Complete Corruption (Corruption #1-3)

by C. D. Reiss

  “All right.” He leaned into me and reached behind me to pull the dial. Click. The water whooshed as the machine filled.

  “Oh, you do laundry?” I cooed.

  “Tonight, I do laundry and you.”

  I kissed him through a smile, and he carried me to the bathroom.

  thirty-five.

  antonio

  knew what was on her mind. I wasn’t stupid. But I didn’t know how to soothe her without fucking her. I didn’t know what to say that would be practical. She was hiding her worry from me, and that bothered me. I didn’t like it. She needed to be completely open.

  The bathroom had no towels and only little chips of soap, but we managed to clean each other with what we had.

  “You make a lot of bubbles with a little soap, Capo. I admire that in a man.”

  She was coated in white drifts. I ran my hand down her body, cutting through the glaze to her bare skin. She put her head back and let the water run through her hair, the impossible shade of strawberry blond turning dark brown. We had no shampoo. She just wet it then looked at me with her lashes stuck together and beads of water on her lips. I brushed them away.

  “You were going to tell me something in the car,” I said.

  She looked away. “Yeah.” She shut off the water. “I guess we have to air dry.”

  We found sheets in a drawer under the bed. White flowers on blue with worn spots. But clean. Better than I’d expected.

  “Are you worried she’s in the hospital?” She was naked still, arms out as she flapped the top sheet over the bed. “I mean, she could be sick.”

  “It was the arrhythmia. They’re lucky they brought her in, or I’d kill them for not taking care of her.”

  She didn’t say anything. Her silence was enough.

  “Theresa, she’s my responsibility.”

  “I know. I’m not blaming you. You’re honorable. If you felt differently, I’d think less of you. You can’t just throw someone away because they’re not convenient right now.”

  She crouched to tuck in the sheet. I’d never seen her do a domestic chore. I knew she couldn’t cook, and she hired out the cleaning. I never would have married her in my youth. Wouldn’t have even considered it.

  “I have no cause to trust any man in the world, but I trust you. I don’t know if that says more about you or me,” she said.

  “It says something about us.”

  “And I know you’re not going to get confused and start fucking her. Or leave me to start over with her. I don’t know how I know that. It’s just… part of me still thinks you should.” She tucked the sheet around the bed, across the foot, and back up to the side I stood on.

  She stood and put her hands on her naked hips, and I couldn’t take not touching her for another second. I put my arms around her waist and kissed her face.

  “We were always complicated,” she continued, “but this? I don’t even know what this means. I don’t want to tell you what to do. It’s your culture. Your family. Your values.”

  “This bed is a disaster. I’ve never seen a sheet so crooked in my life.”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  “I’m not changing the subject.”

  She pulled her face away to look at me, mouth pursed, head tilted just a little to express disbelief.

  “You know who can make a bed? My wife. And fast. She practically had the sheets trained to make themselves.” I was a brute, of course, to bring her down before bringing her up. “You want the values of my culture? In those sheets were everything. If a woman could cook and care for the house, she was everything a man needed. And I was the luckiest man on earth. But who am I now? Am I the man who values straight sheets? Is that what I want anymore? And if I don’t care about the sheets, or the cooking, what do I care about?”

  “If you’re telling me you love me, I know that. But a plan. I need a plan.” She seemed exasperated, as if she wasn’t getting through to me.

  I pushed her onto the bed. I wanted to rumple those sheets. Shred them. I straddled her and put her hands over her head as if that would shut her up. I was getting to something, and I had to speak it or lose it. “You. There’s only you, Theresa. I can’t figure it out, and I don’t have time to tonight. Who am I anymore? I don’t know. I’m a different man now. So you want a plan, but I can’t make one because I don’t know what I want besides you.”

  “You have me,” she said.

  I let her hands go. She was still concerned. It was in her voice, as if she wanted to add something but didn’t because I was on top of her naked and only half dried-off.

