by Coco Miller
My mother is silent for a moment, then she finally speaks.
“Yes, he is. I’m sorry I never told you.” I can hear the tears in her voice. “It’s just–”
“Mom, it’s ok. I just needed to know the truth and I think I know why you didn’t tell me. I can’t come see you for a bit for reasons I’ll explain later, but I will be there soon.”
I speak with her nurse after chatting with my mother for a few more minutes. Everything at the hospital is normal, nothing crazy going on there, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
She’s safe.
But what about me?
Chapter Eight
Kelly
Hours later it seems as if Giovanni has finally finished holding court or whatever it is he was doing in the other room. The men who he met with seem calmer which means that the women are happier too. Now it’s time for dinner.
Boy, do these people love to eat.
The “family” laughs and chatters around me while dinner is being served. Giovanni sits next to me at the head of the table staring intently at me as Aurora piles my plate with fresh pasta and rolls. I’m going to gain ten pounds before this so-called abduction is over.
“Smells good, right?” she leans over and asks.
“It looks and smells amazing.” I smile. “Did you make any of it?”
“Yep, the sauce. It’s an old family recipe.”
Giovanni raises his glass and the whole table quiets down to listen. My heart picks up as I watch his smile come to life when our eyes meet.
“I just want to say a few words,” he starts. “I know today has been tough, and this was very unexpected but thank you to everyone for having my back. For believing that I didn’t have anything to do with whatever is going on. We’ll get through this, just like we have in the past, and we will because we stick together. That’s what family is all about.”
I find it completely ironic that the family Giovanni speaks of sticking together is or rather was headed by the infamous Henry aka my father.
“Cheers,” some scary dude named Dean says, raising his glass.
We all salute Giovanni and I take a sip of the wine in my glass. His eyes never stray from mine as he takes a sip of his red wine. It’s as if a silent communication passes between us, and strangely enough I want more than anything to have his strong arms wrapped around me.
I break the stare and focus on the meal in front of me. I need to keep my emotions in check. The sex was probably a one time thing between us the other night. I need to stop romantisizing it. He is just a man doing his job. I am just a woman who wants to get back to her old life. Our lives are moving in completely different directions.
“It’s delicious,” I say to Aurora after taking a bite.
She smiles. “I know.”
Her eyes meet Dean’s from across the table and she blushes.
“Is he your husband?” I ask with a whisper.
“He should be.”
“So you have a thing for him?” I whisper. Not understanding why if she does because from what I can tell, Dean looks like a very scary man.
She sets her fork done and leans closer. “It’s the black as coal eyes, they haunt my dreams.”
“He looks like he wants to kill me...or you...or both of us.”
She laughs and I don’t because I’m not kidding. “He’s not that bad, trust me.”
Trust.
That’s a word which has been thrown around for the last few days as if it’s such an easy thing to do. Am I attracted to Giovanni? Yes. Do I wish he would touch me again? Yep. But that doesn’t mean I trust him much less anyone else in this room.
I observe everyone and everything as I quietly eat my dinner. As I sit here it’s like I’m literally in the middle of a mafia movie. I take small cautious bites as everyone laughs with each other over menial things. Football. Cars. Weather. The women talk to each other about shoes and the trouble they’re having finding a good person to paint their homes. One person passes me the grated parmesean cheese. Another offers me another glass of red wine. It confuses me. I am a source of trouble to these people, yet they don’t seem to regard me as one. Instead they treat me like an equal. Well, except for the small group of women who cast a few nasty looks my way.
Giovanni has pretty much been staring at me throughout this entire meal. His foot travels up the back of my leg, and my eyes shoot to his. Smoldering, he smiles slightly. Tingles race through me as he continues his foot’s path up my leg.
I kick him away when he moves over to my other foot, and step on it slightly, his face lighting up like we’re doing something naughty. It makes my face light up just knowing we are sharing something no one else is privy to.
When dinner is over we move into the large formal living room. This house is amazing. All dark woods and old world decor. My mother would love this house. I wonder who it belongs to? Is it Giovanni’s? Is it Henry’s?
He sits down next to me on a small loveseat, and his hand lands on my thigh. Comfort tumbles through me as he smiles down on me. The room watches as my insides melt, and I can’t help but feel giddy to just have him close to me.
“Are you finally going to tell me what’s going?” I lean over and whisper.
“Soon.”
One of the men in the room launches into a story about when the health inspector came and shut down his restaurant. The man is tall and well-built and holds everyone’s attention as he speaks. He seems to be around the same age as Giovanni, and very animated when he speaks.
“I had half a mind to kick her out of the restaurant, old-school style,” he says, laughing.
The room laughs with him and I offer up a small smile. I don’t know what old-school style is, but I’m pretty sure it’s bad. My chest tightens slightly and that’s when it hits me. Men I used to have nightmares about are sitting right in this room laughing and everyone is acting like it’s perfectly normal.
