“What do you mean?”
She sat up so she could look him in the eye. “You see yourself as a shark, and I get that. I see the way people fear you. I used to feel it myself. It’s your job, and more than that, it’s the way you protect yourself. But I think you’re more like ... a killer whale.”
He laughed and asked again, “What do you mean?”
Now that the metaphor had occurred to her, Billy saw how perfectly it fit. “An apex predator. Totally dangerous. But warm-blooded and playful. Family-oriented. You take care of the people you love. The things you do that are violent or dangerous, you don’t do them just to be bad or mean. You have solid reasons, and you’re sorry for your mistakes. You regret when people get hurt who shouldn’t. That means you see more than just sharks and food. You see family and friends. People have value to you even if they’re not as strong as you are. You love. That’s who you are. That’s who I fell in love with. And I really saw it with Brandon, completely unreserved. Somebody you can be totally at ease with. All a baby needs is love, and yours was right there for him to have.”
As she said the last words, her throat tightened with surprise tears, and she cleared her throat. “So do I want kids? Today, watching you with Brandon, I felt that urge for the first time. So, yeah, maybe we could do that. Someday. If you want kids. Do you?”
“I always said no. I don’t want to be a dad like my old man. Bill, I love how you see me, and I hope that’s who I am, but there’s dark shit in my head. You’ve seen it. I’d kill myself if I ever hurt my own kid. I mean it—I’d go out on the water and eat my fucking gun.”
“Then we won’t. I’m good with that, too.”
“But I don’t know anymore. Holding Brandon—you know, he’s the first baby I ever held. It feels ... good. I don’t know how to explain, but it feels good. Really fucking good.”
Billy smiled and reclaimed her place on his chest. “Maybe your sister will let us borrow her baby from time to time, and we can practice. Do a couple trial runs.”
“Maybe. Or we could get a puppy.”
Laughing, she slapped his firm belly. “If you think puppies and babies are the same, we’ve got a lot of work to do before we’re ready.”
He rolled and put her on her back. “I’m all for lots of practice.”
His lips brushed hers but didn’t stay. Instead, gently, lavishly, he traced a path to her chin and along her jaw, flicking his tongue over that angle and up to her ear.
He traced the shape of her ear, still soft and slow, and whispered, “I want everything with you, Billy. Everything.”
It was his tone as much as his words that filled her and made her flutter. How could she doubt that they were right, when there was this between them? They understood each other. Focused each other. Framed the world for each other. They made each other better. Nothing else mattered.
When his head ducked lower, and he sucked her nipple into his mouth, Billy arched her body up, coiled her arms and legs around him, and gave herself up to him. To them.
~oOo~
Cain reached into his black leather coat and brought out a small box wrapped in red foil paper. He pushed it across the table.
“Merry Christmas, baby girl.”
Billy left her hands in her lap and stared at the gift. Her father hadn’t given her a Christmas gift in years. Since she was a kid.
For most of the fall, they’d seen each other regularly, but only for these simple lunches, always at the same place, a little diner just outside the Cove, and usually even the same booth. He’d gone away for a few weeks in November and December, when he’d gotten a gig filling in for an old friend who’d gotten sick. He’d told her he was going, and when he’d be back, but Billy had figured she’d seen the last of Cain for a while.
Then he’d come back on the exact day he’d said he would. And here they were, a few days before Christmas, back at their usual booth.
She wasn’t spending Christmas with her family this year. Her mother was fully assimilated into the Bradford collective, and Billy was in full rebellion against her controlling asshole uncles—though it would have been cool to bring a Mafia enforcer to Aunt Madeline’s table. There weren’t enough pearls in the world for all the clutching that would have happened.
Honestly, she was enjoying the scandal. Billy was the first to make a clear break from the Bradfords and demand they accept her as she was or fuck off. They didn’t know what to do with her, but they’d given up trying to force her to fall in line, and that meant she’d won. Her Christmas with her mom would be limited this year to the day they’d spent shopping in Boston, and she was fine with that. Her mom was less fine with it, but such were the wages of not having your daughter’s back.
She and Tony were spending Christmas Eve at Nick and Bev’s house. They threw a big dinner party for family and close friends and valued associates. It was a huge deal, apparently, that Tony and Billy had been invited.
It was also a huge deal, apparently, that the party was being thrown at all. A few months ago, people had tried to kill Nick and had almost succeeded. He’d spent a long time recovering, and there had been rumors that he wasn’t strong enough to be don anymore. But he was fully recovered and back in charge of his empire.
A lot of the events of that night in July were a blur of noise and fear and blood. Billy remembered few clear details. But she knew Tony was instrumental in keeping Nick, and almost everybody else in their party, and most of the people in the restaurant, alive. Nick clearly knew it, too. So they’d been invited to the Pagano Christmas dinner.
On Christmas Day, they were going to Tony’s other family.
As for Cain, Billy hadn’t spent a Christmas with him since she was a kid, and she hadn’t expected him to be around, so he hadn’t factored into her plans at all.
“I don’t have a gift for you,” she said, finishing the sentence in her mind: because I didn’t think I’d see you.
