Complete Corruption (Corruption #1-3)

by C. D. Reiss

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Just go.”

  “Whatever it is—”

  His face was stone cold. His mouth was set so hard the last wisps of smoke came from his nose.

  I crossed my arms. “What?”

  “It’s not you—”

  “It’s you. I know. I’ve heard it. And I agree. It is you. It’s all you. I’d be at work now, pushing numbers and fighting through protocol meetings, if it wasn’t about you. So, what’s this about now?”

  He dropped his cigarette to the ground and stomped it out. “I’m leaving.”

  “I’m coming.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Like hell,” I said.

  “I have two choices. I leave quietly, and I’ll be hunted the rest of my life until they find me and kill me. Or I kill everyone who demands the marriage, and I protect you at the same time. Those are the two. There is no third.”

  “Another consolidation, to match the marriage in December.”

  I must have surprised him with my immediate understanding and my lack of emotion about it.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “What century is this? Don’t do it. Just say no.”

  “The last man who said no washed up on a beach with his girlfriend.”

  “The girl’s going to get a complex.”

  “I’m sorry, Contessa. I’m willing to die. I’m willing to say no and leave the life, even though one day they’ll kill me. But I keep thinking no matter what I do, I hurt you. And that I’m not willing to do. If I go away, and I’m not around anymore… sure, they find me. I don’t care. Eternity is a long time. Another fifty years on this earth isn’t much, by comparison. But, without you, it’s wasted.”

  “And that’s your plan? Run away and get killed to protect me?”

  “I’m not dragging you down anymore.”

  “I thought the only way out was through.”

  “Don’t ever doubt I cared for you,” he said.

  He walked back to the house. As soon as he walked back through that door, he’d be gone. He’d close the door and lock it. Then I could text all I wanted; I could call and I could come with a battering ram and a police warrant, but he’d be gone.

  I ran ahead of him, wedging myself in the doorframe.

  “One more time,” I said. “Then I’ll let you go. I’ll never see you again. But one more time.”

  He was on me so fast I didn’t have a chance to put my bag down. His lips crashed into mine, his arms cocooned me, and my knees came out from under me.

  He shut the door behind me and pushed me with his lips and his intentions. I pulled his jacket off, and he undid my hair. His face an inch from mine, his palms on my cheeks, he kissed me, and in that kiss there was more love than I thought a human heart could contain.

  “I want you right now. Right here. One more time for the rest of our lives.” He kissed me with a mix of gentleness and depth. “Just a moment with you.” His words were breaths made of desperation and heat. “Please. Indulgence. Saintly indulgence before the devil finds me.”

  It couldn’t have been that cut and dried: marry another woman and live; stay with me and die. It couldn’t have been that simple. But his mood wasn’t nuanced; he needed me. There was no use denying it. Practical matters would have to wait.

  “Take me.” I raised myself. “How do you say it?”

  “Fammi tua.” Even as he said the words, his hands were already up my shirt, feeling under the side of my bra and where the underwire creased the soft flesh. I turned and put my arms around him.

  “Adesso.” He pushed his hardness against me, and I swung a leg over his waist to get him closer to home.

  “Fammi tua.”

  His hands crept up my skirt into my panties, finding the split in me, following the wetness.

  “Fammi tua!” I cried. “God, is it my pronunciation? “Fammi tua!”

  “You are my heaven.” He hoisted me up, leaning me against the rock of his dick. “I can’t say no to salvation.”

  He carried me upstairs, kissing me, and laid me on the bed. A full suitcase fell onto the floor, spilling everything.

  He pulled his pants off. God, that piece of meat between his legs was a beautiful sight, and when he pulled his shirt off, the shape of his body looked built to fit into mine, every curve and line angled as if calculated to match my desire.

  Where was I going? What life was I living, without him? I’d be an empty shell of a woman.

  He fell on top of me, yanking my clothes off until we were naked together.

  “Wait.” I pushed him away.

  “I will not be told what to do.”

  He looked at me with such intensity that I knew he wasn’t talking about me telling him to wait.

  I laid my hands on his neck. “Daniel found me today.”

  “That son of a whore… if he touches you…”

  “He wants me to go to the wedding and pass the bathroom attendant a bunch of bugging devices. He’ll hurt you if I don’t do what he says.”

  “I’ll be gone. Dead, probably.”

  This man was willing to die rather than live without me. I wanted to save him, but maybe I’d be damning myself if I told him the extent of Daniel’s manipulation. Even the fact that I was willing to use my safety as a bargaining chip made me wonder about my motives. “He’ll file charges against me.”

  “You’re not compelled to pass listening devices around, Theresa.”

  “The attempted murder of Scott Mabat. The loan shark.”

  His breath was deep and sharp. “When I murder Paulie, it will be for that.”

  “You said you wouldn’t,” I said.

  But he would; I knew that. If he wasn’t protecting a relationship with me, and the opportunity arose, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill Paulie.

  “I don’t know what to do,” he said as if admitting to a crippling weakness he’d hidden his whole life.

  “Yes, you do.” I brushed my hand against his cheek.

  “I don’t. There’s no solution.”

