by Seth Eden
It felt as if I was floating higher and higher without any risk of plummeting to the ground. It invigorated me, rejuvenated me. Freed me.
I’d started to make noises deep in my throat; I hadn’t intended to, it just sort of happened. Marco had latched his mouth onto my neck, then dragged his tongue up to nibble on my earlobe. I’d never imagined that being so turned on could feel this wonderful, this liberating. His touch was pure magic, and I didn’t want it to ever end.
I couldn’t imagine it getting much better than this, but then he quickened his pace, moving his fingers more vigorously over my center. My noises went from soft moans to little cries, and he pushed one finger inside of me. My cries became longer, louder, saturated with yearning. I wasn’t even me anymore. I’d become this ball of energy, expanding out into the universe.
Then, he added a second finger at the same time as he flicked that tiny bundle of nerves with his thumb. The pleasure I’d been feeling spiked upwards and I exploded, my core contracting wildly as I keened, writhing in his arms like a woman possessed. The waves crested and crashed, one after another, until the pulsing slowed, then ebbed away.
I’d rocketed up into the atmosphere, but now I returned, coming back to earth. I opened my eyes, not remembering when I’d shut them, and found Marco cradling me in his arms. My breathing began to calm, and he pecked me on the forehead. I felt euphoric and relaxed, utterly content.
“Your turn?” I asked after a long minute. But releasing a breath that I couldn’t help notice was unsteady, he shook his head.
“This was about you, remember?”
“It could be about you, too,” I countered.
“No, we need to get you home.”
Instead of saying anything more, he held out my panties, which I shimmied in to. He helped me with my bra next, and even though this felt like some kind of weird reverse seduction, I found his solicitousness strangely sweet.
This behavior wasn’t something I’d ever heard about. A man fulfilling a woman’s physical desires without seeking his own, then being conscientious enough to make sure she’s properly dressed afterwards?
I’d heard so many stories about how men would go after theirs without thinking about the woman at all. I’d heard women complain about their boyfriends or husbands, about never being satisfied, about being pawed at but left unfulfilled. It seemed like a fairly common occurrence. And yet, that’s not what I’d experienced.
Had those women been exaggerating, or had Marco Varasso just proven himself to be the exception to the rule?
By the time I arrived home it was late, my parents already in bed asleep. Marco dropped me off again, and I’d spent the ride holding his hand in silence. He kept looking over at me, his gaze soft. I didn’t know what these looks meant, or even what I wanted them to mean. All I knew was that I was enjoying being with him in the moment.
I didn’t want to think about what the future might bring, the consequences or complexity of anything. So I didn’t. I’d stayed in my dreamy haze as he took the Ben Franklin Bridge over the Delaware, the skyline glowing brilliantly against the backdrop of the January night.
I slept in the next morning, having rested better than I had in a long time. But when I went to our small galley kitchen to scrounge up some breakfast, my brother was there in the adjacent dining area waiting on me. He wore his uniform as he sat there at our kitchen table, the navy-blue fabric still scrupulously clean even after working all night, his coat on the back of his chair.
“Mom having a bad day?” I asked him.
“Yeah. I checked on her when I got here. She was in a lot of pain so I gave her one of her pills so she could sleep.” Those pills were powerful and would likely keep her knocked out for the remainder of the day.
The first stab of guilt darted through me, just like I’d suspected it would. Instead of coming home on time, I’d spent an extra hour at work as Marco brought me all that spellbinding pleasure. And instead of waking up early like I usually did and peeking in on my mom, I’d indulged myself by sleeping late.
“Dad at work?”
“He’s not here so I assume so,” David answered, shifting his weight in the old, broken down chair. “You gonna tell me what’s going on with you?”
I sighed, knowing this had been coming. “Marco’s not who you think he is, David.”
“Marco,” he parroted back the name. “Since when are you on a first name basis with that creep?”
“He’s not a creep.”
“He’s a fucking organized crime leader, Kelly. Just below the head honcho in the chain of command. I told you about that family months ago. But instead of avoiding them, you start working for one of them?”
“He bought the place. It’s not like I sought him out.”
“But you stayed there with him without telling me. Without reporting his activities to the authorities.” He scrubbed a hand down his face.
“There have been no activities to report. He’s been a great boss. He offered me that promotion, and then he gave everyone in the place raises, raises they all desperately needed.”
“And where’d the money for those raises come from, huh? Can you tell me that?”
“It came from Organic Eats. Business has been thriving since he took over,” I told him.
“I just bet. What’s he doing? Lacing all the sandwiches with cocaine? Selling meth and heroin out the back door?”
“Of course not!”
He stood up and started to pace. “And this promotion. You’re not a server no more?”
“No, I’m the office manager now.”
“What’s he got you doing? Counting endless stacks of money and writing down your accounting in two separate ledgers?”
I turned my back on him, pretending to reach for something on top of the fridge. Yes, I was doing those things, but not for the reasons he thought. “You’re wrong about him. He’s kind and decent. He’s generous and good…”
At that, my brother laughed out loud. “Jesus, Kelly, you sound like you’ve got a crush on the son of a bitch.”
