“Yeah?” I ask.
Jerking my chin, a silently grant her entrance into my space. It is my space now, too. I’ve completely gutted the entire office, leaving only the original bookshelves intact.
My desk is a stained black wood, with only two small drawers. My chair is a large, comfortable black leather rolling office chair.
I have two chairs that face my desk, both deep gold in color and a black leather sofa against the only blank wall. My interior designer hasn’t figured out artwork yet, but I don’t give much of a fuck about that anyway.
The filing cabinets are also original and my next project to tackle, since I know that Mauro is all about old school paper records.
“I like what you’ve done in here,” she offers, her voice timid and almost shy sounding.
Nodding, I hold her gaze with my own. “My interior designer knows what I like. She did this room and the bedroom. She’s working on the rest of the house slowly,” I inform her.
I watch as she flinches. Probably at the idea of another woman coming into this home, her home, and decorating. I know that women usually don’t like that shit. I personally don’t give a fuck, but I have no doubt that she does.
“Oh. I just, the cook usually leaves some food in the fridge. I wanted to know if you were hungry?”
She seems skittish, nervous, and I can’t help but wonder if she’s embarrassed about the evening we shared. She shouldn’t be, she’s still the best lay I’ve ever had. Hands down the best in every fucking way.
“I’m okay for now. You go ahead,” I say, lifting my hand to motion her away.
She nods once and turns her back to me. I watch her ass in her tight skirt as she walks away from me. When she reaches the doorway, I call out her name. She pauses and looks back at me from over her shoulder.
Her lips are pouty, fucking gorgeous and I imagine them wrapped around my cock, taking me like only she can, wholly.
Clearing my throat, I push those thoughts aside, at least for now. I’ll have her tonight, again. I’ll have her every night until I can’t anymore, until Gavino decides that it’s time for me to settle and have a family of my own.
“I’ll have dinner brought in tonight, we’ll eat together,” I inform her.
I watch as her eyes widen and those pouty lips turn up into a small smile. “Okay, Benny,” she rasps.
“And Nicci?” She stays where she is, her lips and eyes smiling as she waits for me to continue. “You don’t have to dress like some perfect fucking princess when you’re here at the house. There’s literally nobody to impress.”
She flinches from my words, or maybe my tone—probably both. Without a response, she turns from me and I hear her high heels click on the marble flooring until she’s too far away. I should feel like a shit for saying what I did, but I don’t.
She doesn’t have to impress anyone, and I’m already impressed by her, just her. I don’t need the fuck-me-heels or the skintight skirts. I know what she’s packing under her clothes and I prefer to be the only one who does anymore.
“Boss?” Ermanno calls out from the spot that Nicola just vacated.
“Yeah?”
“Mister Favero is here to see you. Costa is escorting him in,” he murmurs.
Lifting my brows, I’m surprised. I open my mouth to ask him what he means, how did Favero end up coming to me before I was prepared? Before I could go to him?
I like to be the one with the edge of knowledge before I make my play and this fucker is messing with my plans. He’s already on my shit list, and now he’s just adding extra marks to that.
“C’mon in, I want you at my side as my Underboss,” I instruct.
He dips his chin and makes his way toward me. Because he knows what the fuck to do, he walks around the front of my desk, never behind me, and positions himself just to the right of me and in my peripheral vision.
I take my gun out of my holster and grip it in my palm, laying it on the desk, ready to use if I should feel the need.
“That’s a little dramatic,” a smooth voice states as he walks into the room.
Quirino is taller than I expected, around six-foot. His build is slim, yet obviously fit. He’s wearing an expensive tailored suit and his black eyes are completely soulless. He’s definitely a Made Man, one who has seen the horrors of the world, that is unmistakable.
“Is it though?” I ask.
I watch as he takes a seat in my gold velvet chair, crossing one ankle over his knee. His Italian leather shoes are scuff-free and I wonder how long it’s been since he did anything at all strenuous.
“Slightly.” He smirks. “So, I hear you’ve been looking for me?”
“You want to explain your connection to Nicola and Mauro Ricci to me?”
He tilts his head to the side, his eyes searching mine. “If I say no?” he asks.
“The reason that Mauro spared your life won’t hold up with me, since he’s dead and I could give a fuck about keeping his secrets, or yours.”
Quirino chuckles. “Well then, I suppose it’s time the truth came out. I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors about me and Nicola’s mother.”
“Are they true? Did you fuck your boss’s wife?” I ask.
His eyes cut to me, they narrow and I wait for my heart to give out just by the look that he’s giving me. Thankfully, my heart is just as fucking black and cold as his, so it doesn’t.
“I did. But it wasn’t like that. I loved her. He, on the other hand, was a sick fuck and if I told you the horrors she suffered, you wouldn’t blame me at all for falling in love with the strongest and kindest woman on earth.”
“Nicola? Do you want to explain to me why you’ve been meeting with her at a sex club, why you took her to your home, why you do… what exactly do you do with her?” I demand.
Quirino smirks. He watches me, but what he doesn’t do is answer me immediately. My trigger finger twitches with the need to know the answer and know it right now. He tilts his head to the side, his eyes searching my own.