  I rolled onto my back. The ceiling was a popcorn pattern with chips missing in the shapes of islands lost in the sea. “When I was a boy, I knew my side of the piazza. I was the little mayor. Sophia sold cigarettes, Vincenzo sold fruit, and they’d give me some for running errands, though I tell you, Sophia was a hardass. Made me work for it.”

  Theresa got up on her elbow. “Her product was more expensive. Vincenzo could give you a bruised reject. She couldn’t.”

  “True, true.”

  “Did Vincenzo have strawberries in summer?”

  “When I was a kid? Never. I had him get them for me special later, though. I was a mechanic. I couldn’t afford them but…”

  But Valentina loved them.

  “I like them better than cigarettes,” Theresa said.

  “Sophia’s smokes stank to high heaven anyway.” She touched my face, stroking my cheek as if appreciating something seen for the first time. She looked breakable, but I knew otherwise. “I want one now that I mentioned it.”

  “Is that how you made money? Running errands?” she asked.

  “I was fast. You shoulda seen me run. Via Duchessa to Via Concezio in seventeen seconds. I took care of business. Made sure my uncle got to the docks, made a little money where I could. Went to school sometimes. Everything had a place. When I went to work for my father, the places were different, but there was less chaos. Men did what men did, and women did what women did, and it all fit. Who I was as a child still fit in that world. It wasn’t what my mother wanted, but it was something I understood. I didn’t have to think about it.”

  I looked at the islands on the ceiling. The longer I looked, the more there were. It was a regular archipelago up there.

  “And now it’s all different.” Her voice came over the popcorn waters as undulating music. “The rug’s getting ripped from under you, but not all at once. Piece by piece.”

  I turned to her and put my hand on her face. “I told you once that you were making me soft.”

  “At the wrap party.”

  “That day, Daniel Brower had a press conference. I went to see him because he’d been to that movie with you the night before. I didn’t know what I wanted from him, except to keep away from you. He said he wouldn’t. I felt powerless. I thought I was going to go insane.” Remembering that moment, I felt helpless all over again. The feeling had been new at the time. I would never get used to it. “You’ve been making me soft since we met. And now I’m lying here telling you this bullshit. I should be fucking you.”

  “No.” She straddled me. I put my hands up, and she held them. “I should be fucking you.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes, Capo.”

  “Well. Let’s see how you do then.”

  She hitched up a little and guided herself onto me. She felt perfect. Built for my body. I was consumed by her. I took her hands again, and she leveraged herself against them. She leaned down, and I held her, let her be the boat on my sea as the islands above formed and reformed. I closed my eyes and felt her softness in my hands, all warmth and curves. When I felt her stiffen and shake, I released inside her.

  We slept in each other’s arms, and the last thing I saw was the chipped ceiling, no more than part of a room in need of a paint job.

  thirty-six.

  theresa

  os Angeles nights were cold, and if the heat wasn’t on in the safe house you happe
ned to be staying at and the stash under the bed wasn’t equipped with a blanket, you huddled for warmth. At some point in the night, Antonio and I had unwrapped and rewrapped ourselves around each other, and his heat kept me warm under the flimsy sheet. When I woke, I thought he was asleep, but when I turned and looked at him, hoping to see him in restful peace, his eyes were open.

  “Shh,” he said. “Someone’s outside.”

  I thought he should be moving, standing, something. It took me a second to feel his arm and an uncomfortable hardness under my pillow. He was holding his gun. He was more alert than he appeared, trying to lure whoever it was into a false sense of security. I reduced the pressure of my head on the pillow, wedging my shoulder under me so he could clear the shot easily if he had to. I stiffened at the knock on the back door.

  “He’s a polite intruder,” I whispered, and Antonio smiled. Who wouldn’t be safe with this man in her bed?

  “It’s one of my guys,” he said, throwing off the sheet. “Get dressed.”

  I’d tossed our stuff in the dryer in the middle of the night, so we unloaded the clean clothes and wiggled into them. Being grunge-free felt good.