“I don’t.” But something about my answer seemed to tip David off. He stared at me, analyzing me not as my brother, but as a cop.
“Has he gotten fresh with you?”
“No.”
His face went red. “Don’t you lie to me. Has he?”
“No,” I said again, my voice high and anxious. I could never tell him what had transpired between Marco and me last night, not ever.
He snatched his coat as if to dash out the door, his hand hovering over his police revolver. “I’ll kill that bastard.”
“Stop, David! He hasn’t done anything he shouldn’t, I swear.”
He paused at the threshold, turning back to study me again. “You got with him. Of your own free will, you…” He gawked at me as if he’d never seen me before, as if he didn’t know who I was. “I can’t believe you got with a goddamn mafia thug.”
As if disoriented, my brother drifted toward the doorway, nearly banging into it. Then, he stumbled outside and into his police cruiser, leaving our apartment door wide open. Once inside, he raced off, the engine roaring and the tires squealing, and I knew no matter what, things between my brother and I would never be the same again.
14
Marco
The next day I was eager to get to the bistro. I felt this pull to be in close proximity to Kelly again. After getting home the night before, I had to spend considerable time releasing the worst of my pent-up passion in the shower. It took three full go arounds before I quit feeling keyed up enough to go to sleep.
The images from my time with her besieged my mind even then, giving me such vividly pornographic dreams I’d awakened as hard as ever. I sighed, took another shower, then headed to work.
I wondered if maybe I should’ve taken her up on her offer to reciprocate but then dismissed the idea. As a virgin, she deserved far more than hot monkey sex in some random business office. She deserved to be wined and dined. She deserved to have th
e softness of a king-sized mattress beneath her. She deserved to be worshipped like a goddess.
And she was a goddess. She had a body like a dancer, lithe and slender, but with curves just where they needed to be. The fact that she’d hidden her figure so well, especially those delectable breasts—good Christ—made seeing her au naturel that much more alluring, that much more of a reward. I couldn’t wait to do it again.
Still, I needed to take my time with her, make sure that she not only enjoyed herself, but that she also didn’t experience any discomfort. In all my time with women, I’d never deflowered one before. I needed to do this right. I needed to make this memorable for her in the best of ways. I started to develop plans for this, deciding any residual beliefs I had about staying away from her no longer applied.
Kelly Carr had officially become an addiction for me, and I needed my next fix.
I’d been there an hour when Kelly’s friend Chloe knocked on the metal casing of my open door frame. “Marco, Kelly called. She’s sick and can’t come in today.”
Worried about her, I asked, “Did she say what she had?”
“No. Just that she didn’t feel well.”
More disappointed than I cared to admit and unsatisfied by the lack of details, I said, “Okay, thanks for the message, Chloe.”
I almost left to go check on her right then. I seriously considered it. She’d discussed her homelife with me, and I knew her parents looked to her to take care of them. I understood that her mother was ill, but the thought of her always being the one to give without ever receiving anything in return rankled.
It was part of the reason I’d had no problem taking care of her last night. I hadn’t realized she was completely chaste before she’d told me, but it made sense. She’d been starved of affection, sexually and possibly just in general. I’d done what I could to remedy that at least temporarily, and if allowed additional opportunities, I’d do more. A lot more.
From what she’d told me, it sounded as if she’d been a caregiver her whole life rather than allowed to be a child. Her brother may have been in the same position but thinking about him only pissed me off. His attitude left a great deal to be desired. If Kelly hadn’t been right there, I would’ve been more than pleased to adjust it for him.
I was halfway to the exit, finally deciding I wouldn’t be able to concentrate until I went to her, when a man I’d only met in passing came sauntering through the door. Like me, he wore a suit, though his was of the three-piece variety, a long wool coat, and a Rolex, but there the similarities ended. Stocky and a head shorter, he had a chip on his shoulder the size of Mount Everest.
The last time I’d seen him he’d been subduing Alessandro before pistol-whipping him hard enough to knock him out altogether. It’d been the night his father had murdered mine. And while there was no lost love between me and Angelo, this man had some pretty big balls to strut into my place of business unannounced.
As the second son of Donovan Bianchi, we were of comparable rank. His older brother Dario would take over when Donovan died, just like Luca had taken over for our father. Not that that explained what he was doing here.
“Dante, care to step outside?”
“I’d rather stay in if it’s all the same to you, it’s cold as a witch’s teat out there.”
If this hadn’t been such a public arena, I might’ve broken his neck then and there for propriety’s sake alone. There were certain protocols among the mafia families and showing up out of the blue while refusing to let the opposing leader take the lead on the conversation was a gigantic breach. I didn’t know what Dante wanted to play at, but I didn’t like it.
“To my office, then.” The second I closed the door, I dragged him up by the lapels and threw him against it. “Give me one goddamn reason not to kill you where you stand.”
“Whoa, man, I’m not here to start trouble.” Since he didn’t seem overly panicked, I shoved my elbow into his windpipe to help make my point.
