38
Massimo
I listened to her talk.
All day, I’ve found the sound of her voice soothing. Hearing her talk about art and what she sees when she looks at the beautiful surroundings I shared with my mother calmed my soul.
I’m grateful we took this trip. I needed it.
Night falls, and the pink light fades. The moonlight and stars take over the night, and we head back.
I wouldn’t normally be out so late on the river because the woods can attract all kinds of people. Today was an exception. There’s only one person who knows we’re here today, and that’s Darius, my custodian.
I didn’t even tell Pa.
I wanted today to be about Emelia and me, and I want tonight to be about us too.
We get back to the riverbank, and I help her get out of the boat. I never expected it to start raining. It does when we’re halfway back to the cottage, and by the time we reach the door, it’s pouring. We run back inside, soaked. I’m so wet my clothes cling to me and my hair slicks down my face.
Emelia, on the other hand, looks like an erotic mermaid with her slick, wet hair and her white tank top clinging to her breasts. Completely see-through. Her rose-tipped nipples press against the fabric of her clothes, begging to be sucked, and the flowery scent of her arousal hardens my cock.
She sees me looking at her, and I’m pleased when she doesn’t try to hide from me.
Instead, she steps forward with a seductive look in her eyes that’s sexy as fuck.
She tugs on the edge of my shirt, pulling it from the waistband of my pants.
“Be careful, Princesca. You keep looking at me like that, and there’s only one thing we’ll be doing tonight.”
“As long as we don’t just do it once.” She smiles. I cup her beautiful, beautiful face.
“When have I ever fucked you just once?”
She shakes her head. “Never, I just don’t want us to start tonight.”
“We won’t,” I promise before I steal her next words with a kiss. I taste her sweetness. I want it all. I want her and everything that makes her, her.
I run my fingers down her neck and over her elegant shoulders, trying to commit the feel of her to memory. When she tugs on my shirt again, the buttons pop and clatter on the floorboards.
When her fingers touch the bare skin on my abs, I know we won’t make it upstairs to the bedroom.
I move us into the kitchen and practically tear off her top and bra, leaving her in the little skirt that looks sexy as hell right now with her breasts on show and her hair wet.
Shoving everything off the breakfast table, I pick her up and set her down like the rare, exotic meal I’m getting ready to feast on.
She is.
She absolutely fucking is to me.
“Spread your legs wide for me, Mrs. D’Agostino. Let me see your pretty pussy.”
This woman has changed into one sexy goddess who’ll have me eating out of the palms of her hands if I’m not careful. When she gives me that lascivious smile again and spreads her legs, I nearly embarrass myself and blow my load .
“With pleasure, Mr. D’Agostino,” the goddess says, then goes one step further by holding open her pussy lips for me.
Holy fuck.
Lust wipes my brain clean of everything. Need makes me greedy, selfish, so I dive in and feast on my girl, my wife.
I lick over the sweet bud of her clit, listening to her moans and groans of wild pleasure. All from what I’m doing to her. Me. I have her coming undone in my arms, and she knows I want her. I see it as she comes and her sweet nectar flows into my mouth. The knowledge that I want her shines in her eyes. The look intensifies as I drink and take everything until there’s nothing left.
With her juice on my lips, I kiss her so she can taste herself. She moans into my mouth.
I’ll have to play with her breasts later. I need to be inside her. I’ve been eager to get back in there. I need her now.
Quickly, I strip out of my clothes, take my cock, and slide into her slick, wet opening.
She gasps, setting her hands behind her on the table to take me. I hold her still to make sure she does because I’m owning this pussy again tonight. Fuck damn, she feels so good. The sensation of being inside her heightens with this new sense of understanding that’s between us.
“Massimo… ahhh…” she moans.
“I’m going to make you feel good,” I promise and start to fuck her.
My mouth falls open and her eyes go wide, pleasure filling every inch of her face.
Infernal heat cascades over me, making me drive into her harder, faster, furious. Fuck.
My balls tighten painfully in response to the squeeze of her walls around my length. I try to hold on and control my movements so I can last longer, but she feels too good. Everything about her feels too good.
Mercilessly, I pound into her until I reach my limit and my climax comes at the same time as hers. The table shakes, scratching against the floor as I blow into her and she screams. It’s the most glorious sound I’ve ever heard, yet I want to hear it again before the sun comes up.
I pull out of her, pick her up, and carry her upstairs, where we fall into that cycle we got lost in nights ago. I’m mindful of sharing this one perfect night with my beauty.
