Epilogue
On Saturday mornings, Emmaleen Rourke shows up to my carriage house on the new Providence estate grounds asherself.
She doesn't have any rules to follow, doesn't need permission to speak, and is allowed to make as many mistakes as she wants.
Because on Saturday mornings, we're… well, I'm really sure what we are.
I'd say friends. But I'm teaching her how to deep throat a cock so one day Giovanni will let her blow him so…
More than friends?
I stand shirtless at my front window looking out onto the snow-covered grounds, tracking her as she runs down the sidewalk towards me. She's wearing a long yellow coat that trails out behind her—defiant and bright against the gloomy morning sky, like a daffodil, daring winter to put out her light.
I'm wincing, watching the placement of her feet, mentally telling her to slow down. She slips on the ice, does a comical windmill motion with her arms, mouth open wide, then recovers a stride later, never changing her speed.
Why is she so fucking cute?
When she's a few feet away from my door, I open it up. "Jesus, slow down! It's a fucking skating rink out there."
She doesn't slow down. Of course she doesn't. Instead, she crashes into me with full momentum, letting me absorb the impact. Her body is cold against mine, but her face glows with color from the winter air.
"Did you know snowflakes really do have perfect hexagonal symmetry because of the molecular structure of water? And that no two are exactly alike because of microscopic variations in temperature and humidity as they form? And if you talk to water and tell it nice things, it makes a prettier structure when it freezes? True story."
"Nice," I say, untying the belt of her coat and helping her take it off. She's naked underneath. It's not a rule that she comes naked, it's her choice. Because for four hours on Saturday mornings she gets to do whatever she wants with our time.
Lately, it's been blow-job lessons. Specifically, deep throat fucking. AKA—Giovanni's preferred way to kill a woman.
Unfair. Maybe.
Not really, he did the deed. He should have to live with it.
Said lessons totally had to be cleared with Giovanni. Who looked at me like he was picturing how the bullet would look between my eyes when I asked him this, but then gave in once he learned the complete nature of the request.
Of course, he gave in.
Whatever Emmaleen wants, Emmaleen gets.
It's a new side to him. Slightly disturbing, if I'm being honest. Because while I do not work for Luca LaRiccia—Emmaleen is my full-time job now—I know a little of what Giovanni does for the man. Providence is a complete fucking mess, a territorial disaster zone of incompetence and failed leadership, and Giovanni is the surgical instrument Luca uses to excise problems that negotiations can't solve.
Honestly, I'm glad I'm out of the life. Completely out. The Pittsburgh docks, the constant tension, the weight of every wordneeding to be calibrated for who might be listening—all of it behind me now.
And while my family—ourfamily—was pretty fuckin' pissed about the whole switching sides bullshit ("You traitorous motherfuckers, if either of you ever steps foot in Pennsylvania again, we're gonna blow your fuckin' brains out, scatter what's left in the river..."), I can't say that I hate my current situation.
Far from it, actually.
No more dock life with its territorial pissing matches and union corruption. No more Mafia bullshit—the endless posturing, the blood feuds that go back generations, the suffocating hierarchy where breathing wrong in front of the wrong capo could get you disappeared. No more Sunday dinners at Mama Bavga's where I was constantly compared to my richer, better established, fuck-head cousins.
Giovanni thought he had it bad?
Try being a Moretti in Bavga Land.
Now, I literally edge a woman into manic episodes that alternate between crying and coming five days a week.
It's a strange kind of paradise, when you think about it.
"OK," Emmaleen says, her voice cutting through the quiet as she enters the living room. She doesn't hesitate—just drops straight to her knees with that same casual efficiency she's been developing over these past weeks, like submission has become muscle memory. "Can we just pick up where we left off last week instead of going through a whole Previously-On recap? You know, skip the 'Last Episode of Emmaleen Learns to Deep-Throat' montage and get straight to the actual lesson?"
The smile that spreads across my face is so goddamn wide I actually feel a flash of embarrassment about it.