“Really? And why should I believe you?”
“Because I’m coming to you for help, Marco.”
“You’re coming to me for help?” I asked incredulously. Maybe he didn’t have big balls after all. Maybe he was simply a moron.
“Jesus H. Christ, will you let me explain? Sheesh…”
“You have thirty seconds,” I told him, and that was being remarkably generous.
“Fine. Fine. This is a you rub my back, I’ll rub yours kinda situation. I need to vanish, like permanently. Fake my own death, you know? But it has to be good. Believable. And my family can never know the truth.”
I backed up an inch. “Why do you want to fake your own death?”
“Now see, that’s my business, ain’t it? The reason I came to you, is because I’ve got something that could help you. Some intel on my family it’d be impossible to get any other way. With it, you can seize more territory, make ‘em pay for offin’ your dad, whatever.”
“And you’ll provide this if we help you fake your death?”
“No, I’ll provide it if you help me fake my death. In this scenario, it’s gotta be mano a mano. You and me only. No one else can be involved.” He was sweating and gasping, but I didn’t mind watching him suffer. Consider it a little bit of payback for my baby brother’s sake.
“You expect me to do this behind my family’s back?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ve got two words in reply: Fuck. You.”
“No, man, wait,” he entreated me, his tone beseeching. “You don’t understand. You don’t know how good this stuff is.”
“What ‘stuff?’”
“I have all sorts of stuff. Secret connections with the Philadelphia elite. Video recordings of murders being committed. Encrypted online files giving specific details on embezzled funds in million- and billion-dollar corporations. Footage of our human trafficking ring with the names of all the underage girls we’ve prostituted out. The whole enchilada.”
I curled my lip in disgust. As a Varasso, I couldn’t claim much when it came to a moral high ground, but we didn’t treat women like the Bianchis did. Women were to be loved and protected, not to be treated like meat, especially not those who basically amounted to little more than children.
I thought of my niece and her big blue eyes. I hadn’t known how to interact with her when she’d been an infant, but now that she was toddler and my burns had improved, I’d begun to play games with her on occasion. Our favorite game was hide and go seek. She might be horrible at it, but we still had fun.
Imagining the Bianchis getting their nasty clutches on her for use in such a degrading life made my stomach churn. I backed off of Dante, no longer wishing to be in contact with such a vile piece of vermin, even to choke him to death. If I’d had my Glock, I might’ve blown his head off just to be done with him.
“I’m still trying to figure out what good having such information will do me.”
“Leverage, man, leverage. You never know when something might go south without warning and you’ll need a backup plan. Or didn’t Roman Petrella teach you that?”
I stared at him.
“Yeah, see? We know all about him and his little betrayal. Information is king. It’s the true king, not my father and not your big brother. Roman got the best of your family and all of you nearly died because of it. I’m guessing you’d rather not let such a thing happen ever again.” He narrowed his eyes at my shoulders and the top of my back as if staring hard enough would let him see the damage.
Christ, this guy was a putrid piece of shit.
Unfortunately, he had a point. “So, if I do this, if I help make you disappear, you’ll provide me with this information when?”
“Once I’m gone?” he suggested. Did he think he was being funny?
“Yeah, try again.” I let how much he repulsed me seep into my voice.
“Right before I’m gone? We can work out the details to make it a safe bet for both of us. Deal?” Dante thrust out his beefy claw and I shook it, not con
cealing my scowl.
“Deal.”
Once Dante left, I went to the restroom and scrubbed my hands until they hurt. I didn’t like what he’d offered, but I couldn’t ignore that Roman had been able to blindside us because we hadn’t known enough about him. The Bianchis were one of four main families here in Philadelphia, and only they came anywhere close to the same level of power we wielded.
If they ever decided to pull a fast one, it’d be massively beneficial for me to have this rabbit to pull out of my hat. Not that I planned to keep this quiet. Luca, at least, would need to be privy to it. But I’d wait for now, see if the intel was even worth the trouble I was about to go to. If it proved to be less than what’d been advertised, only my time and minimal resources would be wasted.
I could live with that.
Part of the reason I’d agreed to this, too, had to do with what they’d done. A year ago they’d blasted into our home and killed Angelo in cold blood, and I had yet to forgive them for that. If I could make them pay, even if that payment wouldn’t come due for a while, I’d feel better.
No one should ever be allowed to make fools of the Varassos, and as much as I used to love instant gratification, delayed gratification had its charms, too. Maybe revenge really would be a dish best served cold.
With that unexpected interruption over with, I departed the bistro and went to a local grocery store. I collected a bouquet full of daisies, roses, and carnations, two large cans of chicken noodle soup, a two liter of ginger ale, and a box of saltine crackers.
Time to pay Kelly a visit.
15
Kelly
I was pathetic, and I knew it. But I couldn’t face the outside world—Marco, in particular—after the way David had looked at me. For half an hour’s worth of pleasure, I’d traded my brother’s respect and then neglected the care of my mom. I felt like the worst sister and daughter on the planet.
So now, I sat by my mother’s bedside, waiting for her to wake up.