“Didn’t think you would.” He gave the box another little push toward her. “It’s not much, Billy. Just a little somethin’ because I love you.”
She picked up the box and unwrapped it, taking her time, pulling the taped ends open first, then the seam at the bottom, and then unfolding the paper. The box was black cardboard, typical for costume jewelry. She lifted the lid. Bedded on a square of cotton was a silver guitar pick, made into a pendant on a black leather cord.
Engraved on the pick were the words You’re the most beautiful music I ever made.
“Thank you,” she said, and lifted the pick from the box.
“Don’t feel like you gotta wear it, or even like it. I just ... wanted you to have it.”
“I do like it.” She did, though her feelings were a muddle, tangling and seeking. Gestures like this from her father always brought turmoil to her heart and mind.
She put the cord around her neck. “I really do like it.”
“What it says on it, I mean that. Sometimes I think you’re the only right thing I’ve ever done in my life. I’ve been a shitty father, and I was a worse husband, but Allie and me, we made a great kid. You are a star, Billy. You’re ... you fit so good in your skin. You’re strong. You take risks and learn, and you do better. You know who you are, and you own it. I never had that. I only know who I wish I was.”
“And who’s that?”
He stared at what remained of his club sandwich. “Somebody who deserves to be your dad.”
In the midst of her muddled emotions was one constant, a steady pulse that had never weakened. It was the source of most of her deepest hurts and many of her brightest joys. It was this plain fact: she loved her father.
Now, she reached across the table and folded her hand around his. A cacophony of words clamored to be said, but none of them was right. So she didn’t speak. After a moment, her father set his other hand over hers, and they sat like that and let touch say what they could not.
~oOo~
Out on the sidewalk, bundled up against a blustery cold, Billy gave her fa
ther a gift after all. When they said goodbye and he leaned in to kiss her cheek, she wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered, “Merry Christmas, Dad.”
~oOo~
On Christmas morning, Tony and Billy woke too hung over for their usual morning sexcapades. There wasn’t much left of the morning, anyway, and they had to get to his folks’ place by noon. Sheryl had her first grandchild, and though Brandon was barely old enough to hold his head up, she was rabidly excited for his first Christmas.
Tony gave her a drowsy, dry-mouth kiss, rolled out of bed, and reeled to the bathroom. When Billy heard the shower start, she forced herself upright and went into the kitchen to start some coffee.
On the counter was one of the baskets of fresh-baked delights Amir had made and given as a gifts. Billy plucked a loaf of cinnamon-raisin bread and sliced off a couple slabs for the toaster.
She was pouring coffee when Tony came into the kitchen, smelling fresh and feeling warm. He stood behind her, set his hands on her hips and kissed her shoulder. The softly curling ends of his wet hair brushed her cheek.
“Buon Natale,” he murmured against her skin.
“Merry Christmas.” She tipped her head to rest on his. “You feel better?”
“Yep. You?”
“I will with some coffee and sugar. I’m hooking you up, too.”
He kissed her shoulder again. “I like how you take care of me.”
The toaster dinged. While Billy went to claim the bread, Tony took his cup and sat at the counter.
Over these months living together, they’d established a comfortable, intimate way to be. Their styles meshed, their habits, their tastes, everything. Even their personalities synced well, and Billy would not have believed that to be true when she’d first met him. When she’d thought him a bully. A bad guy. A bad man.
Tony was much deeper than he seemed. On the surface, he definitely was a bully, a bad guy, but that was just crust. A protective layer, like Kevlar. It was strong, seemingly impenetrable, and he’d made a career out of being that guy. It was easy to think of him as nothing more than a henchman. It was easy to be afraid of him.
Underneath that hard shield, though, was a vulnerable man who grappled with himself and the world. He was a man forged in pain and abuse, swirled with love and care, and those contradictions made him wary. But he could love, and when he did, he gave everything he had. He was a good man.
He’d frightened her, when she’d first known him. Now she understood how much of his external harshness had been crafted to guard a tender heart, and to protect the little boy he’d been.
Since Thanksgiving, they’d talked often about the future, but they hadn’t made any serious plans. The Pagano Brothers had something big coming up in the new year, something that had to do with the war they were fighting, and Tony didn’t want to plan until that was behind him.
Words like ‘marriage’ and ‘children’ had been bandied about, however, and neither of them had shied from the idea of that kind of life. When, in moments of quiet contemplation, Billy asked herself if it was a good idea to build a whole long life, possibly with children, with a man like Tony, she couldn’t even get up the will to consider the cons. This was what she wanted, a life with him, whatever the form it took. It felt right. They were right.
She brought the cinnamon-raisin toast over and sat beside him. His hand went immediately to her knee and stayed there; he wanted always to be touching her, and she always wanted the touch.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, a curious smile curving his mouth.
“That I love you,” she answered.
His smile opened wide. “I love you, too.” He leaned in and brought his mouth to hers.
As he kissed her, Billy sighed and held him close. All she needed was his smile, his touch, his kiss. This happiness.
This love.
