Vote Then Read: Volume II

by Lauren Blakely

  “I don’t think Cristos is the devil or really any kind of evil,” I reply, freeing my chair from the reclining position. “I think he is misunderstood.”

  “He’s the devil because of the things he has done, Sal. He’s no better than any of the rest of them, don’t start looking at him through rose-colored glasses.”

  Releasing the bed rails, I carefully lay down beside her and hold her as close to me as possible. I want to be able to cradle her in our bed as she sleeps, but we don’t have that option right now.

  Kaci whispers, “Do you think his intentions are good?”

  “I think I need money—serious money.”

  “You always have my estate,” she morbidly reminds. “You can sell off the houses.”

  Rolling my eyes, I scratch my chin and admit, “I cannot do that to you, me, or us.”

  “You’re going to preserve the tombs of a dead girl?”

  “No, I’m going to build a magnificent shrine in her honor. I’m going to do everything we ever talked about. And I will succeed because, in the end, I will not fail.”

  Under her breath, she giggles, “You sound like you have come to terms with failure.”

  “Because I have,” I say, stroking her cheek. “I need it all—the wins and losses—to become the boss.”

  “Is that what you are after with the deal of Cristos? Do you think he respects you?”

  I take a moment to think about her feelings, but her questions only serve to push me. Her psychological manipulations force my mind to strategize in a way I never have. “I think Cristos likes me, and I can use that until he is no longer of benefit to me.”

  “You are taking him out?”

  “He’s not on the top of my hit list,” I reply as my stomach churns with the thoughts of all the things I’ve done. And just when it gets to the point where I think I may have to run and deposit dinner into the toilet, I remember the cracking of bones and the taste of my own blood delivered at the fists of my father. Instantly, everything I did in the back of the car and the chapel are justifiable acts. They may be insane points by themselves, but those moves shift the game in my favor so that I can go after the big fish. I don’t want some long, drawn-out relationship with Delarte Cristos, but if his worshipping my dick gets me one step closer to putting my motherfucking father six feet under, I’m all for it.

  Because it simply doesn’t matter to me.

  “I’m so bored,” I whine, fidgeting with the tubes going into my body. I have a long history of playing with things I have no business messing with—like Sal. It’s part of my charm.

  “What can I do to make you happy?” His bare feet are propped on the edge of my bed as his blue Henley stretches tight over taut muscles. “Tell me, and I will do my best to make it happen for you.”

  I pout and sigh and shift restlessly. “No walk?”

  “Not outside, it’s raining.”

  “Fuck that,” I hiss, irritated. “Take off your shirt and tell me a story.” His perfect smile lights up the room as he lifts his gaze up from his phone. “What has you so distracted?”

  “Waiting on a woman to get back home.”

  “You rigged the practice slut’s room?” His mischievous grin serves up a maelstrom of trouble. “Where did she go?”

  “Boston.”

  I offer up a questioning expression. “… What?”

  “That was my thoughts exactly,” he says, tossing down the phone and sitting up. He strips off his shirt. “Abs served.”

  “Come closer,” I request, grazing my fingers over the body I built—or at least, encouraged. “Don’t do anything dumb.”

  “Do you think the deal with Cristos is dumb?”

  “Honestly, I’m just pissed I didn’t come up with the idea,” I admit my shortfalls. “It was probably the best move you’ve made. Now make a hundred more good decisions.”

  “I’m working on it,” he says as I curl my finger to touch his guns. He flexes them to humor me. “What kind of story can I tell you?”

  “One for one?” I ask, negotiating. “I’ll tell you about Chicago.”

  His brow flicks up with an inquiry. “And what story do you want to hear?”

  “The one about Norway.”

  He scoots his ass on the bed as his fingers toy with my own. “We had just gotten married, and we had this beautiful honeymoon at Anna’s place in Barbados when my beautiful bride says she wanted to travel the world.”

  I smile at the memory. “You didn’t want to…”

  “No,” he says, peering at our hands. “I didn’t because I knew it would deplete the rest of her reserves.”

