High Stakes (20 page)

“I have to go.” I stalk past her without saying goodbye, fuming as I pass by the rows and columns of crap.

“What about—Adriana, I still need the money!”

“Sell some of this junk,” I say without a backwards glance. “Oh, and Happy fucking Thanksgiving.”

The door slams behind me and I practically sprint to the black car waiting by the curb. I open the door and slide inside, wiping tears from my face. Vince, dressed in a handsome charcoal suit, frowns as he watches me cry. He’s used to it by now.

“Sorry. Let’s just go.”

“You should stop visiting her,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t like seeing you like this.”

I’m already regretting the fight. It’s a holiday, after all. And she’s alone in that crummy place. “What can you do? She’s my mom.”

His lips tighten and he carefully avoids my gaze. I grab the hand resting on the parking break and he squeezes me back, turning his head to smile.

I don’t know what the hell I’d do without him.

“One day, I’m going to meet her.”

“I don’t want you to,” I say softly.

My nerves are bundled in knots as Vince drives away, heading towards Long Island. On the way there, we pick up his mother, who greets me enthusiastically. We’re spending Thanksgiving with his boss and I can’t begin to describe how much that terrifies me.

“Adriana, doesn’t your mother live in Brooklyn? Should we get her too?”

“No,” I say a little too quickly. “She’s—ah, spending it with friends.”

In the rear view mirror, I catch Mrs. Cesare’s watchful gaze. “Oh, I see.”

I bite my lip as Vince pulls into a ridiculously long driveway somewhere in East Hampton. The lawn is freshly mown and bright green. Other cars are lined up along the driveway already, and I can see people moving inside the huge country house.

Vincent gets out of the car and takes my hand, pulling me in close. “You’ll do great,” he says, planting a kiss on my temple. “Just relax.”

The happy look on his face fills me with confidence. He’s right. There’s no reason to be so scared.

The oak door opens as we climb up the steps. I catch a glimpse of the interior: bright, white walls and abstract paintings from the 80’s are plastered on the walls. Creamy furniture fills the house, along with old, faded rugs. The woman standing in the doorway looks about ten years younger than the
don
, who stands in the kitchen with several other people. Her big hair sits on her head in bleached-blonde waves, so brittle from dying month after month. She wears a gold necklace with a picture of a saint, gold bracelets and diamonds. Her blouse is overly floral and she extends a claw-like hand to me. Her fake nails dig into my skin as I shake it.

Dear God. So this is what a mob wife looks like.

I imagine myself stuffed into those clothes with all that jewelry and a swift wave of revulsion rises in my throat. I’m only wearing one diamond-encrusted bracelet, the only thing I allowed Vince to buy me.

She kisses me on both cheeks and the smell of her hair products billow around me. She bumps her bony cheek against mine, kissing the air. “Nice to meet you, Adriana.”

“Great to meet you too, Mrs. Vittorio.”

“Please, call me Carmela.” She revolves on the spot and greets Mrs. Cesare with even more warmth and my gaze wanders around the house.

I get a strong vibe of the 80’s; a stark contrast from Vince’s home, but it reminds me vividly of my
nonna’s
home when she was still alive. My heart jumps when Jack Vittorio laughs at something the two other men said. He notices us finally.

“Vinny!” His eyes suddenly flash towards me and his smile twitches. “You kids are still together, eh?”

Vince laughs, greeting his boss as he nods his head towards Nicky and another man I don’t recognize. “Yeah.”

“She must be something special.”

My face gets hot as Vittorio gives me a slight smile.

“Yes, she is.” His arm slides around my waist and I feel Nicky’s greedy gaze on me. Vince’s lips press against my neck in a quick kiss. It’s like he is communicating to the others:
She’s mine.

The smell of Thanksgiving cooking wafts into the kitchen as Jack pours us glasses of wine, gesturing towards the table laden with appetizers. Feeling weak in his embrace, I take the glass of wine offered to me and we make a toast.

“
Salute
.”

I take a sip of the dry wine, and Vince turns his head. “Go hang out with the other women.”

It’s a clear dismissal for me to leave him alone with his friends, but I don’t want to leave his side, not when his hands make me flush. His fingertips slowly massage me. I feel them right through the fabric as if he’s touching my skin, and I suppress a shudder of desire.