  “I should have put that toothbrush in my pocket,” I grumbled.

  “Your mouth tastes like roses.” He kissed me on the lips while he tucked in his shirt.

  “Blech.”

  Antonio peeked out the kitchen window then opened the door. Otto stood there with a bag in each hand: one paper, one white plastic.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “Buon giorno.”

  “Hi.” I took the paper bag from him. It was warm. “Is this food?”

  “I got a little breakfast from the place around the corner.”

  He and Antonio shook hands, and I open tore the bag. I didn’t have time for staples and tape. There was hot food to be had. I set out the containers while Antonio looked in the plastic bag. Eggs. Pancakes. Potatoes. Exactly what we needed.

  “Otto, I think I love you.” I hugged him hard. He patted my back noncommittally, and when I looked at Antonio, I knew why. “Give me a break, Capo. Sit down and eat.”

  Properly chastened by the woman of the house, they sat down. Antonio peeled open a coffee and drank it black.

  “My daughter got the information about Valentina,” Otto said, opening Styrofoam boxes. “She’s at Sequoia. They kept her overnight, and they’ll probably keep her again. She hasn’t said she’s a captive or nothing. Hasn’t asked for the law. Nothing.”

  “She understands omertà. That’ll work in our favor.”

  Otto pushed away his food. I stayed quiet, but his position and attitude didn’t bode well.

  “Lorenzo,” he said. “I don’t want to be the one to tell you, but I’m the last one with a mouth to open.”

  “Zo? Zo what?”

  “When you was gone those days, he was on top of the crew. He was good. But he knew you was alive, right?”

  “Yes.” Antonio’s voice, in one syllable, was all right angles and hard surfaces.

  “He barely breathed. Said we could mourn you for a week, then we were back to business.” Otto took out his cigarettes and turned to me. “You mind?”

  “No, go ahead.”

  Otto lit up and tossed Antonio the pack. “He put the lid on any ideas about vengeance. He was ready. Took control. Laid out a plan to continue business with no interruptions.”

  “Make your point.” Antonio lit his cigarette, tilting his head a little.

  “He likes things organized. He…” Otto dragged on his smoke. “He left. Promised himself to the Carlonis in exchange for peace. I’m sorry, boss. He sends his apologies.”

  Antonio pushed his chair out with a hard squeak and stood. “Ten minutes.”

  He stormed out the back door.

  thirty-seven.

  antonio

  hose motherfucking sons of whores. Each of them. Fuck all of them. Even Otto. Fuck him too. Fuck all of the little cowardly bastards. If I had the time, I’d stomp them from the face of the earth. Right under my shoe.

  I scraped my sole against the pavement. Tomorrow. Once I did what needed doing—retrieving Valentina and sending her home, solidifying my position—they were all going under my shoe. Simone. Enzo. I would save Lorenzo for last. He would cry for his life, that son of a motherfucker. And he had no wife. No kids. No one would miss the little bastard.

  And fuck him. He had been too ambitious from the beginning. Ready to jump in my motherfucking grave as soon as I was gone. No wonder he had a sourpuss on the minute we turned up again. He wanted to be boss? Well, he could be boss between now and when I killed his crew.

  My crew.

  I scraped again and slipped a little on a stone. The sidewalk was troubled with cracks and upended pieces. I heard the water at the end of the block, crashing constantly. I found myself at a railing overlooking the beach, the sky turning bluer, the goddamn ocean in and out same as always. Maybe I’d drown them.

  I had a pack of cigarettes that had travelled with me all the way from Tijuana. They stank, but I pulled one out and lit it, then picked a piece of tobacco from the tip of my tongue. An inadequate distraction.

  My father would never have tolerated this nonsense. If he let them live, they’d be doing it with one or two limbs less. A crew was a marriage. Worse. Better. It was a blood bond, and they were breaking it.

  The thought of it.