  “You were right,” I acknowledge, knowing our globetrotting was the last straw my body could withstand. But I have no regrets. “Don’t you dare leave out the bit at The Dollhouse.”

  With a glistening light shielding his divine emeralds, he snickers, “That’s not Norway,” he alleges, smirking. “We went to New Orleans and stayed through Halloween. We dressed up as Raggedy Ann and Andy. And had an incredible session with Dom.”

  “Details, stud,” I reprimand, teasingly. “Give me all the words.”

  His laughter booms. “After a night of revelry, we ended up in his dungeon, and the three of us made kinky love all night.”

  “You love him…”

  Closing his eyes, Sal smiles. “I do, and I won’t deny how I feel about Dom. He brings me closer to myself every time he takes a crop to my ass or grabs my hips when I’m on top of you.”

  “Will your sweet love affair with your fellow Italian continue?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. I haven’t considered that possibility. I know my instructions are to go see Hennessey, but what that gives me post-you, I don’t know.”

  “Hennessey is a spiritual guru of sorts. She’ll use her mystical shaman shit and get you out of the absolute grief so that you can elevate to a place of healing and recovery.”

  “You realize how hokey this sounds?”

  “I know, but until you’ve trusted her to take you on that journey, you don’t know.” His face imparts a doubt. “I know it’s hard to trust – particularly a stranger – but I promise you, Hennessey Bindel knows her shit. Trust me with this.”

  He nods as I feel his teardrops on my hand. “Always guiding me. Even though your death.”

  “It’s my job,” I reply, squeezing his hand. “One I’m proud to do.”

  “What am I going to do when you are no longer here?”

  “You’re going to close your eyes and hear my voice, but you may not always like what I have to say. But you’re going to listen because I make a damn good argument.”

  “Do you promise?”

  Seeing my husband cry, I weep for the man I’m leaving behind. “That you’ll hear me?”

  The hard line of his jaw grinds with the absolute horror of my departure as he briefly blinks to me and looks down.

  “Salvatore, you could be a deaf man, and you would hear me. My voice is in your soul. I’m woven into the fabric of the man I built. The only way you could ever get rid of me is to come and see me on the other side,” I lament as he smiles and cries. “And you aren’t allowed to do that yet.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “But you need to finish your story…”

  His fingers wipe away the drizzle of pain from his cheeks. “After having my wife on my dick and my Master in my ass, I decide to stop in Chicago.”

  “Chicago…beautiful Chicago…” I say, igniting with a wide grin. His cheeks lift, and he blushes. “Tell me all about Chicago.”

  “… Why don’t you tell me?”

  “What is there to say that hasn’t been said?” I playfully banter.

  “The truth.”

  “It’s difficult,” I whisper because there is so much unspoken. “Besides we had Isaac…”

  “Asimov?”

  “Yes,” I reply with a cutesy smile. “She knows little to nothing about you, but she knows her job is ultimately you.”

  With a
stunned expression, he says, “So, I’m her target? Bitch is going to kill me?”

  “I tend to think of Iris as being more of an asset than a target. I asked her to promise to love you forever.”

  Running his fingers through his hair, he covers his face with his hands and grabs the beanie off the table. He stretches the gray fabric over his head. “She doesn’t even know me…” His eyes dart to the pump, pinging with its high-pitched, demanding wail, and back to mine as he subtly asks with an oh-so-cool attitude, “And what did she say…”

  “She said—Yes, Kaci. I will.”

  His eyes shift to the floor, but he quickly returns with an unfaltering declaration. “She best be ready because I don’t play chess with just anyone.”

  I snicker, “She is your caliber of player, but you need to be careful. Don’t go down any more dark alleyways and watch your fucking back.” He throws off a delightful smirk—the kind he used to have with me—as I realize this is the first time I have seen that grin in months. “Do I have your attention?”

  “Ya, ya…”

  “Don’t ya ya me, boy,” I quip. “You know as well as I do it’s going to take more than Amber to keep you entertained.”

