“For you,” she said, before departing.
I’d been so consumed with ideas about how to reconnect with my brothers and sisters that I’d missed my chance to ask who had sent the box. I pushed it aside. Who knew who it might be from or what it might contain, though the most likely culprit was Romeo. He seemed to be fond of sending me presents, though only to torment me with them or demand I treat them in a certain way. My eyes drifted over to the Blue Beauty butterfly encased in its glass box. Nothing was ever simple or pure when it came to him.
I was beginning to understand that everything the man did had some ulterior motive. He delighted in toying with me, in making me crave things I shouldn’t. Even though my father probably had killed Gianni, or perhaps, ordered the hit on him, I couldn’t forgive Romeo for shooting him right there in front of me. And I couldn’t forgive the fact that even though Romeo himself had not pulled the trigger on my mother, his actions were what led to her demise.
I hated Romeo Cavetti so much. With a passion.
And yet, passion had become an issue between us. In truth, it had always been an issue, or maybe a link between us. Despite the horror and the violence I’d witnessed from him, my body still craved his. Incessantly. It was like my identity had somehow been torn in two. The dedicated and demure daughter I’d been raised to be remained the good Lucia, while this bizarre woman with wanton desires I didn’t even recognize had become the bad Lucia.
I didn’t know that bad girl, but she was there, nevertheless, concealing herself just beneath the surface. I could feel her anytime Romeo came around as if his presence brought her more and more to life. Even thinking about him and what he did to me made her rise to prominence. Sometimes I wondered if this bad Lucia might take me over entirely.
In my dreams, my bad side had been every bit in charge. She had responded even more lustfully than I had. The scene between Romeo and I had played out much more colorfully. Explicitly. Because when he’d asked me if I was wet in my dream, I’d responded with…
“Yes, I’m wet, and it’s all because of you.”
There was something so much more enticing about this racy version of myself, too. Something more enthralling. Maybe because Romeo had brought me to the edge of something I’d never experienced previous to knowing him, and I wanted to careen over that edge and find out what lay on the other side. I found myself so curious. Fascinated by what he might be offering me. Tempted.
The events of the past twenty-four hours had twisted me up like a pretzel, and I needed a diversion, so with a sigh of resignation, I fixed my gaze on the mystery box. The chances that this was from anyone but Romeo were slim, but what if it was? What if one of my siblings had managed to deliver this and had devised some specialized method for me to successfully collect the others and flee?
Hope sprung eternal, after all.
So with a flourish, I unfastened the big blue bow and removed the top. Inside lay an overabundance of white tissue paper, but after I shifted it, I saw what the gift was: a black negligee as risqué as my flannel nightgown was old-fashioned and unassuming. It was one of those garments I’d seen occasionally in magazines meant to “tantalize your man.” This negligee looked to be less of a gown and more of what I believed was called a teddy, the shape of it more like a swimsuit. It consisted of lace, felt extremely lightweight, and bore a low neckline.
Nervous but unable to not study it more closely, I picked the garment up to inspect it and found a note. One word had been written on the sheet of notepaper.
Farfalla.
So, that solved the mystery. Romeo had indeed sent me this gift. I should throw it back in the box and shove it beneath my bed. Or better yet, flush the thing down the toilet. But now that it was in my hands, I could feel the high quality of the fabric, the softness of it. When I’d donned lacey garments before, they’d sometimes been itchy, but this felt smooth and lovely. Seductive almost.
Seductive? I questioned myself. Where had that come from? Before Romeo Cavetti had barreled into my home, I’d never considered myself someone who liked anything having to do with seduction. And now, I’d used the word as a positive way to describe his present? My bad girl side had obviously encroached again. Though I didn’t know what time it might be exactly, since Philippa had brought me dinner a while ago, I assumed it must be late. Romeo probably wouldn’t drop by now, so I decided to give in to my compulsion.
Shoving off my daytime outfit of a belted khaki dress, I stood there in my undergarments, staring at the teddy. I couldn’t help wondering how luxurious it might be, so tossing my bra and panties onto my bed, I took the negligee and rubbed it over my body. It felt so amazing against my skin, and when it caressed the fevered flesh of my nipples, it reminded me of how titillated and turned on Romeo had made me feel. I continued like this for a couple of minutes, then tried the nightie on properly. In the process, I noticed that the panty part had been assembled in an unusual manner. The piece meant to go between my legs was missing, which made the garmentcrotchless.
The thought both terrified and stimulated me, as I gazed at myself in the cheval mirror. I looked so different in this, like I was no longer the girl I had always been. In this, the good Lucia had been pushed aside to become the bad version. What would it be like to have Romeo see me in this? How would it feel to have him tug at my nipples again through this extra thin lace? How wet would I grow if he caressed my center again, especially since this negligee gave him full access to my folds?
I shivered in anticipation.
4
Romeo
One of the reasons I’d taken myfarfallato that specific interior room was due to the surveillance equipment within. Lucia didn’t know this, but everything she did within the confines of those four walls was mine to peruse at my leisure. That first week, I peeked at the cameras occasionally but hadn’t seen much I considered worthwhile. But now that I’d revved her up, I wanted to check to see what if any affect my attention had had on her.
Yet, I found myself disappointed. Even as tightly wound as I’d left her, she did not pleasure herself on her bed as I’d hoped. She’d merely hopped in the shower to clean up. And while watching her soap herself up and rinse herself excited me to a certain degree, it wasn’t what I was truly after.
I spent the whole of the next day running errands for my father. He’d wanted me to contact all of our distributors to do some market research on how well our recent development had fared. Though calling our new income stream selling cocaine and other opiates like heroin a development was inaccurate. The truth was that that business had been one of the Bonifacios long-held businesses, and we were discovering bit by bit that they’d been laundering the money received by this venture through several local “legitimate” establishments.
I chuckled at the Bonifacios ingenuity. They’d covered their tracks well, moving money through a check-cashing store, a dry cleaner, a bistro, a bowling alley, and even a barbershop. Yet we’d done things in a more straightforward way and had found success, too. When myfamigliahad started our own drug trade in marijuana decades ago, it hadn’t been legal. We’d raked in money hand over fist, and this had allowed my grandfather to leave his humble beginnings as a servant of the Bonifacios to become one of their indirect competitors.
They had not been pleased.
That was when all the rivalry and animosity had started, long before my birth. Hell, long before my father’s. In response, they’d ramped up their efforts to outdo us by adding heroin and meth to their already flourishing cocaine line. Then, during my lifetime, they’d added on substances like oxycontin. We found a distributor to sell oxycontin, too, which upped the ante and turned us from indirect competitors into direct ones. Then suddenly, some of our runners would go missing.
We made sure to repay the favor.
When marijuana became legal in Illinois, we immediately involved ourselves in opening the centers where it was sold, gaining a foothold the Bonifacios didn’t have. Our sales exploded, and again, we heard grumblings that the Bonifacios were not pleased. This enmity escalated for years until my brother Gianni convinced my father that our best solution would be to combine our twofamigliasinto one. To quit competing and begin to combine our resources. It had always made sense to me from a business point of view.
And once I saw Lucia, from a personal one as well.
