Mercenary (Gangsters of New York Book 3)

by Bella Di Corte

  Adriano sat at the bar, his back to me. Baggio stood as soon as he heard me enter.

  “Boss, I—”

  I held a hand up. “Get me a beer,” I said.

  He nodded. “Yeah, okay. We can discuss this.”

  He went to the fridge and grabbed me a beer. When he turned around, I shot him twice in the stomach. His eyes grew wide, his mouth opened, wheezing for breath like a fish out of water. He fell to his knees before he crumpled to the floor.

  I stood over him, watching him gasp for breath. “No one touches my wife,” I said. “You’ll suffer for however long it takes. No help. You’ll touch hell before you get there.”

  I had seen his face when he yanked my wife back. He got off on pain and suffering. As soon as he heard her breath catch, he got a fucking hard on for more pain. He was fucking limp now—his entire body.

  Adriano sat at the bar, drinking a beer.

  I nodded at him and he nodded back.

  He’d take care of the rest.

  “I guess I get Gilberts,” he said before I shut the door to Primo. “I can’t stand to see anything starve.”

  35

  Alcina

  Bruises were starting to form on my stomach, but I did not feel them.

  The vipere were coiling deep in the pit of my heart, and my hands were ready to strike, to hurt him as much as that scene hurt me.

  I couldn’t see anything else.

  Her hands on him.

  Her mouth close to his ear.

  The things they were doing behind my back.

  I had never felt rage so hot before.

  I was fixated on it.

  I could not stop seeing it, imagining it.

  His hands on her.

  His mouth on her.

  His face when he was buried deep inside of her.

  “Love—there’s no such thing in this life. Do you think she—” she nodded toward me “—is going to get real love?”

  My hands balled into fists at my sides.

  The moment I saw him, I knew the truth.

  Those eyes hid his poisonous heart.

  Those lips were vessels of deception.

  That body? Made for inflicting pain.

  I did not listen to myself. I did not go with my instincts. I went with love.

  Love couldn’t exist in this world.

  My hand stilled on the kitchen drawer as I heard Uncle Tito and lo scorpione talking right outside of the kitchen.

  “The break, Corrado,” Uncle Tito said. “It’s deep this time. She can’t see past whatever she is going through.”

  I almost threw back my head and howled with laughter.

  They thought I was losing my mind? Had either one of them spent time with my husband lately? If they wanted to see a loss of a mind, all they had to do was look at him.

  Maybe he was rubbing off on me.

  Corrado took his voice down, and a minute later, he came into the kitchen.

  “Turn around,” he said. “Look at me.”

  I refused to. He grabbed me by the shoulders, forcing me to face him, but I wouldn’t look him in the eye.

  “Look at me, Alcina,” he said.

  I refused, keeping my arms up to my chest so I wouldn’t even accidentally touch him. I could smell her perfume on his body. I could smell roses and spice and something else…something I couldn’t place. The unknown scent did not matter. The rest, I could smell, and they were poking the vipere.

  His eyes were hard on my face, but I did not move. He released me suddenly, almost violently, and lifted my shirt up.

  I let him.

  His breath picked up when he noticed the bruises. I felt his warm breath fan against my skin in faster waves. My shirt fell as he took a step back.

  He stared at me from across the room. Then in a burst of fury, he picked up one of the chairs and flung it through the window behind me. It went clear through, the glass ricocheting in a hundred different directions.

  I did not even flinch.

  Not even when the alarms blared.

  “Boss—” one of the men said, coming to stand in the doorway.

  “Turn it off,” he said, not even looking at the man. He stared at me. I refused to look at him.

  The man moved like a shadow in the darkness. Then another shadow appeared.

  Uncle Tito cleared his throat. “I told Angela not to worry. All was okay with the alarm.” He pointed his bag towards the door and then left without another word.

  “Look at me, Alcina,” lo scorpione said once more.

  I refused to.

  “All right,” he said. He turned and put his fist through the wall before he left me alone in the kitchen.