  I realized my fists were tight when I started pounding the railing and the vibrations rattled my knuckles. I’d lost half my crew after nearly killing Bruno Uvoli. I never knew if I’d lost them because I went off half cocked over Theresa, or because I was too soft to wipe him from the earth. Maybe neither. Maybe both. But I’d been blinded by two things: the fact that my vendetta for my sister’s rapists was satisfied, and desire for Theresa filling the place where the desire for revenge had resided.

  That moment, looking at Bruno with blood running down his face. He’d tried not to cry. I remembered that, because that was what changed me. I had no need for revenge, only a need for her. And his efforts to be tough and not cry or beg? I’d felt myself feeling pity for him, and if I hadn’t known it that night, I knew it standing by the water. She’d been chipping away at my command from day one.

  I didn’t want to kill my crew, but I felt obligated to. The weight was my anger, yes, but the need to do something about it was the burden. What if I didn’t do anything about it? What if I got angry without turning the anger into physical action? What if my anger didn’t have consequences?

  I’d be killed, for sure. I’d be weak, then dead, because a boss never forgets and only forgives for a price.

  I walked back to the house lighter but no wiser. I’d decided nothing but what not to do. The last of my crew was safe from me until I got Valentina.

  Theresa and Otto were in the front. He had his phone out, and they watched the screen. Her brow was knotted, and he was rubbing his pinkie space with his thumb. Theresa saw me when I was halfway down the block, and she ran to me, siren hair flying behind her.

  “Contessa?”

  “They’re saying you shot Paulie,” she said. “Your face is all over the news.”

  “Daniel?” I spit the name. “That motherfucker.”

  I looked at my watch but didn’t see the time. How foolish would it be to survive all this and end up in prison? I put my hands to my mouth, imagining being separated from her when we’d worked so hard to be together.

  She took my wrists. “Let me see if I can take care of it.”

  “You? Just you?”

  “You can’t go anywhere in daylight right now.”

  “Then neither can you. I never told you, there’s a quarter million out for your life.”

  “That’s it? I'm insulted.”

  “It’s not something joke about.”

  “They don’t want me. They have Valentina. It’s probably safer for me away from you.”

  She was wrong. Nothing about this world was safe whenever she was out of
my sight.

  “She’s right,” Otto interjected. “They got Tina, and they’re all holed up in Sequoia watching her.”

  “Fuck you, Otto,” I said.

  He shrugged. Somehow I’d been overruled.

  I took her in my arms and held her. My damnation and salvation. My spark of change, dragging me into the light, kicking and screaming. She took my sins and made them her own. If only I could save her before she consigned herself to hell.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll make it out.”

  I buried my nose in her hair and breathed her in. I didn’t have a plan or a crew. I had nothing. Yet I sat on a throne before a kingdom of possibilities.

  thirty-eight.

  theresa

  called Dan from Antonio’s burner and got him to meet me in a corner booth at the Nickel. At eleven in the morning, most of the red vinyl booths were empty and the tabletop jukeboxes were silent. I slid in next to Daniel, who regarded the menu as if he didn’t know he was getting the same thing he always got. BLT. Lightly toasted. Extra mayo.

  “Theresa, where have you been?”

  I propped the big plastic menu in front of me as if I didn’t know what I was ordering. Nothing. I didn’t have an appetite. “How did you get the duct tape glue off your face?”

  “Nail polish remover. Did you find Valentina?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she safe?”

  “No.” I put down the menu. I saw the TV behind the bar, and Antonio’s face on it. “We located her. We don’t have her.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Why do I see Antonio’s face on television?”

  “We’d pressured his doctors to declare him dead under the Determination of Death Act, and to be honest, your family pushed it.”

  “What? Why?”

  “He’s got a functioning heart and the same rare blood type as your brother. This turned into homicide this morning, and my staff pushed through the indictment while I was busy hanging from a ceiling.”

  I flipped the songs on the little jukebox, trying to separate my feelings from my strategy. The pink tabs flipped. I knew all the songs yet couldn’t place them. “Do you have change? I’m out.”