“You’re leaving him without saying goodbye.”
“Because we don’t ever say goodbye.”
After meeting Dom, we took off with Romeo in the jet bound for the private airport outside of Marseille. Deacon and I hardly said two words. We made the exchange flawlessly with Henney, and we were back in the air within two hours.
Deacon stayed on the plane for fear of seeing the son he didn't know. When I returned, he looked like a lost, sad puppy wandering the streets for scraps.
“Ms. Nakamura, the pilot said to tell you, we’ll be arriving at our destination in less than two hours.”
“Thank you, Naoko,” I say as she hands me the glass of champagne.
With a concerned look, he flashes his blue eyes at me and asks, “Where are we going?”
“Salvatore isn’t the only one with friends in Italy, Deacon.”
“You’re playing a Gennaro card,” he assumes.
Crossing my legs, I emphasize, “Please, don’t insult me. There are much better moves in my deck.”
“It’s clear Dom favors you,” he points out, perturbed. “You can’t deny it.”
“Dom is a Gennaro in name only. He may as well be a Nakamura Raniero. His loyalty rests with us. I wouldn’t pull an Angelo Gennaro card at this point. Why would I?” I question, tilting my head curiously. “I don’t need a dying outfit ran by a dead man. Dom can’t resurrect it and he knows that. Angelo did too many things wrong, but more than all those dollar signs and contracts, he fucked people over. You can’t treat people like…shoe gum…” I break into a smile. “And expect them to follow you anywhere. He was cruel and no better than Cesario. If you want to know why your boy Raniero is making waves at twenty-eight, I’ll tell you. He listens and he’s a good man at heart. And that alone is the huge difference.”
He leans forward, ready to engage in a verbal war. “You’re implying our types can be white knights…and I just don’t see it that way…”
“No, I’m saying there is the job which is what it is, but the personality types – good or evil – don’t play into it. Angelo could have been a doctor or a used car salesman or an actor in Hollywood, and he still would have been a bad man. It doesn’t matter if Sal is raking horse shit, working on your house, or at the table, negotiating a million-dollar deal, he is a good man.”
He scrutinizes over me as I expect needing to defend myself further. “… Can I have a glass of whatever you are drinking?”
“Absofuckinglutely.” I smile.
We sit, drinking and talking, until I go to straighten myself up. I put on a light beige pantsuit with a white cami and red heels. I return to my seat with my makeup freshened and my perfume filling the cabin. When the plane lands south of Rome, Deacon asks, “Where are we going?”
“Oh,” I chime, standing up. “Are you joining me?”
Dropping the cut, he declares, “Yes, ma’am.”
“Follow,” I say, heading to the bedroom. “These are Sal’s. They may be a bit big on you, but they should fit.”
“Are you implying I am smaller than Sal?” He lifts a brow.
I giggle and play the sparring games. “Not like that, Cruz. But speaking of that, I have no fresh underwear.”
“I don’t need any,” he casually mentions, thumbing over the smooth fabric of the white suit. I glance over his scruffy face, ripped t-shirt, and baggy, ripped jeans. He is who he is. “Why do you have his clothes?”
“Because when I knew he was coming to Japan, I went wild and bought him a whole new wardrobe,” I inform, leaving the room to let him dress. “I’ll be waiting.”
I’m standing with my back to the bedroom door and chatting with Naoko when I see the shift in her expression.
“Oh…” I gasp.
“Tell me I look okay.”
I bite my lip at his slicked back hair, cleaned up beard, and the suit which is a smidge too big, but it doesn’t matter. “You look incredible.”
“Will you be spending the night?”
“Maybe,” I say as Deacon grabs my hand. “I’ll let you know after we have dinner.”
“Be safe, Iris,” Naoko whispers as I pass by. She stops Deacon and warns, “Don’t let anything hurt her, Mr. Cruz.”
“There is not a chance in hell anyone is putting their hands on her but me.”
Standing by the air steps, I feel my breath hitch.
Oh. Hell.
