yo
u chose to go to Japan, bought the casinos from Cristos, and took over the Houston underworld in one move. You don’t want me to be the bait; I am the bait, and you aren’t planning on saving me. You’re trying to eliminate me. If you get Sal Raniero off the board, that is more room for you. You are using my inability to cope as an advantage in your business and shredding my self-esteem in the process.”
I want to call him a narcissist, a hypocrite, and a self-inflated ego-maniac, but he isn’t exactly wrong either. “I thought you wanted to be part of Lotus.”
“I’m a fuckin’ Italian, Iris Amarie, from a goddamned mob legacy!” he points out, striding around the table. “I’m the stuff of fucking legends. You don’t have the market on family lineage. Your heritage means nada to me. Give me something else to sink my fucking teeth into because that isn’t enough! I can hustle and schmooze and lick ass a helluva lot better than you!”
“I know,” I sob. “I know who you are and what I am getting into.”
“I don’t think you do,” he hisses. “I have two generous offers on the table, and all that matters to you is Lotus.”
“… What offers?”
With a dark glimmer in his eye, he smirks. “Like I would tell you! I don’t fucking trust you in business anymore, which makes me wonder if I can trust you in the bedroom. It’s a vicious fucking cycle of reawakening and depleting, and it is fucking exhausting me. You are exhausting me.”
“I should just go be with Deacon.”
“You act like he is second best,” he scolds. “You are not just going to go be with Deacon. You are not going to chew him up and spit him out like another investment you can turn around and liquidate. You should’ve been with him long ago, not me.”
“I tried!” I preach like a crazed woman. “I wasn’t coming to Texas to find my Dark Prince. I was coming to find a Saint!”
“You need one,” he hisses with a side-eyed glance of disrespect. “To forgive you for your plentiful sins.”
“All I did was take Houston off of Cristos’ hands!”
“That was more than e-fucking-nough!”
“Everything that went down with the shipping was all The Chairman,” I desperately plead. “I didn’t know!”
“That’s horseshit! And we both know it!” His inferno is beautiful in all its anguish as my skin heats to a boiling point. “Who is Etienne?”
“You aren’t telling me your two deals,” I whisper with a scowl. “Why should I tell you squat? You’re a fucking mobster! For all I know, your thug ass is about to murder me in cold blood.”
He lunges toward me. Our lips are inches apart as his voice drops with a suggestive lure, “Would you like that? Would it turn you on? You want black gloves and cement blocks in the river, baby? Cause I can do that!”
“This man,” I persist as my seas churn. “This is the man I am in love with.”
“You are in love with a fucking monster!”
“Yes,” I howl, losing ground. “I am. I didn’t say those words—Mrs. Salvatore Raniero—to Rowan for shits and giggles, Sal. I said them because I meant them. I want to be your wife. If you are unavailable for husbandly duties, then I will do what you trained me to do—I will do what you programmed me to do as your submissive—I will go to Deacon.” I take a deep breath. “And if that means he is a second string, then it is only because you put him there, not me. I won’t take that blame.”
He stops and beams a smug smirk at me. “… Husbandly duties? What the fuck is that?”
“I don’t know, but I am certain I will have wifely duties.”
“Ya, like taking my dick six times a day.”
“You assume I won’t demand you eat me out seven times a day!” I giggle as his finger traced over the diamonds. His emerald eyes hit my sapphires, and we have a moment where everything just collapses—the mob, the money, and the mayhem that has become our existence. We are a treasure trove if we can stop looting from one another.
He is just Salvatore, and I am just Iris.
“Do you know how much I love you?”
“Yes,” I say as his hands lay on my thighs.
“Do you know how much I need you?”
“Yes.” I smile.
“Do you know how much I hope we are still fighting like this when we’re eighty?”
Blush rises on my cheeks as I lay my hands on top of his. “I don’t want to be without you, asshole.”
“I’m a fucked up mess, sweetheart.”
“I know,” I reply as his arms embrace me, and his lips skim my collar bone. “Tell me her blow job sucked.”
“Meh,” he says, shrugging. “Got the job done.”
I smack him in the arm, and he laughs. “I can make a memory with a stroke of my lips.”
“Believe me, I know,” he growls. “Damn good fap mats.”
I giggle again. “Do you ever think about Emily?”
“Every day,” he confides. “Not because I wanted to marry her or the sex was mind-blowing, but because I changed her diapers. I practically raised that girl and someone took her away from me. She loved me with everything she had. I was all she knew. And she knew I didn’t love her right…enough…like a husband should.”