“You love her,” he announces.
I flinch. “I don’t. I actually hate her.”
NICOLA
I’ve heard him say it before. But hearing him tell Q that he hates me after we spent an evening in one another’s arms, it hurts more than I imagined possible. This is why one should never, ever, eavesdrop. It hurts so fucking badly.
Deciding not to listen a moment longer, I take myself back up to my space, my safe space for lack of better words. Hidden upstairs, on my own floor, I can pretend that the world below me doesn’t exist, at least for a little while.
I think about Q, about Benicio, and how if I could change my past, I would do it in a heartbeat.
Sitting below my window, on the small bench that my mother had placed here for herself when she was alive. I look out at the grounds.
This was my mother’s space before it was mine. I remember her sitting here for hours, looking down at the world around her. A world that she couldn’t participate in, a world that I haven’t been allowed to participate in either.
I wonder if she was as lonely as I feel. If she needed to find her control the way that I do, if she felt like she was a spinning top, never able to just pause and breathe. Always going around and around.
I’ve wondered so many things about her, but most of all, I’ve wondered how my father could end her life for simply suffering a tragedy?
I stay locked in my room, dressed like the principessa that Benicio somehow despises. That is something that I will not change for him. It’s not only ingrained in me. I feel like I have always bent to the whims of the men in my life.
Maybe had my mother not bent to my father’s every whim, bent over backward to his will, maybe she would have left and would still be alive.
Maybe if I had stood up to him earlier, I wouldn’t have been his little whore to pass around as he pleased. Maybe I would have been able to stay with Benicio two years ago.
Maybe.
Maybe.
Ma
ybe.
Our lives are full of maybes and what-ifs. I can sit and think about every past decision of my life. Or I can look toward the future, toward my future.
The time is now.
Benicio thinks that he has complete control over me. He doesn’t. I’m done with him. Done with this life and done with the famiglia.
I don’t know how exactly I’m going to get away from here. But I will. I refuse to be anyone’s possession, anyone’s property, for a moment longer than I have to be.
Chapter Fourteen
BENICIO
“So why is it that I should explain anything to you? Because you’re a boss now? Someone else will replace you eventually, and then what? I should tell them my life story as well?” he asks.
I hate this smug fucking bastard. If I had a legitimate reason to shoot him, I would, right here and right now. I don’t respond to his words right away, his questions are bullshit, but I suppose I should say something.
“I don’t give a fuck about the man before me. There will not be a man after me, because I’m not stupid, greedy, a pervert, or fucking crazy. So yes, you should explain to me just what in the fuck is going on, especially when it has to do with the woman in my possession.”
“Possession. Interesting choice of word,” he says, tilting his head to the side. “Is she though? Truly? Or are you the one that she possesses?”
Shaking my head once, I open my mouth to respond, but he holds his hand up to stop me. “Doesn’t matter,” he says, waving that hand. “You think that you know who Nicola is, what she needs, but you have no fucking clue.”
“Why don’t you explain that shit to me. Favero?” I growl.
He shrugs a shoulder. “Some things are better left dead and buried. I will tell you that what I have with Nicola isn’t sexual, never has been and never will be. However, I do care for her very much and I will protect her with my life. I should have done a better job when she was a child, but I’m not backing down now, not ever again.”
“Fuck you,” I hiss. “Fuck you for knowing what she went through and not stopping it. Fuck you for leaving her unprotected in the past and last night. Now give me some goddamn answers before I blow your fucking head off,” I roar.
Quirino doesn’t even flinch from my anger. He only watches me, as if I’m something that he finds intriguing. Ermanno clears his throat next to me, vigilantly monitoring my rising anger. Costa shifts in his seat next to Quirino. But that motherfucker stays as cool as a goddamn cucumber.
“Mauro had been unhinged for years. If I couldn’t have protected his wife, then how was I going to protect a little girl? Sometimes you have to play the long game. I left, but I never walked away, not completely. How do you think that I knew to be at that club at just the right time? I’ve had her followed for years, I knew about you two as well.”
“Yeah? So how could you just let all that shit happen and sleep at night?”
Quirino stands, brushing his pants. “What makes you think that I’ve ever slept a full night? I loved her mother. I loved the child that we lost and I will mourn them every single day until my life finally ends and I can be together with them again. Nicola deserves a slice of happiness and freedom. I could give that to her, she was obviously searching for it, so I did. If you don’t like that, then go fuck yourself.”
“I need to know just what the fuck is going on here,” I demand.
“You know all that you need to. What Nicola’s mother and I shared, that’s ours and I don’t need to tell the world our hurts. She can tell you the extent of our relationship if she feels it necessary. Just know that if she needs me, I will come and get her. I will take her from you without hesitation, like I should have done years ago from her father.”
Without another word he turns from me and walks out of the office, leaving me alone with Ermanno and Costa.
“Well, I learned pretty much fucking nothing from that, you, Boss?” Costa asks.
I jerk my chin. “Almost nothing. Except, Mauro killed his wife and I have a feeling it wasn’t because she miscarried a child, I have a feeling he found out that Quirino was the father of that child. Why he didn’t kill Quirino as well, I don’t fucking know.”
