by Zoey Parker
Gio reached out and grabbed a handful of her hair, pulling her head back. She cried out, her eyes glassy with fright. He remembered the unsatisfying encounter with that girl Katie after his party and felt true happiness bloom in the pit of his stomach. At last, he was feared again, an inflictor of pain, and all was right in his world.
“Now let's get a few things straight,” Gio hissed into her ear. “First of all, you ain't smarter than me, so if you're thinking you're gonna figure a way out of this, you can put that out of your empty little head right now. From this point forward, you belong to me. Get used to it.
“Second,” he continued, “how I'm gonna play the whole picture thing is my problem. Your only problem is showing up at my place tomorrow at eleven, or else your whole career's gonna go down the toilet. You're gonna be clickbait, understand? You're gonna be the world's most embarrassing federal agent. And it won't matter where you move, or how far. Any time you go to the grocery store, any time you get gas for your car, any time you so much as walk outta your house to grab the paper from your front lawn...that's a day you're gonna have to ask yourself if someone's gonna recognize you, and if that someone's gonna be a gangster who wants to make his bones that day by whacking Carla the Topless Fed. Nod if you fucking understand me.”
Carla nodded, tears glistening in her eyes.
“Good.” Gio let go of her hair. “Tomorrow. Eleven o'clock. Wear a suit and don't be late. Oh, and no more guns, understand? I'm gonna start frisking you randomly when we're together, and if I ever find so much as a sharp nail file in your purse, I'm gonna use it on you and you ain't gonna like how I do it.”
Gio got up and left the room. As he headed for the kitchen door, he heard Carla sobbing behind him. Smiling, he picked up the tool kit and walked out, letting the back door slam.
He strolled back to his car, whistling to himself. He felt exhilarated, as though he'd boarded a rollercoaster he'd never been on before and it was making its first ascent. He knew it would be tricky and dangerous to blackmail her like this, and part of his mind insisted that he was being foolish, that he should just walk back in and shoot her twice in the head before this went any further. But instead, he kept moving forward until he reached the block where he'd parked his 'Vette.
Bandana and his friends were still hanging out on the street corner.
“Don't you have a home to go to?” Gio called out.
Bandana gestured to the corner. “You're lookin' at it, homie.” He saw that Gio was carrying the tool kit, but nothing else. “What, you didn't find nothin' worth takin' in that house? No TV, stereo, nothin' like that?”
“I found something much more valuable than any of that shit,” Gio smirked.
“Oh yeah? Feel like sharin'?”
“No fucking way,” Gio replied, unlocking his car and getting in.
“Yo, hold up!” Bandana said, trotting over to the Corvette. “I figure maybe a guy like you might wanna party, right? Check it, I got rock, I got weed, I got H, whatever you need, man. Competitive prices an' shit, too.”
Gio laughed. “Hey, can't you tell? I'm high on life!”
He put the car in drive and pulled away. He was still laughing when he pulled onto Lake Shore Drive, thinking of the fun that awaited him the next night.
Chapter 14
Carla
Carla sat up in bed for the rest of the night, hugging her knees to her chest. Her thoughts whirled and flapped inside her skull in a frantic cloud, like a flock of trapped sparrows.
Don was right. She'd been foolish to think of Gio as anything other than what his actions had proven him to be—a savage, black-hearted predator. She'd thought that trying to understand and even empathize with her target would make her a better and more effective undercover agent.
Instead, all it had made her was a bigger sucker. And now she was about to pay a horrible price for it.
She thought about Don's offer to pull her out. Earlier tonight, she'd refused without a moment's hesitation, but now that everything seemed to have blown up in her face, it seemed like the only decision that made sense. She'd been compromised in the clearest and most absolute sense of the word, and when agents got compromised, they got extracted, period.
It would represent a major setback in the case, certainly, and it might take months or even years for another agent to get this close to the Mancinis again after they'd uncovered two agents hiding in their ranks in one year. But the FBI valued its people too much to leave them in danger once they were at risk of discovery.
What's more, Carla doubted Gio's claim that he'd find a way to make her photo go viral without somehow implicating himself as a made guy who knew about a rat in the Mancinis' midst and didn't report it to his father.
But she found that no matter how much she doubted it, she was still terrified of it. What if he had some plan she couldn't guess at because she wasn't thinking clearly? What if there were angles she wasn't considering, and they ended up with her as a meme while Gio got away with it?
Her thoughts kept returning to Patricia Kurtz. Patty'd once had a moment just like this one, when she had to decide between compromising her own values—and the strict policies of the Bureau—or leaving her job undone. Carla tried to think of what it must have been like for Patty to climb into the filthy bed of a pickup truck with that sweaty coyote and submit to him when every fiber of her being must have screamed for her to just walk away and let someone else bring down her intended target.
