Vendetta

by Christine Zolendz

  “Nobody better ding my car,” he grumbles.

  I run up the stairs two at a time and bust out of the side door just in time to see Felony throw one hell of a Tyson-like right hook into some poor guy’s face. There’s a sick crunch that stops me dead in my tracks. My girl just broke that man’s nose.

  Another one of the dancers sits on the ground between my car and Tony’s Mercedes. She looks scuffed up and hurt. There are tears streaming down her face and blood on her hands. It's Lace, the one on the ground, and the guy who just crumpled to the blacktop from one hell of a TKO, I recognize as Junior.

  I jump in front of Felony, her eyes are unfocused and her hair is wild. She’s staring down at the heap of man on the pavement facing the sky.

  "If you ever lay a hand on her again, I will kill you. Kill you!" she screams.

  “Hey. Hey,” I say jumping in front of her. I gently raise my hands to her shoulder and I can feel the anger and rage coming off her in waves. “Tell me what happened. Felony, babe, what happened?”

  “Nothing, it was a mistake,” Lace sniffles from the dirt and gravel. “Nothing happened.” She won't even look up at me and it's because it wasn't nothing that just happened. It was definitely something. And whatever it was would probably make her and Felony turn up floating face down in the bay if Tony was pissed enough at what they said.

  The rest of the lazy assholes come walking out of the side door, Tony following behind, a gun in his right hand, index finger on the trigger.

  It's dark, but the glow of the club’s lights shine on Lace's face and you could tell she's been hit a few times in the face. There are even bruises blooming across the front of her neck.

  Tony walks over to her and scoops her up in his arms. "What the hell happened?"

  Felony sighs. I don’t want her to say anything. I want her to keep her mouth shut, but she doesn’t. She just doesn’t know she should. "He hit her. He attacked us."

  Lace is shaking her head in his arms, "No, Tony. I swear everything is okay, Junior is just really fucked up and we was just kidding around."

  Felony shuffles back and forth on her feet and looks to me for help. I shift next to her and try to get her attention, but she blatantly ignores me.

  Tony narrows his eyes at Felony. She stands up straighter, about to argue something with him, and I lean forward, wrapping my hand over her mouth. "Keep your mouth shut if you want to keep breathing."

  Tony steps up in front of her, my hand still covering her mouth. "You hit one of my boys?" He tilts his head to me, "Let her talk, Corey."

  Reluctantly, I drop my hands from her lips.

  "Did you hit one of my boys?" he asks her again.

  "Yes. A few times, actually." She doesn’t back down. She doesn’t shy away. “He’s a pussy that can’t take a punch from a girl.”

  Tony tilts he head back, laughing loudly. “I really like this girl.” He turns his attention to me and smiles. “Make sure she gets home okay tonight. Enzo? You take Lace home.” He scans the parking lot quickly, “Oh and Lace, don’t show your face here until it looks better, or you find something to cover it up with, got it?”

  “Yeah, Tony,” Lace says as she stands on wobbly legs. Enzo holds out an arm for her and leads her to his car.

  The rest of them clear the parking lot until it’s just me and Felony, face to face and all alone.

  “Let me take you home,” I say, tugging on her sleeve.

  “No. Corrado, I don't need anyone taking me anywhere.” She’s still angry. She’s probably scared too. I bet she thought Junior was going to try and force himself on them. It’s good to know she wasn’t afraid to fight.

  “I’m taking you home, Felony.”

  She gives me a look of disgust.

  “Get in the fucking car,” I growl, opening the car door for her.

  She climbs in hesitantly, anger pouring off her like rain. I don’t care. I want her away from here. Who knows what Junior would do if he woke up and realized one of the dancers knocked him out cold?

  There’s silence in the car the whole ride.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, not taking my eyes off the road, or the rear view mirror.

  “Yeah, wonderful. I got rainbows spurting out my ears and sunshine pouring out of my ass.”

  “You beat the shit out of him. He could have hurt you.” I’m trying to be as calm as I can, but I want to scream at her—warn her about who we are.