  With a smug look, he baits, “Does she give good head?”

  “Better than Cristos.”

  He makes a squeamish face as we flirtatiously spar like old times. “It wasn’t that bad, but he doesn’t have tits.”

  I look his green seas dead on with a straight face. “… Is that important when getting your tool sucked?”

  “Fuck Ya! Well, it’s not so much the tits, but the whole picture. The feminine shape of her body with all those hourglass curves, and then when she bats up those lashes to give you that look of pure trust…there is nothing like it.”

  “Jesus, you’re giving me a boner.”

  We both fill the room with laughter. “God, I’m going to miss this.”

  “Look, I handpicked this bitch for you. I’m the matchmaker.”

  He gives me a side-eyed glance with a wolfish grin. “Or the grand manipulator.”

  “Maybe, but either way… Iris is the one.”

  “You are so confident about this girl,” he challenges, rising and returning to his seat in the reclining chair. “Like we are some match made in heaven or hell…”

  “Because you are,” I maintain my stance. “Do you hear me, Pretty Boy? You gotta go get that girl. I built you for her…”

  Rocking in the recliner, he snarls as I blatantly stare and take in the sight of the man. He is no longer a meager boy looking to tinker with his fetish streak, but a man searching for his perfect submissive—his absolute end-all.

  His dick is nothing more than a tool in the chest of his tricks, and he knows it, but ultimately, I believe he wants to sheath it somewhere sacred and, in the shelter I have sanctified as his own. I’ve come to a place where the lies no longer matter and releasing the absolute truth into my final breaths feels good. “Iris is built for you.”

  “You did to her what you did to me…”

  “In a different way, but yes—you and she are much the same. I found you both young and looking to get out. I had Serene’s support with Sibyl, and I used it all to my advantage to construct the holy machine of you both.”

  “Tell me about her,” he begs, curiously.

  I shake my head, giggling. “No way. I’m not telling you squat. Just like I told her when she asked about you. She doesn’t even know your name or who you are—only that there is a man, and she promised to love him.”

  “Dear God, she must have a lot of trust…”

  Understanding the house of cards, I have erected, I whisper, “… Do you?”

  With his elbows on the armrests and his toned, inked arms rippling under my gaze, he declares, “Yes.”

  “Then have faith in that,” I reply, turning my body to get a better view. “You can fight it, but she is going to work against you, and I don’t think you want that.”

  His hands lift in an exaggerated fashion. “But how do I get her away from Chance? And what do I do with Amber? And…”

  I lift my hand up, flattening it before him. “Stop. One bite at a time. Slow. Jaid is your secret weapon. She will have your back forever. You aren’t winning Iris tomorrow. This isn’t the lottery. It isn’t even a marathon. Make the plays, eliminate the pieces, win the round. Rinse and repeat.”

  With his finger under his chin, he alleges, “I take it she is doing the same?”

  I smile. “What do you think? Do you know why I married you?”

  “Because I have a huge cock and massive balls?”

  I laugh. “No. And your balls are actually not that big. They’re really about average, maybe even a little less than. Damn good-looking sack though. And as for your johnson, you got a Pretty Boy especially with the piercing…”

  His eyes shut as his grin splays across his face. “Why?”

  “Because I didn’t want the money going to anyone but you.”

  “Did you leave my better half anything?”

  “Oh yes, I did. Something very precious really—I left her you. I mean if we are going to spend my Daddy’s money like wildfire, you best have at least tried to gag him.”

  His eyes flare. “… You knew?”

  “Of course, I knew Delarte Cristos deposited the sperm for my conception. Why on earth do you think I got so angry that you didn’t tell me the deal had come to fruition?”

  “Why the hell did you let me do that?”

  “Simple. You aren’t the only offspring who wants to see their creator go down. All this time you have been plotting, but you seem to have forgotten about me. You are taking out Cesario. Dom wants Angelo. Deacon would do anything to destroy anyone and everyone who hurt him or his mother. Amber yearns for justice, and Jaid longs to give her—our—Dad a dose of his own medicine. But you never considered the remote possibility that other children would join your rebellious uprising.”