  “There’s always a solution.”

  He just shook his head. He believed it. He’d done the math and come up with the best, most selfless solution he could. Walk away.

  “Fight, Antonio. Fight for me.”

  “I am fighting for you,” he said.

  “Fight harder.”

  He whispered it back to me. “Fight harder.” Then he smirked, shaking his head a little. “Of course. I’ll die fighting for a life with you. If they kill me for it, my fate is set. I’m marked for hell. I’m damned, and once this life is over, we’re separated for eternity. So while I’m on this earth, every second I have is yours.”

  “And my seconds and my minutes and hours are yours. Will you take them?”

  “I am yours, Contessa.” He kissed my breasts and belly. “Solo tua.”

  The particular strain of his voice, hinted with both intensity and hopelessness, gave me pause. But it was a short pause because his tongue was between my legs, finding ridges and edges, working around my core and then upward, tickling my clit.

  He came up to me, face to face, leaving me still wanting his tongue. He hitched my hips up and slid his dick into me. “Forever. Everything I do with you is forever.”

  “Wait. A second. Wait. Just. Ahh.” He fucked me so hard every thought went out of my head. He fucked the brains out of me, the common sense, the grounded quality he loved so much. I was gone. Every thread of maturity, wisdom, and care was gone.

  I’d been his long before that moment. He owned me the first time he put his body on mine, since the first thrash of violence on my behalf. He’d owned me the minute he wanted me, even before I wanted him.

  But it wasn’t until he spoke to me in vulnerability, until I heard panic, until he came to me with nothing, that I owned him.

  It was only at that moment that his salvation came under my care, and I became responsible for my own destruction.

  twenty-nine.

  theresa

 
e planned our annihilation like two chess players in the park, both hitting the clock after each move, thinking and rethinking assumptions, motivations, and methods. He was brilliant, and with each passing day, in my bed or his, we spoke of things no one should speak of and avoided any talk of failure.

  Failure was death. And our deaths would mark our success.

  It was one thing to agree to live with someone, to settle on committing to sickness and health, good times and bad, and to promise to live until living was no longer possible. It was a completely different thing to promise to die with them. And that was what we agreed to.

  Antonio Spinelli and Theresa Drazen, two people from opposite sides of the world, with barely a language in common, whose bodies fit together like modular forms, were going to die.

  The decision to die came at the end of a series of decisions. The first was to be together. The second was to fight together. The third was to leave together. The rest followed from there, because even before Hemingway, all good stories that were carried to their inevitable conclusion ended in death.

  Our story would end in the death of Daniel’s pursuit, of Paulie’s threats, and of Antonio’s status as a slave to his life. It would end in the death to my relationship with my family, my friendships, and my access to a few million in trust. All of it.

  And most days, I was elated about erasing my past. How many people can start fresh with nothing on their backs? It was bliss to sit in serious talks with Antonio, even sprawled on the bed with a sheen of sweat, stained in his love, mind clear enough to think of some dirty nuance that needed to be managed.

  “Daniel is still a beneficiary on my life insurance.”

  “Does it matter?” His mouth was taking my nipple in small bites.

  It didn’t matter because I had enough wealth already, and because it was too late to change the paperwork. It only bothered me because I didn’t want Daniel to have my money.

  “No, I guess not.” I was stretched out, naked, on my bed.

  “I’m supposed to meet my future wife the day after the wedding.”

  “A date?”

  “Chaperoned, of course,” he said.

  “God, I hate this. I hate how I feel. I’m actually jealous of this poor girl.”

  “I’m going to stand her up by dying. That would make me the second promised Neapolitan in a row. Maybe she’ll marry Paulie after all.”

  He handed me a little blue booklet: my passport. We’d agreed to die around the time of the Bortolusi wedding. We’d made plans for after our deaths, but still hadn’t decided on how we would die, how our bodies would appear to be obliterated, or how we would slip away.

  I flipped the passport open. The pages felt real, with crisp paper in multicolored shades. There were even some stamps in it already. In my picture, I looked optimistic and clean, like a middle-school teacher travelling on Christmas break.

  “I have mixed feelings about the name,” I said, tossing my fake passport on the bedspread.

  “Persephone? The goddess of the death?” He kissed me from above, hands on either side of my waist, his upper lip pressing against my lower.

  “She was abducted into hell.”

  “She kept running into the wrong types of men.” He kissed between my breasts, moving the St. Christopher medal aside with his teeth. I put my arms around him, letting him move above me like the shifting sky. “And poor you, with only me at your feet.”

  He moved his lips over my belly and hips, and I over his, until our mouths could worship each other properly.

  thirty.

  antonio

  he understood. I thought she wouldn’t. I thought she’d dismiss how serious our power and our traditions were. But she was from an old-fashioned family. I don’t think I realized that until Thanksgiving.

  “I want you to come,” she said over the phone as I stood in the driveway, watching Zo go over building plans with his workers. Someday the house would be done, even if I never lived in it. “Thanksgiving is important here.”

  “I can’t.”

  “I want you to come. That should be enough.”

  “No. It’s that simple.”