We meet with Morpheus and Nereza Ravenna at a quaint, empty Italian restaurant. The menu is gloriously authentic fare with wild greens with red wine vinaigrette, focaccia with truffle oil, squid and zucchini blossoms, crab toast with lemon aioli, more ravioli with roasted tomatoes than I could’ve ever imagined, and spumoni for dessert.
My uncultured Oriental tongue was in Italian ecstasy.
Business is the last thing on any of our minds as the wine flowed and so did the laughter. Morpheus and Nereza were dancing under the sparkling chandeliers when Deacon asked, “Are they really a thing?”
“Oh, Mr. Cruz, you have much to learn about love.”
“I just assumed Morpheus was a player.”
“Morpheus is crazy about Reza. And he is a very special man to me,” I say, polishing off my wine. “As much as Dom kept an eye on me, he didn’t ever give me an outlet. Morpheus did.”
“What do you mean an outlet?”
I slump back in the chair as I long to have a love like theirs. Jealousy is a wretched witch. “Morpheus was the person I could turn to when shit went south. He was the person I called when Angelo Gennaro had you arrested for stealing the car. He was the person who I could tell any and all of my secrets to.”
“Gennaro did me a huge favor.”
“Campanelli still doesn’t know we were responsible for Krystal’s death years ago, but with the five kids coming of age… We aren’t going to just waltz into his turf and stick our flag in it. People are going to be hurt.”
His deep rough voice coaxes, “Are you feeling a need to go to confession?”
“No,” I say, blinking at him. “I’m a Buddhist.”
“You’re not alone,” he says, grabbing my hand. “Dance with me.”
Keeping our distance from Morpheus and Reza, I let Deacon lead me to a peaceful place. “You’re quite the gentleman when you want to be.”
“I try,” he says. “Why are we here in an Italian restaurant in Italy dancing, Iris?”
“Because the fortress in the Middle-of-Nowhere needs protection.”
“… Juliet?”
“And Sugargrove,” I confide in the arms of the police chief. “Sal isn’t the only one with Italian connections.” I wink. “I like to keep all of my options open and available.”
His eyes drift over me as the heat rises between us. “Friends are good.”
“Close friends are better,” I whisper, noticing the rain hitting the windows. “I hate taking off in the rain. Shall we stay the night?”
“Where?”
“The hotel is right down the block.”
We say our goodbyes to Morpheus and Reza, who are now more like the really cool parents I never had, and for what it may be worth—my beginnings with both of them started between my thighs at different times. Although, I will take full credit for introducing them at the last Gennaro Christmas party years ago.
Morpheus gives me a giant hug, lifting me off my toes. He plants a peck on my lips. “I will be over in Tokyo soon. Tell Keishi I want a few days of golf and some sushi.”
In his arms, I giggle. “I will.”
“And don’t you worry that pretty little head about Sugargrove or Boston, I got them both.”
“Thank you, Daddy,” I mutter as he sets me down and shakes Deacon’s hand. “You don’t worry about anything. I’ll send my crew over. We’ll talk about what you need.”
“I appreciate that, Sir.”
“Thank you for coming,” Reza gushes, brushing her mouth to mine. “Enjoy the young Saint. He is deliciously sinful.”
I am aware.
&nb
sp; Holding Deacon’s hand, I run with him through the cobbled streets of old Italy to an upscale boutique hotel. Pulling out his credit card, Deacon checks us in and I note on the form he puts our names as Vincent and Rie Cruz.
“Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Cruz.”
We take the wobbly old elevator up to the top floor and find our suite. I stroll to the window and gaze with tears in my eyes at the blur of the lights in the rain. The ominous weather hazes over with low foreboding clouds. I press my hands to the glass and catch the sparkle of the two rings on my finger. The sapphire is a promise of things to come and the eternity is a solemn vow of forever.
Striding up behind me, Deacon places his arms around me, trapping my body to his, and laying his hands on either side of mine. I note the skull on his middle finger and the crab on his pointer finger. I brush the pad of my finger over it.