~ Epilogue ~
Tony stepped under the spray of the shower and stood there, letting the heat wash over his shoulders and ease the tension that had turned his body to iron. He’d thought the waiting had been the worst of it, those weeks of planning and strategy, putting everything in place, collecting and filtering intel, double-checking details.
Donnie’s plan had been in the works for freaking months, and Tony had thought he’d go mad with impatience. But today was the day, and now, he felt some new thing hardening his muscles.
He was afraid.
They were going halfway across the world, right into Yuri Bondaruk’s house, to rip his head off and shit in his skull, and it scared the hell out of him.
It was a good plan. All these weeks of strategy, tactics, and logistics had given them ample opportunity to play out dozens of scenarios. Angie and Trey had been training at CBSD for weeks, and Tony had joined them. They’d done it individually and in teams, over and over, until they were smooth every time.
Just Angie, Tony, and Trey. Three men—that was the whole team. They were counting on the Zelenkos for ground support in Ukraine. The one variable they couldn’t completely firm up was that—could they trust another bratva to stand with the Paganos on their own turf?
That variable was as firm as anything else, really. The Zelenkos and Bondaruks had been long-time rivals until a recent truce, when Bondaruk had sold out to get Zelenko help in the States. But the Italians had worked a better deal with the Zelenkos to kill that truce. That was how all such alliances worked, in every war. Without a strong familial bond among comrades, everything rested on who scratched the back best. Self-interest ruled. Loyalty was fluid, and thus not loyalty at all.
The familial bond was why La Cosa Nostra demanded full-blood of their members. Because you could trust blood. As Angie often said: Il sangue non mente. Blood doesn’t lie.
That was the thinking, at least. In reality, however, blood was no more reliable than anything else. The thing you could trust was what a man did.
The Zelenkos had done a lot of flipping recently.
So Tony was afraid. He had something to lose now. He wasn’t in this for the rush anymore; he wasn’t in it to be a shark. He was in it because it was all he knew, and because he loved his don and his Pagano brothers.
He would give his life if he were called to, but now, he cared if he lived or died. He knew what he wanted of his life.
He wanted to come home to Billy. And when he did, he was going to give her a ring.
The shower door opened behind him, and Billy’s toned arms circled his waist. Her hands slipped to take hold of his cock, which hardened at once under her touch. Shower sex was one of their favorite things, and he was sorry to have to put his hands over hers and stop their sensual exploration.
“Hey. I don’t have time this morning.” When they got started, they tended to lose track of ... basically everything but what they were doing.
“I know. But I want to send you off thinking of me.”
“I was already thinking of you. I’m always thinking of ... fuck,” he ended, when her circled fingers drew heavily over his tip. Tony gave up and braced himself against the shower wall. “You make me crazy.”
With her mouth on his back, she laughed. Her breath skittered over his wet skin.
“No, baby,” she purred as she got down to the business of getting him off. “I make you sane.”
“Yeah, you do.” Tony closed his eyes and gave himself up to her. This was all he needed—her laugh, her touch, her kiss. This happiness.
This love.
~oOo~
He was the last one to arrive at PBS, but he wasn’t late. Still, seeing everybody else’s car in the lot, he hurried to Nick’s office.
It was Sunday, and the regular business of Pagano Brothers Shipping was reduced to a skeleton crew for a few weekend shipments. The office wing was dim and nearly silent. Nick’s double doors were wide open, and Tony had never seen them like that before. He saw Nick and Angie standing in the middle of the room, talking to somebody blocked from view by the wall. But Tony knew it was Donnie and Trey standing there. He’d seen
their cars in the lot.
He knocked on the open door, and Nick and Angie turned to him. Nick waved him in. Except for his fully grey hair, a few more lines on his face, and a few fewer pounds on his frame, Nick looked like Nick again. Strong. In charge.
“Good morning, don. Am I late?” He wasn’t, but he didn’t like being last in.
“Nope,” Angie answered. “I just got here.” He gave Tony a quick once-over. “You got a bag? Passport? Everything you need?”
“In my trunk. Everything.” They were taking a cargo transport to Berlin, then a commercial flight to Kiev, and had arranged everything for smooth travel and easy entry into and exit from Ukraine, but they also had all the necessary papers—excellent, expensive forgeries—should someone be curious. To those people, they were merely businessmen seeking to expand their interests. This was why Donnie couldn’t come—it was impossible for him to go unnoticed. And Nick was too important to handle work like this on his own. If they’d been able to draw Yuri to the States, he would have died at Nick’s hand. But a don suited up only on his home field.
So Angie would be Nick’s proxy. And Trey and Tony would make sure he had the room to do his work.
Nick came to Tony and offered his hand. “Good luck, Tony. You understand how important this is.”
Tony shook with him. “Yes, sir. I won’t let you down, don.”
“I know you won’t.”
He went to Trey next, and said something similar as they shook hands. Then they embraced. “I’m proud of you, nephew.”
“Thank you, Uncle.”
Angie and Nick hugged roughly and stepped back. They didn’t share any words, but Angie nodded, and Nick slapped his arm.
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