  “No, he couldn't have,” she laughs.

  “You think you’re special? You think Tony isn’t going to punish you for hurting one of his guys? Humiliating Junior—days after his father gets gunned down?”

  “Nope. I’m not special. At all.” That’s all she answers with—she’s not saying she’s worried about what Tony or Junior are going to do to her in the light of day. And she’s so aloof about the situation she flips down the sun visor and looks at herself in the mirror. Then she lathers some of that glossy watermelon-smelling crap all over her lips.

  “That's it? That's all you’re going to tell me? All you’re going to say?” I reach over and slam the visor back up, punching it into place.

  “Yep.”

  How many times am I going to warn her? I pull up in front of her place and scan the yard and house. It’s a nice place to live, good neighborhood. Supposedly she has the top floor to herself. She probably doesn’t even need to dance, does she? “You don't even like dancing there, do you? You don't move like the other girls, you don’t even talk like them, you talk like you went to Harvard.”

  “Yeah, well maybe I did.”

  “Nah, you wouldn't be in this shit hole, letting men get off on your moves.” I know it’s a low blow, but I’m calling a spade a spade. Tony calls his girls whores, and she’s one of them.

  “You know what, Corrado? You don't like working there either.”

  She had me there. "Tony doesn't give people a choice."

  "Bullshit, it's something else," she says, turning her body to face me.

  "Yeah, you think so?"

  "Yeah," she says, leaning back on the window.

  She’s jerking me around. She knows who Tony Fretolli is. And that means she knows who I am too. But I’ll play this game with her. “Okay. Okay, do you know who I am? My old man was Luciano Fretolli? Tony’s brother.” I look at her, waiting for some sort of a response.

  She doesn’t even blink.

  How the hell does she not even blink?

  “So Tony Fretolli? He’s my uncle. Anthony and Luciano and their best friend Angelo were the top guys in the Acerbi crime family. Angelo being the boss. I grew up in that family.”

  “Good for you,” she says, rolling her eyes.

  Good for me? Does she not know? Could there be someone in this city that didn’t hear about the massacre? Doesn’t she watch the news? Read the newspaper? “Ten years ago somebody put a hit out on my entire family. We lost a lot of people. Do you even realize who you’re stripping for? Goddammit, Felony—or whatever your real name is—He's Tony Fretolli. He's the God damn boss of the Acerbi crime family!”

  “Yeah,” she says, covering her hand over a yawn. “I remember that in the news. I was a kid, though, but I remember it. You guys ever find out who did it?”

  “No,” I growl at her crass, rude, uncaring attitude. “No one took responsibility for it. No one authorized it. But I have my theories.”

  We stare at each other through the darkness of car, the only light around us coming from the soft glow of the street lamps that line the sidewalk.

  She leans forward, a curious expression falling over her face. “Their families, the kids, they were killed too, right?”

  I don’t like talking about this. I inhale deeply and try to stay calm and cool. “Angelo had two kids and a wife. She was like a mother to me.” My voice cracks. “The kids were everything to me.”

  “Yeah?” she asks. Her tone is strange, like she doesn’t believe me.

  “Yeah, the son was my best friend. We did everything together.”
I clear my throat and drop my gaze from hers. “His kid sister, too.” My voice completely breaks over the words. They always do when I talk about Giana.

  “Kid sister? His kid sister was important to you too?” she asks, her voice full of doubt and crass.

  I glare at her. “She died in my arms. And she wasn’t just my best friend’s kid sister. She was the girl I was going to marry.”

  That made her blink and shame her enough to look away.

  “What happened to your family, huh?” she asks after a few moments of silence.

  “My mother lived, my two baby sisters were killed in their strollers. They were twins. Almost three years old.”

  “You ever feel strange about that? You, Tony, Franco and his boys, you’re the only ones that lived?”

  "Baby, you’re asking questions that are going to get you killed."