But instead, all Carla could think of was how good it must have felt to bring down such a vile and far-reaching human trafficking operation—one that had resulted in hundreds of immigrants baking to death, suffocating, or dying of starvation and thirst while locked in the backs of trucks during their trips across the border. Carla thought about how triumphant Patty must have felt, knowing that no matter what happened to her after that, she was personally responsible for ridding the world of a monster who preyed on the weak and desperate.
It was a rotten choice: Risk humiliation and degradation among her peers by not showing up at 11:00 tomorrow, or do it and risk the same things anyway if she managed to bring Gio down and people found out she'd done it by giving in to his violent perversions.
So if both options put her at risk, she reasoned, why not at least try to see this mission through to the end? Why not do what she could to bring down Gio and the rest of the Mancinis in the process?
If this blackmail scenario Gio cooked up had demonstrated anything, it was that he had a tremendous amount of pride. Instead of just telling Mario about her, he felt like he could somehow control this situation to get what he wanted from her. Carla knew she might be able to find a way to exploit that.
Maybe I can even find a way to make sure this ends with Gio dead, she thought. If I manage to take down the whole Mancini family and I have to claim Gio's death was a clear case of “him or me,” who'd question that?
But she'd have to go along with it at first.
And she knew that based on Gio's probable plans for her, there'd be no place for her to hide a gun, at least in the beginning.
Carla thought about how it would feel to be tied up or handcuffed by Gio and forced to cater to his every desire. She got out of bed and went to the kitchen, tempted to pick up the phone and tell Don to call the whole thing off.
Then she thought about how it would feel to return to her desk at the field office in disgrace, feeling her male co-workers' eyes judging her and hearing them whisper to each other about how she'd failed when a man would have succeeded.
She left the phone where it was.
As the first pale rays of sunlight crept in through the windows, Carla went to the closet, and started looking at her pantsuits as she considered the best one to wear tonight.
This one's for you, Patty, she thought. Because no matter what happened or where you ended up, you're still a hero in my book and you always will be. If the men you worked with were too stupid to see that you did the right thing and reward you for it, well, then
it's up to gals like us to save the world in spite of them.
Chapter 15
Carla
Carla parked her car in front of Gio's house and checked the time on her cell phone with a trembling hand.
It was exactly three minutes to eleven.
Carla had left early to make sure she arrived on time. She didn't necessarily think that Gio would pull the lever on his plan to publicly humiliate her exactly at eleven—she was fairly certain that his overconfidence and his need to possess her would make him wait a while longer, certain that she'd show up anyway.
She also knew she couldn't be sure of his behavior, which meant she couldn't afford to take that chance. She'd spent enough time with Gio to see that he had the quick temper and whims of a spoiled child, and now that he had the upper hand, it would be a mistake to provoke him.
But despite Carla's careful preparation, she still managed to hit unexpected traffic on Lake Shore thanks to a five-car accident. The police and emergency vehicles had blocked off all but two lanes of the expressway, and they were conducting cars through at a maddeningly slow pace. As Carla edged her car forward a few inches at a time, she felt her nerves being shredded with each passing minute and cursed herself for not leaving even earlier.
Now she was at Gio's place with minutes to spare, and she still had to will her hand to open the car door.
In all the months she'd spent listening to the Mancinis' taped conversations, she'd heard many rumors and wild speculations about the things Gio did with his women, but nothing solid or confirmed. Earlier that evening, she'd visited dozens of websites about S&M dungeons and practices to try to determine what she should expect, but each one seemed completely different from the others in terms of rules and fetishes and equipment.
Some had been oddly compelling, while others were downright nightmarish. Some spoke of trust and boundaries, while others seemed focused on pushing things as far as they could go short of committing actual rape and/or murder.
And for all she knew, Gio's style of “play” would conform to none of these. It could be a macabre symphony of torture and mutilation that followed no rules but his own.
She forced herself to get out of the car. When she commanded her legs to walk toward the front door, they seemed stiff and numb beneath her, as though they belonged to someone else. Each time one of her high heels came down on the driveway, the sound seemed as loud as a cannon blast, echoing and ringing in her ears.
Halfway up the driveway, her legs suddenly stopped, and she felt like she might throw up, run away, or both. She squeezed her eyes shut and pushed these feelings out of her. Then she opened them, took a deep breath, and kept walking.
When she got to the door, she rapped on it gently, almost hoping Gio wouldn't hear her. But a moment later, he opened the door, frowning at her. He wore a black silk shirt with light gray trousers, and he was in the process of tying his tie.
“You're early,” Gio observed testily. “By almost a whole minute.”
Carla's mouth fell open. That was the last thing she'd expected him to say. She stammered, “Uh, I didn't think...”