“You got this from Cristos…”
“I did,” he whispers in my ear. “He is Merritt’s grandfather. Just like he is Raine’s.”
“You and Sal are bonded through Kaci.”
“And she gave you to us,” he mutters as I feel his warm breath on my neck. “It is our job to protect you.”
“You’re not part of The Spider’s grand experiment.”
“No,” he concedes, running his nose in my hair, as I shift ever so slightly into his frame. My back brushes against his chest and I feel his arousal. “I am just a man bound in love.”
“Your twin brother wants to kill me.”
He drops his hands from the glass and spins me around. “My brother will never touch you because the second I find him, he is a dead man.”
I blink up to his blue eyes. The purity of his love touches my soul. He is a Saint.
“Deacon…” I whisper as we strain in the struggle. “There are so many reasons I shouldn’t do this, and all I can think about is what I’ve endured for so long to have Sal. And maybe I shouldn’t feel that way, but…I’ve slept with two guys in almost three years.
How many women has he bed?”
He glances away and rubs his lips together. His platinum scruff on his chin sparkles in the moon as he gently wipes away the single tear trailing over my cheek “You don’t want to hear the answer to that, baby girl.”
“How many women have you been with, Deacon?”
A dampness shrouds his eyes. “You don’t want the answer to that either because I can count the number on less than one hand. And one them is the bitch who happens to be a huge slut and cannot keep his dick out of things.”
“Have you told him?”
“Yes.”
“… Does he not understand what this does to me?”
“I have been pleading with him for years to calm down.”
I’m hurt and angry with Sal’s partying ways. “I sent Holly and Kim as a test…and he still….”
“I know,” he seriously says as a few more tears blossom from my eyes. “And the second…never mind.”
“Tell me.”
“He showed up in Sugargrove and hooked up with Amber before you got there.”
I want to crumble to the ground. “Does he not understand I cannot handle the infidelity once we are together? Or do I have to look forward to a life of him sticking his dick in every open receptacle he finds appealing?”
“I don’t know,” he says, lifting his head high as I hold him close. He kisses the top of my head. “All I know is once you two are together, if he hurts you—I will hurt him.”
“Sal was never the white knight,” I mention with a despair. Falling into Saint’s hypnotic trance, I muse, “You were. Sal has and always will be the dark knight.”
His smile showers over the gloom like rays of sunshine. “If I ever hear you refer to yourself as a puny girl again,” he quips, grabbing his belt. “This will grace your fine ass.”
“Don’t tempt me anymore than you already are.”
His lips move to mine as we creep closer to the forbidden line. “I want for one night to drop the wall and love you like you should be.”
“If you cross the boundary, there will be no going back.”
“I’m not sure I care anymore,” Deacon whispers as our lips crash and collide. His sweet kiss fills my lungs with the air of hope so I can breathe again. His wind fuels my waters for the fight of my life. I drop my hands from his shoulders and let go as he picks my loose body up in his arms. I stay free and accepting of his gales.
He sheds his shirt and my clothes, commanding the stage of the bed like a seasoned Master.
Deacon isn’t the underdog between them; he is the core and source of our love. He is the pendulum from which Sal and I swing. And we exhaust his efforts as he runs back and forth, caring for our encampments like a traveling medic with the skills of a war-torn soldier.
But I wonder, as I’m lying on my back and staring at my sapphire ring and parting my legs, when does he get his? When does he find the ground for which to blow his gusts upon. When does he find the land to sculpt and the mountain to etch?
“Iris…”
“Just go bareback,” I whisper with a hush. “Love me.”
“I am,” he simply acquiesces as his pronounced erection gloriously upholds the requiem of our demise. “We can’t do this or we break the code.”
I shutter my eyes closed. “You mean, we break Sal.”
Lowering his lips to below my navel, Saint Deacon blesses the belly of my womb with deferment. I am so irrevocably turned on. Finding the clarity, I gush with wetness—slipping, splashing, and dripping with the breeze of his desire and the fires of another’s lust.
