I know I’ve done a very bad thing. I’ve allowed myself to become confused. The Damiano I want is a man that doesn’t exist. He’s not the smart businessman who seduced me with his dirty words and clever wit.
I reach over and turn off the water. As the last drops fall, it’s as if reality has restarted itself once again.
The mafioso standing in front of me runs a thick towel over my skin. He does it gently, as if he’s afraid I might shatter from too much pressure. He had no qualms about my breakability when he was thrusting into me moments earlier, but maybe his own reality is setting in as well.
His dark eyes meet mine, and I know I’m right. This was a goodbye. He’s going to send me home, and he knows I’ll never forgive him for it. This is all over.
It’s a bitter, painful end to something that was never destined to be a love story.
I dry the soles of my feet on the rug by the shower and walk into the bedroom with him right on my heels. When I climb onto the bed, he follows. Hasn’t he had enough? I don’t think I could have another orgasm. He’s wrung every bit of pleasure out of me, and now I feel empty. I don’t have anything left to give.
When I lie down on my side, he wraps his palm around my shoulder and turns me to my back. He’s propped up on his elbow, peering down at me with furrowed brows.
Here it is. He’s about to tell me I’m going back to New York.
“I’m sorry.”
I shut my eyes. Why should I look at him while he breaks my heart for the second time?
“I shouldn’t have hurt you like I did.” His lips brush lightly against my wrists. “Every time I see these marks on you, I want to throw myself off a cliff.”
An ache appears in the back of my throat. He’s about to hurt me way worse than that.
He leaves my wrists alone and brushes a rough thumb over my lips. Then he sighs. “What would you do if I let you go?”
It takes a moment for me to process his words. When I do, a weird feeling fills my chest. It reminds me of when I opened the cage of a bird I kept as a child and watched it fly away.
I blink at him. He waits for my answer, his gaze steady on my face.
“I’d go somewhere far,” I say. “Somewhere there’s no risk of running into the mafia.”
The corners of his lips turn up in bitter smile. “That place doesn’t exist. The underworld’s reach stretches to every corner of the world.”
I refuse to believe that. “There has to be some place.”
“And if there isn’t? What will you do if your father finds you?”
My mouth goes dry. “I can’t go back.”
“So you keep saying, but you still won’t tell me why,” he says in a thoughtful tone.
It might feel cathartic to tell someone about what happened down in the basement of the house that never felt like home. Who would I become if I confessed my biggest secret and my biggest shame? Would it help me sleep at night? Would it allow me to heal?
It’s so tempting to find out. But at the last moment, I chicken out. “You’re asking me to share something very personal,” I say softly. “I know barely anything about you.”
“You know me better than most,” he says as he traces a circle around my belly button.
An acerbic laugh escapes me. “Is that because you don’t let anyone in? You forget I’ve spent my life surrounded by made men. I know how you relate to other people.”
“How’s that?”
“With a gun hidden behind your back.”
He takes a deep breath and gives a shake of his head. “What would you like to know?”
An offering. He’s asking what it’ll take for me to feel on even ground with him.
A dozen questions spring to mind, but I distill them down to the few that’ll reveal the real Damiano to me. “What’s your real business on Ibiza?”
He dips his finger inside my belly button. “Real estate, restaurants, clubs, and…drugs.”
“The drug dealers at the clubs are yours?”
“They all work for me,” he says, moving his fingertips to graze the underside of my breast.
“All of them?”
“Yes. Even in the clubs I don’t own. Ibiza is my territory, and I have a mandate to keep it that way, no matter what it takes. Competition is dealt with quietly and swiftly.”
He speaks softly, as if the mere act of touching my body is hypnotizing. A subtle ache appears between my legs when he reaches my right nipple. So much for being drained. I guess he knows just how to fill me back up.
I need to stay focused. Who knows how many questions of mine he’ll entertain? “Your father was the don,” I say.
“Mhm.”
“Why aren’t you?”
His movements halt, and the temperature in the room drops a couple of degrees. In his eyes, I see a shuttering, a door being closed, but in the last moment, something inside of him forces it back open. He gives me a heavy, heavy look and flattens his palm on my abdomen. “My father’s power was taken from him in the proper Casalese way. To usurp a sitting don you must strangle him to death. Sal Gallo, a distant uncle, murdered my father and began his rule when I was eleven years old. For me to become don, I’ll have to do the same.”