My eyes meet Aurora’s from across the room and she smiles, then nods her head for me to follow.
“I’ll be right back,” I whisper to Giovanni.
He removes his hand from my thigh as I get up. I excuse myself and together Aurora and I step outside.
“You looked like you could use a breather,” she takes a big breath of the cool summer night air, “they’re a lot to handle.”
We move over to sit on the concrete steps leading up to the front door.
“It’s not totally that. It’s just that I feel kind of weird being here. I mean Giovanni kidnapped me for Henry but Henry’s gone so...”
“You want to leave?” she asks.
“Well, I’m not sure. Is it safe for me to leave?”
“Have you and Giovanni discussed this at all?”
“No, he won’t discuss anything with me.”
She stands. “Come on.”
I follow her inside and she’s a woman on a mission. She steps inside the living room, and points a finger at Giovanni. “You, outside.” She gives a little flick of her wrist, and Giovanni excuses himself from the group.
When we’re outside, Aurora turns on him. “Are you holding her hostage or something?”
“Ah fuck, Aurora,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “You know the drill. What else am I supposed to do with her at this point?”
“You could have asked her if she wanted to go home,” Aurora says.
“Well, I didn’t.” His brow scrunches together and he rolls his shoulders. “I did what I had to do.”
“Wow. I’m sorry, Kelly,” she says, apologetically. “I thought I raised him better than this.”
“Aurora–” Giovanni starts.
“Once you knew what was going down with Henry you should have told her and given her the option to go home. We don’t kidnap innocent people, Giovanni.”
“Well I didn’t give her any options, so what are y’all going do about it? Fight me?”
Aurora takes me back inside, and we head upstairs to a different room.
“He’s ac
ting like a brat. He acts like he has no heart and that he’s so tough, when actually he’s just a big butterfly inside. Trust me. I bet if you demanded to go home and see your mama, he’d drive you himself.”
I’m not so sure about that.
“So you said back there that you raised Giovanni? How’s that?”
“Yes, me and Darlene did. We raised all the boys that Henry would bring in off the streets.”
“Are you and I related? Are you Henry’s sister or something?”
“No,” she giggles. “I’m no relation to Henry. We’ve been friends since we were kids. I watched him become a Don. He’s always looked out for me, and I look out for him.”
“Are you surprised that he’s double-crossed everyone like this?”
She takes a moment to answer.
“I’m not sure that he has.”
Oh, so she’s just delusional.
“So is this your bedroom?” I ask.
“When I stay here this is the room I use. I don’t live here though.”
“Oh.” I walk around, glancing at all the roses and angels around the room. Little glass figurines of Michelangelo angels, and paintings.
“The room looks exactly the same as it did twenty-five years ago,” she states, picking up a little teddy bear with a rose.
“It’s nice.” I plop on the bed, my feet dangling close to the ground.
She doesn’t say anything for a long time, and I work up the courage to ask about the ladies who hate me downstairs.
“Can I ask you about Gia and Jenny? What’s their deal?”
She rolls her eyes. “Friends of Darlene’s. She always invites them. If they can land a man in the family they will officially be locked in.” She waggles her brows. “So I think she’s trying to marry them off to anyone who’ll have them.”
I sigh. “Like Giovanni?”
“Oh please, she should know better. They should too.” She hits me with a hard stare. “Giovanni doesn’t date anyone.”
“Ever?”
She picked up a strand of my hair and wiggled it. “Isn’t it pretty obvious?”
I hold my breath.
“I don’t know what you did to him in like twenty-four hours, but that man’s heart beats for you.” She drops my hair and stands. “I only hope one day I find someone like that. Someone that will claim me in front of a room full of people for everyone to see.”
“Well, it’s probably not Dean,” I say hoping to warn her away from the mean looking man. I like Aurora and I think she should be with someone who’s going to be nice to her.
“Not everything is as it seems. He may be a little rough around the edges, but he’s pretty great.”
I guess. Different strokes for different folks.
We settle in, talking about nothing really when she yawns.
“I guess I should get heading downstairs,” I say. “And finding Giovanni for that talk.”
Aurora and I have been talking quite a while, and somewhere along the way I lost track of time.
“Kelly, I’m sorry about everything that’s happened to you. You got a raw deal. But, there’s a reason why Giovanni is holding on so tightly to you, and I don’t think it’s just because you were an assignment.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I stand off the bed, and walk toward the door. “Get some rest. Dinner was great.”
She smiles wide.
“Wait until you eat my Italian breakfast.”
Chapter Nine
Giovanni
Kelly has been with the woman who is like a mother to me, Aurora, all night. I head up the stairs to find her and you want to hear something crazy? I can actually picture a life here with Kelly.
I’m hoping tonight that Kelly has seen a peek of what it is like here. What my family is like. And I hope that my family has seen past what Henry ordered me to do. I hope that they can just see her the way that I do.