  His violence seemed to echo in the quiet while my rage seemed to scream over it.

  I listened for him for a while before I turned and opened the drawer again, taking out a knife. I stuck it behind my back, moving through the house as quietly as possible.

  “Alcina.”

  Mamma’s voice stopped me. Anna and Fabrizio had gone back to Italy, but mamma refused to leave.

  “Go back to sleep,” I whispered.

  “What is going on?” she said, her voice taking on a demanding tone.

  “A little argument,” I said. “We will work it out.”

  “Alcina,” she said as I moved further away from her. “Do not do something you will regret!”

  I smiled in the darkness. If anyone regretted anything, it would be him. That fucking scorpion.

  He had taken a shower and was in bed. He had lit the candles in the fireplace, and the light from the flames haloed his naked body. He could sleep even if the world was ending.

  I tucked the knife in the bathroom drawer. I undressed, catching sight of the bruises on my skin before I jumped into the shower. I did not dress after and left my hair wet. I took out the knife and then walked into our room. I slipped in beside him and then moved on top of him.

  His eyes slowly opened.

  I pressed the knife to his throat a little harder, watching as the blood bubbled. “I told you,” I said, my voice coming out hard, but with a slight tremble I could not control. “I told you I would kill you.”

  He stuck his neck up some. “I told you I would allow you to.” He moved my hand down further, to his heart. “Do it, Alcina. If you’re going to kill me, do it. Fucking do it.” He pressed it harder against him, and more blood started to run from his skin.

  “You killed my trust,” I whispered. “My faith in you.”

  “No,” he said, reaching up to tuck his hand deep into my hair. His thumb stroked my chin. “I swear on Eleonora.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Why would you allow me to kill you then?”

  “I’m killing you anyway,” he said. “My life. Me. I’d rather die than see you this way.”

  My hand started to tremble, and something rushed through me, something so powerful that a sob rocked me to my core, even though I did not shed a tear.

  What was wrong with me? I blinked at him, trying to bring him into focus, my mind sharpening. The poisons from the vipere started to recede, and I realized, the only damage was inside of me.

  Before I could move, Corrado flipped me on my back. Instead of letting the knife go, I went to catch it before it slipped out of my hand. It cut my palm. He took it from me, throwing it toward the fireplace, and then pinned me down beneath him.

  His hands were like steel bars around my wrists. “I should have known,” he said, his voice sharp. “Your eyes don’t belong to an angel. They belong to a witch. You put me under a fucking spell.”

  I tried to push against his hold, but he was too strong. “Go to hell,” I hissed at him, matching his fury with my own.

  He let one of my wrists go, his hand reaching around my throat, the pressure worse than it was the night in Como. “What did I tell you?” he whispered. “I would kill you.”

  “I have always been faithful to you,” I barely got out.

  “Have you?” He tilted his head. Blood rushed from
the cuts. His heart must have been pumping faster. “I don’t know what the fuck was said in that room between you and Rocco Fausti.”

  I lifted my chin, giving him better access. “He was worried about me. That I was unhappy.”

  The pressure increased. “You agreed with him.”

  “No,” I rasped out. “I’m only unhappy because I can see you are dying inside. You are…going places I can’t follow, and I cannot save you!”

  His eyes were hard before he released me. Before I could even catch my breath, his mouth was on mine, giving me the breath I could not seem to find.

  I cried out and then moaned, months of frustration and hurt and longing, all coming out in those two sounds. He parted my legs, and on a thrust that was so intense it made me put a hand behind my head to stop from hitting the headboard, he took my free hand, moved it above my head, and squeezed. His blood and mine entwined and stained our palms red.

  It smeared between our bodies as we moved together.

  “This,” he said. “This is what I live and die for.” His neck arched back, exposing his throat, the blood dripping down in a steady stream.

  I reached up and wiped it with my hand, applying pressure to stop the overflow of it.