“Don't talk back to me,” Gio snapped, finishing his tie. “Get in here.”
Carla walked in and Gio stepped around her, slamming the door hard. Carla found herself wondering whether it would be one of the last sounds she'd ever hear, and a deep shiver overtook her body.
This is stupid, her frightened mind yammered. This is so stupid. I can't believe I've put myself in this position. This isn't a game. He's murdered people. He'll probably murder me when he's done cutting and electrocuting and violating me. I'm going to spend the final moments of my life begging for death and I walked myself right into it, stupid, stupid, stupid...
“And no, you did try to think, which is the problem,” Gio continued coldly. “You thought that even though I said eleven, you could get here before then and everything would be fine. But when I say eleven, I mean eleven. Not a minute before. Not a minute after. From now on, you don't get to think for yourself. You simply do what I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it, period. No hesitation, no interpretation. My word is your law. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Carla said, looking into his brown eyes with what she hoped was an expression of submission and awe.
“Yes what?” he prompted, his body tensing.
Carla instinctively knew that he was getting ready to hit her, and she felt her gut clench. The websites she'd visited had no consistency when it came to what subs were supposed to call their Doms. Even though he'd just commanded her not to think for herself, she knew she had to come up with the right name to call him. “Sir?” No, that seemed too formal and businesslike for someone like Gio. “Daddy?” Somehow, given his issues with his father, she felt certain it would turn him off. Which only left...
“Yes, Master,” Carla said in a low voice.
Gio nodded, satisfied. “Good. Now lower your eyes, and keep them low. You're not allowed to look me in the eyes until I tell you to.”
“Yes, Master,” she said again, her eyes flicking downward.
“I like your suit,” Gio said. “You look like a birthday present just waiting to be unwrapped. Go to the stairs and walk up ahead of me.”
“Yes, Master,” she said a third time. The words had been almost comically strange to her at first, but she found that they were already starting to come to her more easily. They almost seemed like a mantra—their meaning was less important than their sound.
Carla walked up the stairs. She hurried at first, assuming he'd punish her if she dawdled. But after the first few steps, she suddenly felt the palm of his hand smack against her bottom hard, the sound ringing out like the crack of a whip.
She gasped, more from surprise than pain, though a warm ache was already starting to spread across her buttock.
“Slowly,” Gio said loudly. “And move your hips from side to side as you do it. I want to watch your tight little ass as we go up.”
Carla obeyed him, sashaying her hips back and forth with each step like the swinging pendulum of a clock. It wasn't the first time she'd been able to feel his eyes on her ass, but now his gaze was so intense that it almost seemed to burn into her.
She reached the second floor and stopped at the landing. As she did, she tried to sneak a look around her, to see if she could see into any rooms or observe any details that might give her an advantage over Gio. But all the doors were closed, except for one with another set of stairs beyond it.
Carla felt Gio's hand smack against the other side of her bottom this time, and she gasped again. Thin red lines of pain branched across her buttocks like creeping ivy.
“I didn't say you could stop,” Gio snarled. “Up those steps. Now.”
And if I had just gone for that second set of steps, he'd punish me for doing it before he told me to, Carla thought to herself grimly. He's going to find reasons to hurt me no matter what I do or how much I try to follow his rules.
She shuddered, again contemplating the possibility that she might die in this place.
“Yes, Master,” Carla said, walking up the second set of stairs.
When she got to the top and stole a glance around, she saw that she was in a dimly-lit attic. Many pieces of mysterious-looking furniture stood around her, and there were wall-mounted racks and standing glass cases filled with sex toys. She recognized a few of the implements from her research online earlier, but others were unfamiliar, and she could only imagine their sinister purposes.
What scared her the most, though, was the thick gray corrugated padding on the walls. It looked like a series of egg boxes, and with a sinking feeling, she realized the room was soundproofed.
She heard Gio approaching the top of the steps behind her and she stepped forward so he'd be able to enter the room.
“You can scream as loud as you want in here,” Gio sneered, as though he'd noticed her looking at the walls. “No one's going to hear you.”
As she listened to Gio's voice, Carla realized
that ever since she'd arrived at his house, he'd been speaking in a tone that was quite different from his usual one. In the normal context of their relationship—a young mobster and his lawyer—he tended to affect a more traditional Italian-American patter like tough guys in gangster movies, littered with “gonnas,” “ain'ts,” and double-negatives. But now that he was in his own private space, his speech patterns were more clipped and precise. She wondered if this was subconscious on his part, or if he knew that he had to show different personas based on who he was around and what was expected of him.
She thought about how many versions of himself Gio felt he had to show the world, and whether any of them even came close to resembling his true self, or if he even knew what that was. If she hadn't been so immediately fearful for her own life, Carla thought she might have pitied him again in this moment.