Knowing how much I hate public affection, he pulls me closer and his lips, slightly wet with wine, kiss mine. He pulls away, his eyes laughing as he slaps my side.

“Go.”

My face is a public display of shame and I walk away from him. The two other wives sit in the living room with their drinks and I hang out in the doorway shyly until they wave me inside. Vince’s mother is helping Mrs. Vittorio in the kitchen, so it’s just me, Nicky’s wife, and someone else I don’t know. They’re all at least twenty years older than me and I feel out of place in my simple blue dress.

“Adriana, hi! I’m Nicky’s wife, Marisa.”

“I’m Stefani.”

I shake their hands, both of their false nails digging into my skin.

“So, Adriana I’ve heard you and Vince have been together for a while?”

Both of them look at me with wide eyes and smiles as if I’m a rare specimen.

“Yeah, about five months.”

Marisa gasps out loud and shares an excited look with Stefani. “We’ve never seen him be with the same girl for so long.”

My chest shakes with a hollow laugh. Are they counting the days until Vince dumps me? Either way, I feel uncomfortable with so much attention. “He’s very sweet.”

They beam at me. “I heard you work with the boys at their card games,” she says in a low voice. “What’s that like?”

I squirm on the couch under their eager looks. “I’m not sure if I’m supposed to talk about it.”

Thankfully, both women drop the subject and move on to something else. I try to pay attention to what they’re talking about, but I’m very quickly bored. They’re discussing which contractor they should use to redo their kitchens, and my mind zones out. I wish Vince would call me back into the room. Instead, I get up and decide to check on Mrs. Vittorio in the kitchen.

A huge, golden turkey sits on the counter, steam rising from the huge pan. Mrs. Cesare is busy cooking the gravy using the drippings from the pan, and I see tureens of cranberry sauce, bowls of mashed potatoes, a dish of baked yams. It all looks delicious.

“Adriana, could you tell the boys the food’s ready? They’re in the basement.”

“Sure.”

She points it out to me and I open the door, noticing how quiet the house is. I descend the wooden staircase to the partially unfinished basement, which holds exercise equipment, a refrigerator, and a washer and dryer.

Several low, male voices make me pause on the staircase.

“—thought you didn’t like to talk business in the house?” Vince’s voice makes the hair rise on my neck. I know I’m not supposed to listen, but I can’t help it.

“I sweep for bugs every week,” Jack Vittorio says in a shrugging tone. “You know, Richie still has a real hard-on for you. You’ve caused me a lot of problems, Vinny-boy.” Jack’s voice is even lower, deadlier.

“Fucking guy,” Vince spits. “I paid for his brother’s fucking physical therapy and I’m giving him ten percent of my action.”

“He might not walk again, Vince.”

I can almost hear his unconcerned shrug. My hands clench the railings so tightly that my knuckles turn white.

“That prick deserved it.” Another voice, Nicky’s, rises to Vince’s defense.

“They went after Adriana. I’m not doing anything more for them. You know how many weeks it took to convince her she could go back to school?”

I was wondering when my name would crop up.

There’s a scuffing sound and I tense on the staircase.

“I’m not blaming you for what you did, but I need you to cool your jets and do as you’re told.” His voice is completely devoid of warmth, and even I shudder from the force leaving his throat. “And keep that girl under your goddamn thumb. The last thing I need is a made guy’s girlfriend
who knows too much becoming a fucking FBI—”

“Jesus.
Relax
, Jack. It won’t come to that. She does what I tell her.”

My hand slips on the rail and my heel slams down hard on the concrete step, echoing through the basement.

“Food’s ready!” I bellow in a strange, overly cheerful voice. I turn around and run upstairs before I hear them acknowledge me, slamming the door behind me.

What the fuck did I just overhear?

* * *

Vince knows that something’s wrong when we drive back to Brooklyn to drop his mother off, but he can’t say anything in front of her. He gives me suspicious looks as he drives back, and I smile half-heartedly like nothing’s amiss.