My heart picks up speed, and I know he’s close enough to notice it. This isn’t a fairytale, and Damiano is no prince. He’s a made man, and it’s not the thought of committing murder that’s keeping him from making his bid. “Why haven’t you?”
He tips his head back. “That is a very loaded question, Vale.”
This is the first time he’s called me Vale instead of Valentina or Ale, and the familiarity sends warmth spreading through my chest. It’s what my sisters call me.
He removes his hand from me and drags his palm over his mouth. I can tell he’s trying to decide what he should tell me. “There’s a story that’s become a relatively recent legend among the Casalese. They present it to children as a story of love and betrayal, but in my opinion, it’s a cautionary tale. The story is as follows. A Casalese woman loved her husband so much she couldn’t bear to live without him. One day, he was murdered. When five men tried to return his still-warm body to her as a sign of respect, she saw them through the window of her bedroom and let out a blood curdling scream. As they made their way through the front door, she ran to the kitchen, tore open the pantry, and grabbed the spare can of gasoline. She doused herself with it. When the first of the men burst into the room, she lit a match and set herself on fire. The fire killed all the men and burned the body of her husband to a crisp. It’s said they found the remains of the man and his wife beside each other, even though no one could explain how they ended up like that. Perhaps she used her last conscious moments to get as close to his body as she could. So they could stay together even in death.”
The air around us stills.
I swallow past the tightness in my throat. “The woman was…”
“My mother.” He sits up on the bed, and in the dimming late afternoon light, he looks older than his age. “The version I just told you omits what I consider to be an important part. It’s a shame, really. I think it makes the story far more interesting. What they don’t tell very often is that in that house with the woman were her two children. A boy of eleven, and a toddler of two.”
Horror thickens the air inside my lungs until I can’t breathe. My hand reaches for Damiano’s, but he won’t let me take it. Men like him don’t know how to accept comfort, and maybe this isn’t the time to teach him. I give him space.
“The boy watched his mother pour the gasoline from the shadows of the living room. Her screams woke him, and he ran downstairs to check on her. What he saw in the kitchen… He thought he was still asleep, having a nightmare. When the fire started to spread, he ran to get his sister out of her room, and they managed to escape the house before the entire thing went up in flames. They watched their whole life burn. It’s an image one can’t ever forget.”
I suck in a harsh breath. “Damiano, I’m so sorry.”
He shakes his head as if he can shake off the sorrow of the memory. “I barely remember the weeks that followed, but a few images stand out. Sal inviting me to his new office—my father’s old one—and making it clear that the only way my sister and I would stay alive is if I confirm my father’s body had marks of strangulation on it so as to legitimize Sal’s takeover. You see, the code specifies there must be a living witness otherwise the claim is contested. A photo isn’t enough. His five witnesses all perished in the fire and Mari was too young to talk. I had to stand in front of all the capos—men who had given me gifts and played cards with me—and describe to them what my dead father’s body looked like. I couldn’t really remember, so I made a bunch of stuff up.
“Ras’s parents took us in—his mother is my mother’s sister. They convinced Sal to keep his word and let Mari and me live. They told him over and over again that I was too young to hold on to any anger. But Sal’s always been too paranoid to ever fully believe that. When my business acumen started to earn me a reputation, he decided to send me here, where I’d be isolated and unable to forge any strong connections with the other capos. I agreed, because protecting Mari has always been more important to me than getting my revenge.”
My God, he’s nothing like Papà. He put his family first, even if it meant he had to sacrifice any real chance at gaining more power. No matter how hard I try, I can’t imagine Papà ever doing something like that for me or any of my siblings.
“Is Sal the one behind Martina’s abduction?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“You knew it after we spoke.”
He nods. “You said Lazaro called her a little Casalese mouse. Little mouse is what Sal has always called Martina. He must have said it to Lazaro at some point.”
“Why would Sal do this?”
“To have something to keep me in line. He’s been making more and more bad calls in the past few years, and I’ve started to call him out on it. He needs me to keep making him money, but he wants me to do it with my mouth shut.”
I reach for his hand again, and this time, he lets me take it. Our fingers twine together.
“What are you going to do?” I ask.
“Take back what should have always belonged to me.” The look he gives me makes me feel as if I’m standing on a precipice. “And I want you to help me do it.”
