Complete Corruption (Corruption #1-3) (74 page)

“You have to stop touching me,” I said.

He swung in front of me. The sunlight hit the edge of his face. The rest was veiled in shadow. I could still read him clearly, as if the light was his lust and the shade was his rage. All he had to do was turn his head slightly to be either bathed in brilliance or drowned in shadow.

“I don’t know how many times I have to say this—”

He stopped talking when I pulled away from him, backing into the brick wall. “I know. You can touch me any time you want. I’ve heard it.”

“Don’t take this lightly.”

“Lightly? I’m the only one taking your life seriously.” I touched his lapel. It was bent a sixteenth of an inch and needed straightening.

His shoulders dropped an amount equal to the bend of his lapel. Enough for me to notice. It was a half measure of resignation, another half measure of vulnerability. My fingers trailed the edge of the jacket seam, as if they were caught in a groove. He looked down at their journey, his eyelashes the length of black widow legs, lips parted just enough to emphasize their fullness.

“I’m only a man,” he said. “I’m not a saint.”

“Not a devil either.”

He flicked a speck of something off my shoulder, smoothing the fabric. “I don’t know what to do. And that alone is uncomfortable. I always know what to do.”

I pressed my hands to his chest but didn’t push him away. “I can’t reassure you. I can’t say we’ll figure it out. I can’t see the way through it.”

“We don’t divorce. It’s not done.”

“I know.”

“I could kill my mother for doing this.”

“She was protecting a life she knew you’d want back,” I said. “And before you protest, you want it back. I know you do. It’s exactly the life you described to me in TJ. It’s a good life. I get it. I want it with you, but I don’t know how to get there.”

I expected him to resist and tell me I was his life. That was the script. He was supposed to reassure me in no uncertain terms. But he wouldn’t look at me.

“This is what it means to get older,” he said. “Your choices get less and less.”

“You can get there. You can do it. You can have it all. If you manage to get forgiveness from Donna Maria, you need to step back and think about it.”

“I should leave you behind?”

“Yes. I think if we can unravel this, then that’s how it has to go.” A hairline crack appeared in my heart. I knew I was right. This was solvable if I gave him up. If I didn’t, it was a mess.

“It’s decided then?” he said gently, and the hairline crack deepened.

“Yes.”

“You’ll be safer that way.” He put his lips to my cheek, and my body trembled.

“I will,” I lied. I could never go back to who I had been. Never. “I’ll live a long, safe life.”

“Without me.” He kissed my neck, and the shimmering arousal that ran though my body seemed not hindered by the flood of melancholy but abetted by it.

“Without you.” My hips found their way to him as if by magnetism. His every kiss to my neck, his every breath in my ear, was a contradiction to the words he spoke.

“And I’ll go back home with my wife and fuck her sweetly for the rest of my days?”

I couldn’t give him more than
mmm
from deep in my chest because his hand brushed over my hardened nipple, coming back for a second pass with the backs of his fingers. I thought I should push him away, but my body wasn’t taking instructions.

“I’ll be happy,” he whispered in my ear then kissed it. “We’ll buy a little stone house, and I’ll spend the rest of my life with a sweet, useless little pet.”

“Don’t bad-mouth her.”

He pulled back until we were nose to nose. “She fucks like a plucked chicken.”

I had to bite back a laugh, and Antonio smiled so wide, I fell in love with his face all over again.

“Don’t—” I said.

“Don’t what? Don’t change? Don’t look back at my past and see clearly?”

“Don’t smile like that. You melt me. I can barely stand straight.”

“Let me catch you.”

He put his lips on mine. I bent under him, yielding completely to his mouth, the rhythm of his lips, the force of his tongue. I allowed myself to hope that there was a way out, and at the same time, the hope lived with resignation.

I didn’t want that kiss to end. It shouted down my confusion. I wanted to drown in it. Take my last breath with him. Die connected in a painless flood of arousal and sorrow. But through the window came the pop of a wine cork, and he straightened.

“Let me take you back to the house,” he said, his voice covered with a thin sheet of urgency. “I swear I’ll meet you there.”

“Do you not want me to talk to your wife?”

“I don’t want her to talk, period.”

“This intrigues me.” I slipped away from him and strode quickly back to the street. I opened the restaurant door to Daniel filling the glasses. “Don’t you have a campaign to run?” I felt my face getting red in the warm dining room. “You’ve been socializing without talking politics.”

“Gerry wants me out of the way until the trick you played at the wedding dies down.”

He handed Valentina a glass. She swirled it, avoiding eye contact with me.

“Sorry about that.”

He handed me a glass. “No, you’re not.”

“No. I’m not.”

Behind me, Antonio spoke sharply to Valentina. “
Non bere quell vino.
”

“
Salute
.” She raised her glass and, in a single open-throated gulp, poured the entire contents down her throat.

Antonio groaned as Valentina clacked her glass on the bar and made a swirling motion above it with her finger. Daniel refilled it.

“Sit down for
primi
,” Zia said as she burst through the swinging doors with a tray of manicotti. She set it in the center of a round table, which had already been set for four.

“
Grazie, Zia! Bene!
” Valentina said with an enthusiasm I hadn’t noticed before. She grabbed her glass and the bottle and sat.

I sat across from her, and when Antonio placed himself next to me, I whispered, “Isn’t Zia eating?”

He made a
tsk
noise with a shake of the head and placed his napkin in his lap.

“What about Antonin? Where is he?” I realized the question was just on the other side of inappropriate when it was all the way out of my mouth.

Valentina took the half-empty glass from her lips and answered. “I sent him home. It’s hell here. I don’t know how you stand the smells. Car exhaust. It’s everywhere. When I was first married, I had to scrub it out of my husband’s clothes every day. I will not have my son smell like street grease.”