  I couldn’t believe we found the time to argue about something so mundane. It felt like practice for real life.

  “I’m not some kid looking to show you off. I want you to meet these people. They’re important to me. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  I did. And maybe I didn’t want to go for just that reason. “I want to talk about this when you’re in front of me and I can occupy your mouth with something besides your demands.”

  “Don’t avoid this,” she said.

  “Ti amo, Contessa.”

  “I’ll text you the address. I expect you there.”

  I’d found myself in the position of trying to talk her out of our escape plan. She would be better off without me. And I tried to convince her, but only wound up fucking her. I tried to slip away, but she caught me by my dick and had me.

  I’d promised to protect her. It was a promise I realized I couldn’t keep. I felt resigned to the difficulty of the path and also to the potential of it. The trick to dying without dying was to make arrangements without making arrangements. The strategy was to not break up, to not stay together, to not change. And the question I’d pose to her when she was in front of me would be, “Would I go to Thanksgiving dinner with your family under different circumstances?” I didn’t think I would. Not yet.

  “This has to be done,” my father said over the phone as I opened the door to the basement. Lorenzo and I clattered down the wood stairs.

  “I understand.” Zo handed me a box of handguns. I had an armory under the house that had been moved from l’uovo. I had the phone tucked between my shoulder and ear as I pointed to one of the guns and mouthed the word ammo.

  “She’s a nice girl,” my father said. “You’ve met her?”

  “Yeah.”

  I chose the one thing I’d need: a small handgun, built for a woman’s hand but large enough to stop a man. Zo took a box off a shelf and shook it. Full.

  “When this is done, I want you back here. This is going to put a lot of vendettas to rest. You and Irene will be safe.”

  What was the answer? What would it be if I were going to live past the next few weeks?

  “No,” I said taking the box from Zo and heading upstairs. “I’m not going back.”

  You didn’t say no to Benito Racossi. You said yes, boss. But I wouldn’t have said yes. I would have said no and gone to Napoli anyway.

  “Is this about la rossa?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Bring her.”

  “She’s American, Pop. It doesn’t work like that here.” I pocketed the weapon and put the rest away, and we clattered back up the stairs. Zo shut the light and closed the basement door behind me.

  “It’s all right. I’ll figure it out,” I said. The conversation with my father was such a play. I felt like an actor reading lines.

  “You always do, son. You always do.”

  I didn’t think he knew what was going on, but he was suspicious. I could hear it. We hung up soon after. Zo put the box of bullets on the kitchen counter.

  “Who’s this for?” Zo asked.

  “Wedding gift.”

  “Nice. She’s hot, you know? You gonna, you know, get to know her better?”

  “After the Bortolusi wedding.”

  “What are you going to do with the rich one?” He opened the little gun, popping the clip.

  I shrugged. “She can stay around if she wants. I can handle two. What are you doing?”

  “Loading it.”

  I took the gun away and put it back on the counter. I knew all too well what Theresa was capable of, even with an empty gun.

  “I need a favor from you,” I said. “If something happens to me, I want you to watch after Theresa.

  “Why would something happen to you?” Zo was never the most fruitful tree in the orchard.

  “I’m the la
st one. And if I don’t take this Irene girl, Bortolusi doesn’t have any real competition. Donna Maria’s going to have to handle it herself, along with Paulie and the other camorra bosses who spend more time fighting than making money.”

  “Well, nothing’s gonna happen to you.”

  “Well, if something does, you take care of Theresa, or I will come back from the dead and make you a very sorry man.”

  “In that case…”

  “I trust you, Lorenzo. I want you to know that. Next to Paulie, you were the guy I trusted most.”

  “Paulie didn’t work out so good.”

  “So, don’t fail me. Don’t fail me.”

  I didn’t mean to be fatalistic, but it was hard not to be. There would come a time when the father I’d just hung up with, who I hadn’t known the first decade of my life and who’d always had my best interests at heart, despite everything, would write me off as dead. And the friend here, in front of me, who was building and rebuilding my life, would be unreachable.

  I was making the project seem easy to Theresa, and it wasn’t. That decision was going to break her heart before it healed her.

  “Something going on, Spin? Something you can tell me?”

  “Yeah, and I think I need your help. I can’t do it by myself. But I need to trust you. You need to take this to the grave.”

  “Okay.” He seemed unsure.

  I snapped a drawer open and took out a knife.

  “No, no, no. Come on man…”

  I cut the web between my left thumb and forefinger, drawing blood.

  “Give it here,” I said, holding my right hand out. Zo gave me his hand, and I cut it. We shook with our left hands, a mirror image of gentle society.

  “On San Gianni, do you swear silence?” I asked.

  “I swear it on the five stars of the river.”

  I let his hand go and yanked off a paper towel.

  “You cut deep,” he said. “What the fuck?”

  “Forza, my friend. You’re going to need it.” I unrolled a towel for myself. I felt relieved to have his help. I couldn’t prepare the way without him, because there were two paths. Theresa and I needed out path secured, even though it would never be tread. And I needed another path. It needed to be a separate one, yet connected at the beginning, with props and plans and a clear way for me, and me alone.