  She stares back at me without a trace of worry in her eyes. Does she think I can save her from whatever Tony wants to do to her? All I could do is buy her some time.

  "Why are you working for Tony, stripping?" I ask.

  She shakes her head and stares out the windshield, saying nothing.

  "You don't do it just for the money."

  She still doesn’t answer.

  "Let me guess, you're stripping for revenge? Daddy issues. Step-Daddy issues."

  Her head slowly turns back in my direction.

  Oh, that must be it. Maybe she is like all the other girls at Tony’s. "You had a strict daddy?"

  "Yeah."

  "Getting even, huh?"

  "Something like that, yeah. Or maybe I just like when complete strangers find me suitably fuckable. Maybe I like knowing my pussy is worth a hundred bucks if I give it to someone in the backseat of their car."

  All I see is red. "I don't want you dancing there anymore."

  "I don't care want you want."

  "What if I said I wanted you? What if I say I’ll take care of you and you don’t have to—"

  She opens the car door and steps out before I finish. I lower the window down on the passenger side to shout, but before she walks away she leans in the window, elbows on the door. "You don't even know me."

  "Yeah? So who are you?"

  "Maybe I'm one of the bad guys. Just. Like. You."

  Chapter 7

  Felony

  My name isn’t Felony. Of course it isn’t. Who the hell would name their child Felony? The day I walked into the club and asked Tony for a job I told him my real name was Mallory Knox. That isn’t my name either. Of course it isn’t. Mallory Knox is who Juliette Lewis played in the 1994 blockbuster hit Natural Born Killers.

  I was kind of obsessed with the movie when I was a teenager. I mean, come on. It’s a story about two people with traumatizing childhoods becoming lovers and psychopathic serial killers. Glorified by the mass media. How different is that from what Tony Fretolli does?

  There’s not much difference.

  I peek out the front bay window of my apartment. Corrado is still sitting in his car fuming. That movie would be so different if it were written today. Natural Born Killers. Mix in some social media and it brings it to the next level. I think about that a lot. Too much, maybe. The story of two victims of some horrendous childhood trauma, bonding over their trending violence. How many people would watch? How many views and likes and comments would a pair of psychopathic lovers get? Would all of social media irresponsibly glorify them? Would they become the great anti-heroes—doling out their own vigilante justice—going by their own set of rules.

  I would watch the hell out of that movie.

  And I know exactly who Anthony “Tony” Fretolli is. You have to be a complete moron not to know who he is.

  Why is Corrado still sitting in front of my apartment?

  In an hour or two, just over the tops of the houses across the street, the sky is going to begin to lighten. And it’ll be daylight. I have too much to do before I even think about going to sleep so I can make it back to dance tonight. Or tend bar. Or waitress. Or whatever Tony has in store for me tonight.

  I tap my foot anxiously on the floor. Corrado is just worried about me. Which is sweet. But he doesn’t need to worry. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time.

  I squint my eyes. He’s not even on his phone or anything. He’s just staring straight ahead through the windshield. He’s not even moving.

  Ugh. I have to get him off my street. I need to pull my car out of the garage and get shit done.

  Maybe I should just go down there and prove to him I’m fine and that he’s got nothing to worry about. I look down at my phone to check the time. It’s close to five in the morning. I don’t have much time left.

  I wrap a sweater around my shoulders and bounce back down the stairs.

  He turns his head toward me as I walk down the pathway of the front yard. His expression looks heavy and worn out. I feel for him, I really do. I’m crushing on him way too hard and honestly it’s been interfering with my job. I shouldn’t be having any of these feelings for him. I shouldn’t care. It should be just physical. It could be.

  But I’m lying to myself if I say it is. Because there is something there—some spark of something—something that seems a little unfinished.

  I pull on the handle and open the passenger side door.

  “The bad girl’s back?” he smirks, clicking the door lock down.

  “You have no idea,” I smile and reach over the console toward him. He watches my hand as I stretch over his body and pull up on the seat level to lay his driver’s seat all the way back.