We don’t sleep; we just indulge on each other. As the sun rises, I watch her as that feeling overwhelms me again. I see her. I see who she is, and I don’t feel scared anymore by what I feel for her.
The sun bathes her in its bright light as her whiskey-colored eyes stare back at me.
Suddenly I get it. I get love. I understand the risk and what my father meant when he said he carried my mother in his heart.
That’s where Emelia is for me. She found her way there all by herself, found the key and unlocked the door to a cold heart that’s been closed ever since that day I found my mother in the river.
“I see you,” Emelia says, touching my face.
“Because… I love you,” I answer. It feels so easy to say.
Shock suffuses her pretty face and her eyes go wide. She looks at me in disbelief at first. Soft strands of silk fall onto the pillow as she straightens and eases herself up onto her elbows to stare at me, lips parted.
“I love you too,” she replies, and I swear to God they’re the best four words I’ve ever heard.
I take her hand, the one wearing the two rings I gave her, and kiss her ring finger.
As I do I realize that if I love her the way I do, I have to change things. If I make it through this threat her father and Vlad pose, I need to make changes. I want to.
The minute we got back home, reality caught up with us. A call from Pa summoning me to an emergency Syndicate meeting heralded that things were about to change big time.
Riccardo would be in attendance. He made contact on receipt of the numerous messages left for him and agreed to come in for us to speak to him. I don’t understand how these people work. If I’d gotten that call, I would have tracked his ass and killed him. Maybe they did track him, but they still want him to come in.
I left Emelia almost as soon as we stepped into the house. I’m here now, at the high-rise building where the Syndicate meetings are held in.
The whole group is here. Everyone except Riccardo. He’s late.
Riccardo is now close to an hour late.
Pa and I have just gone into the lobby to get coffee and to talk between ourselves.
“I don’t think he’s coming, Pa. This is suspicious as fuck,” I point out.
“I know. And I agree, but this is their way. Talking out shit first while God knows what the fuck’s happening. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. The enforcers and soldiers are on high alert in case he tries anything.”
“Pa, this is shit. We’ve been here for an hour. He’s not coming. We know what he’s like. This isn’t his style. He wouldn’t be late,” I say with insistence.
“I’m gonna talk to Phillipe,” Pa says and leaves me.
I grab a cappuccino from the coffee machine and sip on it. I need something to keep my mind occupied. I hate being in a risky situation where I have to trust people who aren’t part of my team. This right here is exactly that. I don’t know these people, and I’m not really one of them yet. Everything has been spoon-fed to me. I understand there are reasons for that. They have an old-school process they’ve been following since the dawn of time, but fuck, emergencies are emergencies. I don’t think they’ve faced a situation in which one of their members has gone rogue.
A little ticking noise makes me look over my shoulder. It’s like a clock or some sort of timer that just switched on. It’s coming from the meeting room. When it gets louder, someone asks what the sound is, then panic flies through me when I realize what it truly is.
A bomb!
As soon as the thought enters my mind, an explosion rocks me and I find myself flying backwards. My body slams hard into the wall. So hard I feel broken. Something stabs through my stomach. I open my mouth to call for Pa, but darkness blurs my vision.
I must have blacked out for a few seconds. When I come to, I look around and see the devastation before me. One whole wall is gone, and fire is burning around me. The meeting room is… it’s gone. It’s fucking gone.
Pa… no!
Terror makes me try to lift… my body. The pain that courses through me as I try to move is excruciating. I look down and see one of the spikes from the wall impaling my side. Pain shoots through my body. There’re shards of glass imbedded in my arms and legs. Smoke and dust are everywhere.
A bomb. A bomb went off. Where’s Pa? I didn’t see which way he went to find Phillipe.
I try to get up and barely manage it. I need to see where Pa went. I pray it wasn’t the meeting room. I try to remember if Phillipe was inside. The men had dispersed to take a break from waiting. I was talking to Pa and Levka, one of the Bratva leaders, before we came out here. I can’t remember if Phillipe was inside the meeting room, and I don’t know what direction Pa turned when he left me.
I take a few steps forward, but footsteps crunching against glass cause me to turn my attention to the corridor on my left.
A shadowed figure emerges from the dust with a smile on his face.
The devil looks at me with pale blue eyes, exactly the way he did on the day of my mother’s funeral. Riccardo hasn’t changed one damn bit. Maybe there is just one thing: he looks more powerful than ever before.
“Well, look at this. My, my, my, how the tables have turned the shift of power back to me,” he gloats.
I open my mouth to speak, but blood trickles down the side of my chin.
“Motherfucker, you did this. Where is my father?” My voice shakes, and so does my body. I try to lunge for him, but I can’t. I can barely move, so I stumble.