And I become the monster storm.
VII
A White Picket Fence Is Just a Bigger Cage
Part II of 2018
58
Sticky Sweet Taste of Her Sour Candy
With the fine cut of Kobe steak half eaten, The Commission and I talked for hours about everything—business, my associations, my father, my Old Poppa, and my fiancée. The one thing I never considered they would mention was their competition—Lotus, Immortal, and the on the rise, Delarte Cristos.
Where the name of the middleman game seemed to be—deny, deny, deny—the Gods at the table imparted an authentic concern for their competitors standing. I thought perhaps I was being played to extract intel because heaven knows that was a common occurrence in the middlemen.
But the longer they conversed over glasses of wine, the more the chat turned to gossip, similar to Louisa Altromessa and her snobby friends. The topics were different, but the rumormongering was much the same.
“We are aware of your previous relationship with a certain very important woman, Salvatore,” Giacomo Benedetto said. “And we want you to know, we’re proud of the disintegration that seems to have happened.”
Disintegration—my ass.
He mentioned no names, but I knew who he was referring to.
“She is in no way qualified,” Alessi Ettore added. “Old man Nakamura has lost his mind.”
I glanced at Gaspare Castillo, waiting for him to toss in his two cents of doubt. “I tend to disagree with my colleagues. If we underestimate what Nakamura’s granddaughter can do, we are doing ourselves a great disservice.”
With his Roman nose and sexy smile, Alessi leaned back in his chair. “I wouldn’t mind banging her hot ass while I rip apart Lotus though.” He patted my shoulder several times and said, “Should’ve stayed with her for that tight snatch alone, Raniero!”
“I’ll join you on that one,” Giacomo snickered. “She ain’t nothing but flesh.”
That was my future wife they were talking about.
But I didn’t react.
I couldn’t—I fucking froze in their shadow.
The Commission was gunning for Lotus—for Iris.
And I wasn’t a soldier but a vermin scurrying to find a dark hideaway.
Little did I know how much everything I was about to do would come back to this first conversation with The Commission, when the kid of the Boston mafioso asce
nded to the rank of a feared God.
“What are you doing?” Randy Bianchi asks in our chilly ass motel room in Washington. I’m on the bed, tossing one of those tension balls into the air. They tell me squeezing it is good for my hand strength. I find jerking off has much the same effect. I’ve been bouncing this ball for hours. Sometimes I sling it randomly to the wall just to test if my reactions are fast enough.
“I’m thinking,” I mutter, glancing at the sapphire band bound around my finger.
He sat on his bed. “About?”
“Choices.”
“You know we’re going to crack this case with you here,” he braggingly says, giving me a big head. “There is no way we won’t.”
I glanced over, still tossing the ball. “Practicing.”
“For?”
“The future,” I reply, keeping my rhythm because it really isn’t about catching the ball but the pound of the beat. Don’t go to the gutter, thinking about catching and pitching here—though it is much the same. “Isn’t it summer? Why the hell is it so damn cold in this room?”
“That’s just you,” Randy teases with a smirk. “Black hearted.”
“Cold hearted snake, I tell ya,” I say, popping the ball against the wall hard. I dive to the left and catch it. “If I don’t crack this case, I may crack your skull for making me do this.”
“Aww, shucks, you say such sweet nothings when we’re alone.” I swing the ball, not breaking the pulse and flipping him the bird. He leans back on the bed with his feet on the headboard. “You got two balls?”
I turn, losing my mojo, but still clutching the ball in my fingers. I bend over the edge of the bed and grab another ball from my backpack. With a serious stare, I defend, “I have two balls.”
“You have three?”
“Man, that’d just be weird.”
So now, Randy and I are pitching balls against the wall. Hopefully, the person staying in the room next door is out for the day. “This is incredibly relaxing.”
Every Minute I Love You (a Tomb of Ashen Tears Book 3) Page 49