“He took a plane home alone? To Europe?” Daniel asked, sliding a cheesy tube onto her plate.

“Non-stop flight. We do it all the time. Only Americans circle their children like helicopters. Give me another one please.” She indicated the manicotti and brought the wine to her lips again.

“Tina, enough,” Antonio said, reaching for the glass.

She slapped him away. Had I thought she was haughty and controlled? Because she didn’t seem that way anymore.

“Tell me, Tonio, what have you been doing here? Besides pretending you’re dead and letting your girlfriend drink all she wants?”

“Avoiding this guy.” He smirked, pointing his fork at Daniel.

I took a slice of manicotti and watched as Valentina shoveled down half of one neatly and efficiently.

“You fail at this,” she said after she washed it down. “He’s right here.”

Daniel smiled and pushed his cheese around the plate, obviously finding this whole thing very amusing. He filled her wine glass, and she graced him with a beatific smile. God, she was stunning. A thoroughbred.

I got Daniel’s attention and mouthed, “More wine.”

He grinned and got up for another bottle.

“What else?” She swirled her wine around as if she was baiting Antonio.

“Just running my business.”

“You mean your criminal empire?” She bobbed her head when she spoke, a graceless gesture and a sign that she’d had a glass too many.

Antonio dropped his fork. “
Basta
, Tina.”

She turned her palms down and shook her hands, telling us to be quiet because something important was coming. “I work in a fabric factory, at the desk, and there’s a little
salumeria
on the corner. And the little men sit outside it talking like they’re so important. Little
mafiosi
. They come into the factory and take their money. Their tribute.” She flung her hands around like butterflies. “They try to take me to bed. You know what I say to them? Your little
pistola
matches your stupid bald head. Both in your pants. Both can’t shoot.”

“More wine?” I asked.

She pushed her glass to me. “
Grazie
. And all of the
mafiosi
…” She held up her pinkie. “Like this. You can’t be in the organization unless you have an okra between your legs.” She put her thumb and pointer finger two inches apart, then held up her hands to Antonio as if he’d objected, which he hadn’t, except to rub his face in embarrassment. “Not Mister Spinelli, of course. With that
cetriolo
.”

I almost spit my wine. Daniel pressed his lips together so he wouldn’t bust.

She was on a roll, addressing Antonio with a hand cupped as if handing him a golden piece of advice. “My God, you are going to kill someone with that thing one day. This is what I thought.” She put her elbow on the table and wagged her finger at him. “I thought you couldn’t be
mafiosi
because…” She put her hands up, a foot apart. “But no. Time passed, and you were just like the rest of them.”

She poured wine down her throat and turned to me. “You can have that thing.”

I think I went red. She was imagining me with that beautiful dick, and I felt my barest lust exposed.

“No one woman can keep up with him. He can manage two,” she said.

“Not in America,” Antonio said. “Here, it’s one woman, one man.”

“Sometimes,” Daniel mumbled then leaned back.

She stretched her neck and tilted her head as if bringing her ear closer to Antonio. “
Che
?”

“Don’t pretend you haven’t heard of it,” Antonio growled.

We’d been through hell together, but this? This was a million times worse.

“
Monogamia
?” Valentina said with disbelief. “Not for the men in the organization.”

“For this man, it is. I’m sorry, but this
cetriolo
is for her only.” He took my hand, and though I was proud of that, I also had to shake the feeling that she shouldn’t see any affection between us. “I love her. You waited, I know you waited, until I was the man you wanted me to be. But she took me as I am.”

“A thief and a killer?”

“Alleged,” I said, keenly aware of Daniel’s presence.

She bent her head slightly left then right, left then right, pursing her lips. “We don’t divorce. We aren’t American. I will fight you.”

“I don’t want to fight.”

She huffed as if that was the first time she’d heard him say such a thing. “You won’t make our son a bastard either. I will curse you to hell.”

“I’m going to hell anyway.”

“Can you just fuck her and leave me alone?”

“That’s not up to me. It’s up to Theresa.”

She faced me, full-on, as if expecting me to answer the big questions of her life with a half-eaten manicotti in front of me, my ex on my left, and the love of my life on my right.

“Way to drop it in a girl’s lap,” I said, taking my hand from Antonio’s.

Valentina swooped up the second bottle in one hand and her glass in the other. She came around the table and bent over to whisper, “Let’s go,
troia
.”

She strode out to the back, ass wagging like a flag, the swinging doors kissing behind her.

“Did she just call me a whore?”

“Worse. Don’t follow her,” Antonio said. “She’s not right in the head when she drinks.”

He started to get up, but I put my hand on his shoulder and pushed him down so I could stand. “Stay here and help with the dishes.” I snapped up my glass and went out the back.

theresa

ia had something going on in the kitchen that smelled like meat. I was still hungry but didn’t pause long enough to ask what was bubbling. Valentina stood in the tiny parking lot, by the dumpster, filling her glass. She had the bottle out to fill me up before I had two feet out the door.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“You’re the one who waited around ten years. What do
you
want?”

“I want my life back.” She put the bottle on top of a car.

“You gave it up because you didn’t like it.”

“The life before he was consigliere for his father. This one I’m talking about. He was very nice. He was a sweet man.”

Nice. Sweet. Was she talking about someone else? Her eyes were cloudy, and she held on to the edge of the gate to steady herself. Wine was indeed a bad idea.

“Antonio’s a lot of things,” I said. “Sweet isn’t one of them.”

“He used to bring me strawberries, in summer, from the fruit vendor on Via Scotto. So expensive. And beautiful. He took the leaves off and fed them to me.”

I imagined that was true. Of course he’d bring gifts and tributes. It was the sweet part that tripped me up. He must have had the act down pat. He’d wanted this gentle girl and lied to himself to have her.