He raises his gun and cocks the hammer. “You piece of shit. You thought you had me. Threatening me with the syndicate. Where the fuck are they now? When you’re gone, I’ll be the last man standing, and I’ll take back everything you took from me, including my daughter.”
“You aren’t getting my girl. You aren’t selling my girl, you motherfucking dog. You’ll have to tie me up to beat me. You’re a poor excuse for a father.” Listen to me talk. I wouldn’t even be able to draw my gun quickly enough to point it at him before he ends me.
My vison is already starting to flicker as if I’m about to black out.
I can’t. I have to kill him. Find Pa and get Emelia.
“All talk, no action. I’m bored now.” He fires the bullet, but something slams into me, knocking me to the ground again. At the same time, another bullet echoes almost simultaneously.
Riccardo shouts, and I manage to shuffle to see that it was Pa who slammed into me and he’s been hit. Riccardo got him straight in his stomach. Blood is seeping through his white shirt.
“Get out of here,” Pa says.
“No,” I rasp, holding him. “No, Pa. Come, let’s go.”
“No one is leaving!” Riccardo roars, holding his arm.
Fuck. The fucking bullet seemed to have hit the top of his shoulder. It’s bleeding and he’s holding it, but he doesn’t seem fazed.
Pa’s hand shakes as he tries to feel for his gun. He dropped it. I can see it, but I hold him because I can feel him slipping away from me. His body feels limp, like he’s trying to hold on but is failing.
“Fools,” Riccardo laughs. “The two of you. Giacomo, you look as shocked as Sariah did that night when I laid down the law.”
Pa and I both snap our gazes to him at the mention of my mother’s name.
What is he talking about?
“What? What are you saying to me?” Pa asks.
“The week before she died, I made one last attempt to get her back. I told her if she slept with me, I’d make sure you got back in with the syndicate. Your family would be taken care of. No more poverty. She did. She slept with me to save you, but I wanted more. I met her on the cliff and informed her of the new terms of our arrangement.” He smiles wide. My head grows light. I almost know what he’s going to say next. I know even before he says it. “I wanted her to come with me and be mine. But she chose poverty over me. She still chose you, Giacomo. I couldn’t believe it, so I threw her off the cliff.”
There…
That’s it.
That’s what I’ve known deep down. I sensed it. Every time I saw this man after my mother’s death, I sensed that he had something to do with her death.
He did.
Pa shouts, crying out. I can’t hear what he’s saying, though. I can barely see through the fucking tears that have welled up in my eyes.
In my mind I see her. Her eyes. That wide terrified expression on her face. I was right. She was crying out from beyond the grave. Calling to me, screaming out to me for justice.
Riccardo killed my mother.
“You bastard,” Pa says. He feels cold in my arms.
“Yes, I am.”
“You won’t get away with this.”
“Looks like he already has,” a voice says across from us.
When Andreas steps into view, shock slams into my chest.
“Andreas,” I gasp in utter disbelief.
Pa shakes his head. “No, Riccardo. You didn’t turn my son against me.”
“No, Pa. He didn’t turn your son against you. You did that all on your own.” He looks from me to Pa. Riccardo smiles wide. “I worked hard. I worked so damn hard to get the business. Day and night. And who got the credit? Massimo. I push it aside and continue to work tirelessly day and night, and who gets to be boss? Massimo. Not me.”Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.
“So, you betray us because I chose Massimo. I am your father!” Pa grits, sounding like he’s talking with his last breath.
“No,” Riccardo says, straightening up. “You aren’t. You aren’t his father. I am.”
I don’t know how many shocks I can take in this one spell of shit. I don’t know what door I walked through that landed me in this dimension. This can’t be real. None of it. None of this shit is real.
It can’t be.
“It’s not true.”
“But it is,” Andreas answers. “And now I’ll get everything.”
“How could you-” Pa doesn’t get to finish. Riccardo fires a bullet straight into his head, and as my father’s blood splatters all over me, a piece of me dies.
Inside, I’m screaming and shouting. The sound doesn’t escape though. I tremble and quiver from deep within, unable to believe that I’m holding my father dead in my arms.
Pa…
“I have an idea for this one,” Riccardo says. “He said I’d have to tie him up to beat him. Let’s do that.”
Andreas lunges at me. I try to block his moves, but I’m already too weak. He gets on top of both Pa and me then hits my temple hard twice with the back of his gun.
Helpless, powerless, useless. I go down.
Emelia is my last thought. They’re going to take her. I promised I’d protect her. I can’t.
Darkness surrounds me.