  “Corrado,” I moaned out, a truly crazed sound. The madness had gotten inside of our hearts and rushed through our bloodstreams. This one man could drive me out of my mind but make me feel sane in the same breath.

  He started to move slower, reaching me even deeper than flesh, blood, and bone. I could not remove him if I tried. Not even with a sharp knife.

  His eyes were on mine as he moved, and even though his body demanded mine to bow to his, his eyes were servants to mine. They were lowered, almost closed. As warm as honey in the glow of the firelight as he gazed at me.

  “Come back to me,” I whispered. “Be one with me again.”

  He hit me even harder, starting to move faster, and I knew it was going to be hard for me to walk after. This was his response, his yes, a reminder that he went deeper than what the eye could see.

  We came together in a rush that made me dizzy. I closed my eyes, trying to steady my tilting world. He kept me with him as he turned us.

  It hit me again, harder this time.

  What I had done.

  I opened my eyes and he was staring at me. I started to kiss him—all over his face, his chin, where I had cut him.

  “Mi dispiace, amore mio.” I kissed him, saying these things, hoping to heal the wounds I had caused.

  His body shook, and I stopped kissing him, realizing that he was laughing.

  I narrowed my eyes at him.

  He laughed even harder—his laughter was as deep as his voice.

  “What is so funny? You are bleeding!”

  He lifted my hand, bringing it to his mouth. “So are you.”

  After he reminded me, I felt it. The burning. I had felt nothing before but the burn of jealousy.

  “You are not right!” I tapped at his head.

  He continued to laugh, pulling me into him. “You telling me I’m not right? Who brought the knife to our bed, Alcina?”

  “I had a reason,” I said. “I really believed—what I saw. I snapped.” I looked down at his chest, where the knife had cut him there, over his heart.

  “You believed what this life has taught you to believe.” He wrapped his arm around my back, pulling me even closer. “I know what you saw, but it was nothing. Just bad timing.”

  I looked him in the eye. “I know what I said, that I would kill you, but I did not really think I could.”

  “Not until you believed what you thought you saw.”

  I nodded, waving my hand, hating to admit to the weak moment.

  He caught it and kissed the cut. “Ti amo,” he said, kissing me on the lips. His mouth moved even lower, to my chin, to my neck, to my breasts, to the spot where the bruises had started to turn. His eyes turned a darker shade of amber when his head had moved lower, adjusting to the flickering light.

  “I love you more,” I whispered in Sicilian, running my hands through his hair. “If only my mouth could heal the pain I’ve caused.”

  He took his dick in his hand and slid it up and down my body. “It can.”

  Our eyes met.

  “You are turned on because I cut you?”

  “Because you claimed me,” he said.

  I grinned a little. “I am the moon, and you are madness.”

  His eyes became intense. “Heart and body, angel eyes. You gave my body your heart. You have the power to stop me from breathing if you reject me,” he said. “My life is done without you. No one has ever had that power but you. No matter where I go here.” He took my finger and touched his temple with it. “You’re always here.” He put my hand over his heart.

  I put my lips to his, my fingers trailing over his body, hoping to heal the hurt I had caused by bringing my heart closer to his body.

  A breeze filtered in through the missing window. Corrado wrapped his arms around Ele and me, and I smiled.

  “It is open,” I said. “Plenty of fresh air now.”

  He grinned against my neck. “I can make it happen all over the house.”

  I laughed even louder, shaking Ele a bit. She looked at me and smiled, trying to put her little toy giraffe in her mouth. Mari had given it to her.

  My heart dropped into my stomach when I thought about it. She had teared up when she held Ele. She knew she was holding her niece. I stroked Ele’s hair and kissed her cheeks, thinking how nice it would be for her to have two aunts.

  Corrado set his hand over mine. “Her hair is getting thicker,” he said.

  “It is like thick fuzz.” I made a funny face at her, and she giggled so loud that Corrado smiled.

  “Give her to me,” he said, reaching out. “You can finish making the coffee.”

