I hold his hand up in front of his face. “This ring shows you’remine. It’s a sign that anyone who touches a hair on your head will havemeto answer to. As long as you wear this ring, no one will harm you—unless they want to die themselves Understand?”
Finch goes pink. I can see it even in the dim lights of the room. “I understand,” he says at last. “I’ll keep it on. Only I’m not the one who took it off this time.”
“Then don’t ever do something this dumb again, so they have to take it offforyou,” I growl.
His green-gold eyes search my face. “Alright,” he says at last. “No more drugs.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“Well, this time I mean it.”
“Do you?” I ask. “Because if this shit happens again, you’re going to rehab. And not fun rehab, like a retreat or something.Realrehab, where they dry you out for a month before making you go to twelve-step meetings for another six months, andthenyou go to a halfway house. Understand?”
“I understand,” he says after a moment. “But I have a condition attached to my sobriety.”
I shake my head. “You don’t get to make conditions on this one, angel.”
His face lights up with a grin. “You don’t even know what it is. Maybe I just wanna blow you or something.” At my raised eyebrow he says, “I want you to keep telling me what your Don said, about where you need to improve. What’s he expecting of you?”
I give an irritated snort. “Who knows. That Sam Fuscone, he’s a fool, but he’s got a nice traditional family, and his wife makes a mean scaloppini. Tino likes his Capos to have wives who canentertain.” We’re one of the smaller Families, but one of the richest and most influential. And a lot of that influencing seems to happen over private dinner parties.
“Oh, baby,” Finch says, a slow, wicked smile spreading over his face. “I was fuckingbornto entertain. Only we can’t have big shots over to that shitty apartment,” he adds.
I press my lips together, wondering if I should tell him this last bit. Am I really going to accept Tino’s offer? He pressed the townhouse on me again, and it took every bit of cunning I had to ask for time to think it over without insulting him. But negotiating the complex web and expectations that come along with gifts and favors has defeated better men than I, and I wanted to be sure to think through the implications.
But I see now that Finch has a point, and I wonder if this was also Tino’s point.
“So, about where we live…” I begin with a sigh, and Finch’s eyes light up.
* * *
Once we’ve movedinto the new place, my clothes look even worse, hanging there in the wardrobe next to Finch’s suits. Even I can see the difference in the quality,feelthe difference when I take one of his cuffs between my fingers and rub the material. It makes my cheeks burn to think that I’ve been going around in my suits telling people they’re designer. Anyone with a passing knowledge—anyone who’d ever actually touched something classy, like Finch’s clothes—they must have known.
Finch is in his element. Watching his eyes glow with relief and joy when we drew up in front of the new building made it worthwhile to know I’d have to waste my time debugging the damn place, and then again regularly every time one of my crew comes over.
You can never really tell where allegiances lie in this business.
But after Finch has run up the front steps and burst into the place like a kid on Christmas morning, Frank comes over to give me his initial report and I get my first surprise.
“It’s clean,” he murmurs. And at my skeptical look: “I’m telling you, bro. It’s clean. I checked it myself. Not a peep on the scanners.”
I love my brother, but I don’t trust anyone to do as thorough a job as I can do myself. So I take the scanner and I spend the first three hours going through the whole place, upstairs and down. Where Finch is rejoicing over the furnishings, I’m checking under lampshades.
But what Frank says is true. Not a single camera, wire, or bug to be found.
* * *
“Thank God,”Finch breathes, as we come to the master bedroom. There’s a massive bed with a half-canopy, the whole room a subtle blend of shades of chocolate, walnut and beige. Finch grabs my hand and pulls me quickly to the bed, falling backwards on it so his bodyweight drags me down with him. We’re alone up here, but Frank and Mikey are downstairs, and I don’t want either of them seeing or hearing anything from down there.
But Finch’s face is so close to mine where I’ve fallen on top of him, I can’t help it—I’m half-hard in my pants already.
“Thisis where we’re meant to be, honey,” he murmurs, and his clever hands are already stroking over my back, my neck, holding on to me in a parody of lovemaking. He wriggles his thigh between mine so I can feel he’s hard, too. “This is the place our dreams start to come true.”
“A few curtains and pillows and you think you’re in fucking paradise,” I sigh. “This might be a gilded cage, baby bird, but it’sstilla cage.”
“But not literally,” he says, pouting. “You’ll let me out from time to time, won’t you? Even if I have to have a gigantic Italian shadow tagging along behind?”
“Occasionally,” I say, because I find I can’t deny him anything when he’s this close to me. All I can think of right now is our honeymoon, and the copious amounts of sex we had. I haven’t touched him since we got back; haven’t had a chance, between the fight we had our first night back and then his hospital stay.