  “Oh, my mind is thinking up some ideas right now,” he murmurs.

  I pull myself up on my knees, still bending over the console.

  Damn the whole car industry and their asinine consoles. How are us women supposed to give good head while getting jabbed in the chest by two cup holders and a change compartment?

  Very carefully. I don’t want my tits bruised for work.

  I work fast, unbuckling his belt and unbuttoning his pants. “I’m betting I’m more eager for your lips around my cock than you, but ripping the head of my dick with my zipper won’t do either of us any favors.”

  My eyes snap up to his and I freeze. Damn, he’s right. What the hell am I doing? This is Corrado. This is the first time I get to taste him and I’m grabbing at him like I’m playing Minute to Win It: Deep Throat edition.

  This is Corrado, and I’ve wanted him for…I can’t even think of how long—way longer than he’s known me as Felony—way back to when I was a stupid nerdy teen, hellbent on secretly following him and his wise-guy friends places no teenage girl should ever go.

  I should be savoring this moment. Etching it into my memory for when both of us move on from this hellhole, when our demons have been exorcised.

  His cock is the most beautiful one I’ve ever seen.

  He lifts his body up and shoves his pants around his hips and it bounces free, thick and long. My mouth waters and I literally pop a moisty. Never in my life has my body reacted this way by just looking at a dick.

  His is the king of all dicks. It’s what all the other little peasant dicks in the world look up to. They want to be this fat, enormously hard cock when they grow up. And fuck me stupid, but I want to sit on its throne.

  But I know I don’t have much time—so giving the best damn blowie of my life is the plan—anything else is going to have to wait until I have a good twenty-four hours of free time to ride this baby.

  I tease my fingertips up and down his shaft, just a little soft touch here and there all along his length. He sucks in a quick breath and the sound of it makes my panties slick with desire.

  God, even if this goes quick I’m going to have to use my vibrator before I can run any of my errands today. I won’t be able to focus unless I ease the intense ache that’s building between my thighs.

  I lean all the way down, flatten my tongue over the smooth skin and run it up to the tip. His hand balls up into a tight fist around his pants, “O
h fuuuuuuck,” he whispers.

  Another long slow lap and the first drop of pre-cum glistens at the top of his cock. I slide my hand up, brushing my thumb lightly over it, spreading it over his head.

  I peek a glance at him, and he’s watching me—waiting for the teasing to stop and the real fun to begin. “Does my tongue feel good on you?” I whisper.

  “Yes.” His voice is husky, raw.

  My clit tingles at the sound.

  I curl my fingers around his rock hard thickness and slightly squeeze. His breath draws out long and low. That’s when I wrap my lips around his tip and slide down, filling my mouth with him.

  The hand clenched around his pants tightens, his knuckles turning white. His other hand fists my hair and presses down, until his cock hits my tonsils.

  I pull up slow, sucking hard at the top and swirling my tongue and go right back down again. I start at an easy pace, steady and slow. Up and down with my mouth, working the shaft with my fingers gripped around his girth. Up and down. Up and down until his breaths are puffing out in gasps and he’s whispering how good my mouth feels. How warm. How wet.

  He’s salty and sweet and when his breathing becomes too ragged, I pause over his head and swirl my tongue around and around its tip. I tease out his balls and pull gently on them and fill my mouth back up with him.

  I quicken my pace—just a bit—teasing and toying my lips over his shaft and balls a little more urgently. I work his head, making loud sucking noises and moans. God, the moans. I don’t know who’s moaning louder or more, me or him.

  “Fucking…oh shit…you’re gonna make me cum like this and I want inside you,” he breathes. “I want inside.” He pushes lightly at my shoulders but my mouth takes him in deeper. His balls are tightening, his cock getting harder and stiffer, his gasps, breathless and hot. He leans forward trying to nudge me off and I press my elbow into his chest and push back. I want to taste his cum. I want him to flood my mouth with it.

  “Felony…”

  I only stop because I hate that name on his lips. “Don’t call me that. Not now.”