“Do you love me as a husband should?”
“Without a fucking doubt in my mind,” he promises, looking me in the eye. “You are the only girl in the world that I want to be my wife. But I’ve got…”
“Some PTSD…”
“I hate to use that word, but yes…probably…Sibyl trained me so well, and I won’t ever deny that fact. But coping skills…I got none. I have three—sex, drugs, and killing.”
“After Atticus died, you should’ve ground out the energy in between my legs,” I offer. “I don’t care if you’re bloody or bruised, if you need me, I am here.”
“And that is when I get scared about hurting you,” he honestly elaborates. “The worst part out of all of it is when I start thinking about who isn’t here anymore. The other day I was going to call Allie for a hand appointment. I can’t do that. Allie is dead. Then I was going to call Dale to consult on the sale. I can’t do that yet, either. Fuck, if I wanted to call Jack and ask if he wanted to have a drink. I can’t even do that. Men die by my hands, Iris. I am not a good guy.”
“The world is changing…and you’re a rambunctious little boy with the mind of an assassin.”
“You pretty much nailed it,” he quips, licking his lips. “That is how it feels anyway. And the absolute last thing I would consider is going to talk to anyone.”
“You’re talking to me.”
“Reluctantly,” he admits. “I’m at the breaking point where I know I am about to lose you if I don’t bend. I’m learning to sway,” he contends as a single tear washes over his cheek. “I’m trying here, Iris.”
My hands play with his curls. “I know you are, and that is all I can ask from you. I know you can’t give me any more than you already are. I must either accept it or move on. As locked in as you think you are, I am too. But the one thing I know is I don’t want to not be in your life. I can’t just break up with you and walk away. I can’t just leave you here to wallow in your misery. And if I did go with Cruz, aren’t I putting a nail in your coffin?”
“You think he’ll choose you over me?”
“Cruz will ride the fine line until his last breath, but he’s fucking angry with you over some of the shit you’ve pulled.”
“We made up,” he brags, taking a bite out of my heart. “And I’m trying to make up with you.”
“If you want to make up with me, Sal…” His lips careen into mine with the invitation. With quick hands, he shoves my dress up as his zipper comes down and he thrusts inside of me. “God, yes!”
“You’re so fucking wet, baby,” he moans, closing his eyes and grabbing my hips. “Fuck, yes…take my dick…”
We’re going at it—hard and fast—as we succumb to the lust, so much so that neither of us hears the rumble of the UTV.
“Raniero!” Nicky yells as he
turns his upper body while keeping his dick nestled deep inside of me. “Cinco!”
“Where?”
“Here at Juliet!” he rallies. “They’re in the backlot! Cruz needs you!”
The roar from his lungs reverberates through my being. “Fuck!”
So much for stress-free environments with Sal Raniero. Like a puncture wound to my heart, hot sanguine blood fills my senses until everything blurs to red.
The surrounding existence drifts to a hazy, unrecognizable place as my lungs collapse, and the words fall like a hush from my lips. “Fuck, no! Not Deacon!”
43
Blood Trails
His Butterfly
With Sal behind the wheel, I hold on for dear life. There are quite a few things he can do incredibly well, and one of them is driving—many things, including me.
I’m not actually scared, more utterly terrified that after this speeding roller coaster ride across the terrain of Juliet is over that we will find Deacon Cruz with a gunshot wound, face down, and dead in the parking lot.
This is the reason my heart feels like it’s about to explode in my chest.
The memories flood to my eyes as I remember meeting him in 2006 when we were just nineteen. I was married to Chance Ballister, working by day at All About the Page Bookstore, and at night, I was Rie Ford, high-priced pussy or “tension relief specialist,” for Angelo Gennaro.
I met Deacon by accident.
“Wait,” he said, pulling off his leather jacket and helping me into it. His blue eyes blinked at mine, and I just knew we would be connected for the rest of our lives. “There you go.”
“Thank you,” I graciously said with a smile. “What’s your name?”
“I am Deacon Cruz.”
He announced his name like he owned it—full of cocksure confidence and panty-melting intimidation.
“You’re Saint’s son,” I mentioned, knowing that meant dollar signs—and at that point, money – or at least connections to money—was everything. “I know him well.”
He gave a sly, crooked grin. “How do you know my dad?”
Diary of a Submissive (a Tomb of Ashen Tears Book 4) Page 35