The truth is that I’ve overheard way too much for my own good, and I’ve already connected the dots in the five minutes following that conversation in the basement. I wish I was too stupid to understand what they were talking about, but it’s really not that hard to put it all together. Vincent put Silvio in the hospital, beating him so badly that he “may not walk again” and now he’s paying the consequences. And I was threatened in retaliation, but that’s not the part that scares me.

What scares me is that the Vittorio boss doesn’t trust me. Perhaps he doesn’t approve of my whole arrangement with Vince.

Fuck.

“Bye Adriana!”

I twist my head around as she leaves the car. “Sorry—bye!”

The door shuts and Vince gives me another one of his cutting looks. I try to remind myself that he loves me. He would never hurt me.

Right?

Even though I’ve accepted the darkness inside him, I still find myself wondering whether I really trust him.

“How much did you overhear?”

It’s like he can read my thoughts. I look at him, stunned as he continues to look forward.

Crap.

“Overhear? Overhear what?”

He gives me a bored look. “C’mon, Adriana. You’re a bad liar. Let’s skip the part where you pretend you didn’t sneak up on us in the basement.”

“I didn’t sneak up on anyone,” I say in a heated voice, abandoning all pretenses. “You were the ones talking out in the open.”

“You have a knack for accidentally walking in on business you’re not supposed to know about.”

My face drains of blood, but Vince’s looks unruffled. I notice that we’re heading towards his place, and not mine. “We’re going to your house? I thought you needed to drop me off?”

“Change of plans,” he says in a gritty voice. “I need to strip search you for a wire.”

“Not funny,” I say when he laughs.

When we’re finally in his apartment, locked in that cold silence, I let myself breathe. Vince’s hands are all over me, claiming my body, but my mind’s still pounding with what I heard. The darkness grins at me when Vince lifts his head.

“What’s wrong?”

I search him. “Do you love me?”

“Of course, I do.”

Still there’s that unsettling feeling in my gut. I believe that he believes he loves me. The way that he holds me, talks to me—it’s like I’m his drug. I know he’s mine.

“I’d never do anything to hurt you. Ever.”

He pulls back, smiling. “Why are you saying this all of a sudden?”

“I heard a lot of things I didn’t want to know.”

Hard fingers massage the back of my neck. “You can’t let that stuff bother you.”

“How can you say that when your boss doesn’t trust me?”

Vince doesn’t seem to be listening. He unzips the back of my dress, kissing my neck and shoulder as the dress slips down. His lips and tongue provide my skin with instant heat, electricity shoots down my body. My fingers dig into his scalp and I feel like a hopeless slave.

“
Vince
.”

He stops and sweeps my hair from my face. “Baby, I promise you that you have nothing to fear from him.” His soft lips fall over mine, briefly touching. “Or me.”

* * *

A siren wails outside, the sound growing like a drawn-out scream before it lowers to a plaintive wail. Inside the back of the deli store, there are only two tables and I’m overdressed. The cheap, green carpet scuffs my heels. I inhale sharply as if it’s too stuffy inside. With five people in the room, it feels crowded. Hard to breathe.

I don’t like it.

Nicky stands near the door, vetting people in by looking through the peephole. It’s a much smaller operation than I’m used to. Only three guys from Vince’s outfit are inside to guard us. The players are of a much lower caliber. From the states of their shabby clothes, they look like chronic gamblers who can barely afford to sit in the game. I’m not really hopeful about tips, but everyone seems nice enough and every little bit they tip me helps.

We’re playing Texas Hold’Em, and the current pot holds about two thousand dollars. The man on my left keeps raising the bet. A disheveled looking man in his forties clenches his teeth together, because his pile of chips is dwindling. The final card completes the river and everyone shows their cards. He has a full house and everyone groans as he rakes in his chips. I smile at him, happy that he won the round.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Nicky patting his suit for his weapon. The blinds crinkle as he slips a finger through them and looks.

BAM.

I throw the cards in my hands as the door is kicked wide open. Men dressed in black burst inside, screaming.

“Nobody fucking move!”

It’s happening again.

Everything fades away to a dull murmur as I see them burst through my house.

“Please don’t! Don’t hurt him!”

I think I’ve been knocked on the floor, or maybe I’m clutching the legs of the felt table as male voices scream in my ears.

“Give us your fucking money!”

A sardonic voice answers him. “This is a low-level game, guys.”