  “You and…”

  “Who do you think, Trotter?”

  His mouth gapes open as the only word that should ever matter in his soul escapes, “Iris…”

  “I built you for her,” she gingerly says, drifting off to sleep. “I built you, Raniero, for Kettles, and sealed you with a prayer of Hope.”

  You gave myself to me.

  And you built Iris for me.

  Part III

  In the Sea of Broken Shells

  25. Bitter Cold

  Saturday, January 1

  The eternal nightmare she gives

  … And I take

  With the curtains drawn, I watch her sleep. I hold her frail hand, staring at the jagged remains of what was once her nails and rubbing the scar on her wrist. I never finished my story of her meeting my Nonna or our maniacal trip to Norway as she passed out not long after the Iris discussion.

  “Come on. I am going to show you how to blow…”

  “Did we seriously come all the way to Norway for you to teach me explosives?” I whine in the parka. “It’s fucking cold as fuck out here.”

  “No, we came to find my father, but you are going to let Lars here teach you how to make a boom boom.”

  I give an assessing gaze at the blonde elder man, eager to teach the subtler points of blowing shit up. He is a retired Sibyl agent, who was stationed in Europe, and now resides in his beloved Norway. He diligently worked with Madeline Grace to infiltrate many of the underground networks as he trained her ass on the job. Supposedly, he is one of the best—in all regards. I feel like I already know Lars as Maddy is so much like him in her approach to things.

  And I guess, considering he trained her and she trained me, I do know him. I have a lot of his knowledge already under my belt, but Kaci—Kaci is relentless in the making of her deviant rogue. She wants me to be the best assassin ever, and she maintains I need this.

  The private lessons were not easily attained, and I’d be tickled like a damn unicorn with an ice cream cone if my wife didn’t look like a maddeningly
obsessed zombie. Nonetheless, Madeline and Jack both sent referrals, praising my abilities to think on the fly.

  “… A boom boom?” I question, laughing. “I’m not sure who thought this was a good idea.”

  “You,” she says, spinning as her pink tinted tips of hair whip into my arm. I realize she used the excuse of finding her father—David “Marshall” Hope—to get me here. However, that is not what we are doing. Marshall may be here somewhere, but we aren’t looking for him. “Now get to it.”

  For days, Lars and I spend hours together as he fine tunes my training. I learn the details of building small, concise explosive devices and I memorize everything. I won’t be the best, but in a pinch, I can blow up something. Apparently, this is not a skill everyone gets, and I want to be thankful. And I would be if I didn’t think this was costing Kaci precious time.

  By the fourth day, we are cloistered up in our lush cabin which at the moment resembles an emergency room. Kaci is perched upon the gurney, and I’ve got a saline line in her. Not because she is sick, but because this is practice. The final training lessons—happy wedding gifts from my bride.

  “You need to cut her,” Lars says by my side. His German wife, Hilda, is looking on and smiles as I turn away from the misery. After watching her all these years, the reality before me is hitting too close to home. “From here to here.”

  Picking up the scalpel, I’m reluctant. “I’m pretty damn adamant about not cutting you.”

  “Give me the fucking thing, since you’re going to be a pussy boy about it,” Kaci demands, plucking the blade from my fingers and slitting her wrist in front of me. “Now fix it!”

  “Fuck! Kace!” I scream as blood gushes everywhere. She laughs. “Are you fucking insane?”

  “Yes,” she calmly says as Lars presses the gauze to the wound. “Now fix it!”

  With his eyes fixated on me, Lars smirks and says, “Hold this.” Placing his bloodied hands on my cheeks, he stresses, “Calm down. She didn’t cut an artery. She cut a vein.” He removes the bandage. “You see the difference in color?”

  “The blood is dark,” I answer, breathing heavily. Laughter erupts from Kaci as I give her a scornful look and study the differences in brightness from the laptop and her arm. “You aren’t funny.”