Beautiful. Smart. Gentle. Funny. And not as a helpless prisoner. Which let’s face it, you and I both know, she was never that.
Dean stops me before I get very far up the stairway. Dean one of the top people in the family who does body work which means that he gets rid of the bodies that we never want to see again.
He and I have a complicated relationship. He never liked that I was Henry’s right hand for all of the obvious reasons. I’m not a blood relation. He thinks I’m too young. He definitely thinks I’m too ambitious. But I have to give him respect because of his position in the family and his age.
“Are you going to tell her how you feel?”
I play dumb, my patience thinning. “Tell who what?”
“Don’t be an ass. The girl– Kelly.”
“And how’s that?” Him and I walk off to one of the Capo’s offices on the second floor.
“You fucked up and played your hand in front of everyone all night. You care about her.”
I shut the door, and glance around the room. I haven’t been in here since our Capo Jack was sent up the river six months ago. Everything is still in its place as if he never left. The large oak desk at the far end of the wall, overlooking his plush landscape. The top of the desk is cleaner than how he used to leave it. The papers and files are long gone, most shreddded, or packed away. His computer gone, packed away for evidence by the district attorney, but the room still holds that Jack charm.
Dean heads over to the desk, spinning the globe sitting on top.
“So what if I do?”
“It’s a problem.”
“Of course it would be.”
“Not would be, but rather it is. You should tell her so she knows what to expect.”
I slink into the leather couch, and rub my eyes with both palms. “For your information, I don’t care about her. I’ve known her for like what? Ten seconds?”
He raises a brow.
“You know I don’t have time for romance. I barely have time to get my dick wet by the girls at the club,” I say, tossing my head back on the fine leather.
Dean props himself on the edge of the desk, crossing his inked arms over his broad chest.
“You’re lying to yourself.”
“What do you care?” I ask.
“I don’t. Not at all. In fact, I was thinking about taking her for myself.” He stands. “Where is she?”
“You’re too old for her,” I scoff.
“There’s no pussy too young for me.”
“You like Aurora!”
“Who the fuck told you that? I want that young pussy with Henry’s bloodline. That will do me just right.”
I sit up, hitting him with a stare. “Don’t you even fucking think about it.”
He chuckles, sitting back on the edge of the oak. “That’s what I thought.”
Dammit, he was bluffing.
“Listen, I’m having fun with her while I’ve got her. I’m just keeping her until we figure out what the old man is up to. I still think it’s possible that this is an actual war and that Henry didn’t double cross us, but until I know for sure I’m going to keep her safe from whoever. In a few weeks time it won’t matter, because she’ll be gone.”
“You’re setting yourself up for a massive heartbreak,” he says in a low voice.
“Good thing I don’t have a heart.”
He shakes his head and walks out of the room, and my gaze follows him. He knows better than to seek Kelly out but I follow him just the same.
When he turns towards the opposite direction I blow out a breath. Fuck.
When I step full out into the hallway, Kelly is there.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hi.”
Why is everything so hard? Why can’t I just say and do what I want with her without considering everyone else’s opinions and reactions? Life in the familia is never easy though. I know this.
I nod my head in the direction of my room, and together we make our way through the double doors.
“So, I’m not really in danger am I?” she asks furiously before I’ve even shut both doors.
“Kelly, please.” I yank at the tie around my neck, wanting this tight-collared shirt off immediately.
“Oh, no questions, right?” She moves closer. “What if I scream?”
I shrug. “You’re not going to.”
“You don’t know that.”
I hold the tie in my hand, and inch closer. “Maybe I’ll just have to gag you.”
Her eyes widen. “What if I try to run away?”
“Then I’ll tie you up.”
Her eyes light up just a tinge and she backs slowly away. She takes off for the other side of the room, and I take off after her.
I catch her, wrap my arms around her, and get to work with the tie in my hands. Her wrists are bound to each other in a second, and she tries to wiggle free from the hold I have on her.
I fling her on the bed. “You’re not going anywhere.” I unbutton my shirt, taking my time as I watch the rise and fall of her chest.
Her dress is a button down, and her hands are tied behind her back with my red tie.
My shoes come off with each step I stalk closer.
I kiss her, like my life depends on it, making sure she knows who she belongs to. I kiss her because there’s no one on this earth I’d rather kiss more than her.
I flick the nipple of her right breast with my tongue then bite gently down on it. Then I do the same to the other breast, checking with my fingers to see how wet she is.
“You’re drenched for me, baby. I can’t wait to eat this pussy.”
We move together, me sucking and kissing, and she moaning and trembling, as I touch her in places she’s most likely never been touched before. I claim parts of her that I know have never been claimed before, and it makes me hot with pride.
I slide the tip of my finger inside of her ass as she rides my tongue. The deeper I push, the higher her hips lift, the more of her I devour.
I release her arms from the tie so that I can feel them around me. I want to feel her everywhere. She clings to me like she never wants me to let her go, and honestly I don’t think I want her to.