“What better way to make a man suffer than to make him live with the knowledge that his lover and baby are dead because of him?” Ermanno asks.
I grunt. “Why give him a stipend all these years?”
“He had something on Mauro, as well, plain and simple. We’ll probably never know. But I have a feeling that man is not one that you want to cross,” Costa murmurs.
I want to know what he had, what he has, and why he’s hell bent on putting himself in Nicola’s life. Pulling up my driveway camera, I watch as he sinks into the back seat of his black sedan. His same driver is in the front and guides the car away from the estate.
“I want his driver. I don’t care how or when, but I want him brought to me.”
Costa clears his throat and my eyes immediately fly to his. “I don’t know that the man ever leaves his side.”
“He did when he picked up Nicola alone. He leaves his side, we just have to find out when and where. Costa, can you do this for me?” I ask. “Normally, a soldier would be in charge of something like this, but I need someone that knows what’s going on. It’s a task that I’m going to entrust you with.”
“Why?”
“Because I know you will see it completed. I want him brought to me within the next forty-eight hours.”
Costa jerks his chin in an affirmative nod and stands to his feet. I watch as he leaves my office, closing the door behind him. Ermanno makes his way over to the gold velvet chair that Costa just vacated and sits down.
“Do you trust Costa?” he asks.
“I don’t trust anyone,” I admit.
He nods his head. “Good. You shouldn’t.”
“Ready to go through these files? I haven’t had a chance to really comb through them yet.”
Ermanno jerks his chin toward me and together we tackle the filing cabinet full of Mauro’s paperwork. Most is just bullshit, meant to be found by cops if anything goes down, fake storefront shit that looks legitimate to the naked eye.
What interests me is what’s in the safe. One of the hidden safes that Nicola showed me. While Ermanno is looking through all of the fake shit, I start to look through the file that is aptly titled, Milia.
The first thing that I see when I open the file is a picture. It looks like an exact replica of Nicola. I know that it isn’t her because this picture is very dated in hair and clothing styles. Flipping it over, I see it’s been written on.
Milia Ricci, 1995.
Her hair is big, her clothes tight, her makeup heavy, but she’s beautiful. The next item in the file is Milia’s birth certificate. She was born in nineteen seventy-eight, but died in two thousand and seven. Not even thirty years old.
The next document is a copy of the marriage certificate. The math, which admittedly isn’t my strong point, it makes me do a double take. Fourteen years old. She was married to Mauro Ricci when she was only fourteen years old.
“Fuck,” I hiss under my breath.
The old man was a fucking pervert himself. No wonder he didn’t have a problem loaning Nicola to his friends. Milia had Mauro Junior at the tender age of fifteen. Not wholly uncommon for young girls to have children, I realize this, but not to a man who is fifty-four-years-old.
Pinching my eyes closed, I wonder if Nicola knows. If she realizes that her father was forty years older than her mother. Everyone knew that he was older, that’s common in this world, but on paper, looking at the age difference like this, when Milia was still a child, it makes my stomach twist.
I continue to look for any clues that that might aid me in my search to get to the truth. I don’t know what truth exactly that I’m looking for, what kind of answers or information, but Mauro kept all of this shit for a reason and I want to find out just what the fuck that reason is.
I pause at another picture. It�
��s of Milia and Nicola. Mauro Junior is standing behind them, but Milia is holding an infant Nicola in her arms and gazing down at her lovingly. Mauro Junior looks like his father, his gaze already cold and lifeless as he watches in feigned interest.
It’s Milia that has me pausing. She is looking adoringly at her new baby girl, swaddled in pink blankets. I wonder if this is what our baby would look like.
Would she have a dark blonde tuft of hair, would her full lips be pressed together. Would Nicola look at her the way her mother is looking down at Nicola? Full of adoring love and hope?
Fuck.
I can’t think like this.
It will never happen.
NICOLA
The knock on my door alerts me to the fact that it’s dinnertime. I wouldn’t have known otherwise. Honestly, I’ve sat in this window seat for hours.
I haven’t really done anything but stare into nothingness. Blinking, I realize that the sun has set, and it’s black outside.
Turning around, I call out for whoever it is on the other side to come in. I’m not surprised at all when Benicio walks through my door as if he owns it. Which he in fact does.
“I thought I told you that you were no longer living up here?” he asks, his face red with anger.
I shrug one shoulder, staying seated at the bench. “I just needed to get away for a while. I get bored watching mindless television. I had already exercised today. I just wanted to breathe,” I admit.
He tilts his head to the side, his eyes roaming over me, over this space and for whatever reason, he’s looking at me like he’s seeing me for the first time.
“This was your mother’s sanctuary as well, wasn’t it?” he asks, his tone gentler, his face no longer red.
“When she died, my father got tired of looking all over the house for me, only to find me up here amongst her things. He had me moved up here within a week of her death. It’s where I’m most comfortable, partly because it’s where I’m usually left alone and because I can still feel her here sometimes.”
Becoming his Possession: A Zanetti Famiglia Novel Page 11