  I nodded and went to hand her over, but she turned away from him. He went to turn away but I refused to let him.

  “Take her,” I said. “Play with her. She’ll want to stay with you.”

  He took her and she started to cry, but to his credit, he took a seat at the table, handing her one of her spoons. She immediately put it in her mouth, crying a little now and again.

  “See?” I said, getting the coffee ready. “The more time you spend with her, the better it will be.”

  Mamma came into the kitchen. She looked Corrado over. Her eyes narrowed on the cut on his neck. She pinched me on the arm, nodding her head back. She was trying to be subtle, but it was apparent she was calling me out.

  Corrado started laughing, and Ele started to cry even louder. I was torn between going to get her and leaving him to make her feel more comfortable.

  She needed that from him.

  He got up from the table, bouncing her a bit, but then he handed her to mamma.

  “I’m going to take a shower.” He kissed me on the cheek and then left.

  I sighed. He was pulling back again.

  “What did you do to him?” Mamma hissed at me.

  I shrugged. “We worked it out.”

  “He has a cut on his neck!”

  “On his heart, too,” I said.

  “Ah! Mamma mia!” She put her palm to her head. Ele started to giggle and then they both started laughing. “What am I going to do with your parents, ah?” She gave her big, fat kisses on her cheeks. “Come with nonna. I will save you from these people with no sense after you eat.”

  I laughed while I made Ele her morning cereal and pureed pear. She ate it up, and then mamma took her upstairs to get dressed. They spent mornings together. After I fed Ele, mamma would change her and then take her outside for a walk. I knew mamma would be leaving soon, and I couldn’t think about that either.

  I had one main issue to focus on.

  If there ever was a time to talk to Corrado about my cousin and his sister, it was now. The night before had changed things between us, and maybe if I acted, things could continue to change for the better.

  If he wou
ld only hear me out.

  I narrowed my eyes when he came into the kitchen dressed in a suit. After last night, I thought we would spend the day together. We would say things that needed to be said.

  He put his hand on his tie before he leaned in and kissed my lips. He went to the coffee pot after and poured himself a cup. He stood by the open window, staring out at mamma singing to Ele in Italian as she walked around the garden with her.

  “Someone will fix this today,” he said, nodding toward the gaping hole.

  I did not respond. I was sure he would see to it.

  He took a drink of coffee, still staring out, and I stared at him.

  Ele laughing. The family taking pictures. Playing at the park. Singing in the kitchen or during her baths. Going for walks.

  All of these things he watched from wherever he happened to be, but never did he put himself there with us. He couldn’t seem to find a way to get to where we were. He always kept himself at arm’s length.

  His eyes would consume the scene, as if he was starved to be there, to be present, but his body kept him rooted to wherever he was. Which was too far from us. His family.

  I breathed the Sicilian word for longing. Then I spoke it out loud. He didn’t hear, not paying attention to me, but to our daughter laughing. She loved music.

  “Corrado,” I said.

  He took another drink of his coffee, stared for another minute longer, and then turned to face me.

  “Longing,” I said.

  “What about it?”

  “Longing,” I repeated the word. “A yearning desire. Pining. Craving. Ache. Burning. Hunger. Thirst.” He stared at me with a blank expression. I sighed. My hands moved as I continued. “You feel all of those things when you look at us. When you watch us. I see it in your eyes. You want to be close to us, but something is stopping you.”

  “Is that what it is?” He almost seemed relieved. Like he had thought of it before, but could not put a name to it. “All of those things. I feel them here.” He pointed to the center of his chest.

  “Yes,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “It’s longing.”

  “I want to kill it,” he said.

  “Why do you have to feel it? When we are right here?” I stood up, and reaching out, took his hand. I placed it against my chest. “You can touch me whenever you want. You can go outside and take your daughter for a walk whenever you want. You can put her to bed each night. We can spend time together. All day, every day, for the rest of our lives. Why? Why do you have to long for us? We’re here. You can have this life and us.”