“He’s pent up, cuddle bug.” I detach his rocking body from the pillow and place it on the floor.
“Since when? The origin of life?” He growls down at an excited Nacho jumping up and down at his feet. “Sit!” The dog quickly follows his order and pushes his ass down, looking at him adoringly.
Funnily enough, my dog loves Luca. He follows him everywhere, obeys every order, and is not afraid of him whatsoever.
“He was a stray, so he learned to enjoy whenever he could.” I shrug and then turn a sweet voice at Nacho. “Didn’t you, my love? Yes, you did.”
He turns to me, wiggling his tail for a moment, but then there is only Luca for him again. I should feel betrayed, but it’s actually entertaining.
“Why is your fucking dog here, Enzino?” he asks, while putting a black shirt on.
I slide down the bed, my legs feeling like jelly, but I manage to reach his closet. “The real question is, why can’t I hang my clothes here? There’s space. They are getting all wrinkled in that duffel bag,” I say with as much contempt as I dare while pointing at the one on the floor I brought from my apartment, to the club, to…here.
“Because I said so,” he says obnoxiously.
Because I said so, I mouth his words. What a load of crap. “That doesn’t work for me unless your dick is ready to fuck me.”
I close the drawer and walk back into the room. Nacho is lying at Luca’s feet, belly up, waiting. My poor baby is relentless and super cute. Luca is about to put on a blue tie, which I slide off his neck as I plant myself in front of him.
“You won’t stay here long enough for your clothes to wrinkle.” His cold statement makes my hands halt for a brief moment, but just as quickly, they resume working on the white necktie I chose for him.
Yep, I have a wedding to go to in fifteen days, or a grave. Not much difference between them, is there? I remind myself that people are tools. I use them and move on. And I do it so that I can avoid as much as possible finding myself in a position of powerlessness. But the truth is that I am in such a position all the time. I’d be far away already if it weren’t for Mario and my father and Coretti and him.
Focusing on the tie knot, I don’t look at his face once—not hard to do since he’s a hundred feet taller. But I feel his eyes sliding down me, over his t-shirt covering my upper body, and my naked legs.
“They are already wrinkled. Why do you think I keep wearing your t-shirts?” Not because I love how they smell and feel on my skin. Nope.
“To drive me fucking crazy!” he abruptly snaps, cupping my ass with his large, calloused hands. A hard squeeze and then he presses my belly against his rigid dick, almost lifting me off my feet.
His eyes are firing lust at me, his jaw ticking. My mouth starts salivating, and I can’t stop staring at his lips, willing them to come down on mine. But just as I’m about to climb him like a devil tree, his phone starts ringing.
He lets me go like I’ve suddenly turned into a blazing piece of ember and turns to the chair where his phone is.
“What?” he barks into it. “No, be there in thirty. Did you get any news?”
He walks out of the bedroom—followed by Nacho’s little tushy—and while still within earshot, I hear him saying the wordscarved crossandlittle gold horn pendant. My body freezes as dread fills my chest like a swarm of bees. A flash of memory appears in front of my eyes, gold horn charms dangling down, a cross carved on each one of them. The clinking sound echoes inside my head. I have to shake the shivering sensation off as I squeeze my eyes, willing the memory to go away.
I silently move closer to the threshold to catch more of the phone call, keeping myself back so as not to be seen by him.
“I’ll get the information out of that fucker,” Luca is saying. “No, I won’t tell him it’s related to the dead boy.”
Is he talking about Doppi’s son? That dead boy? Why is a little gold horn pendant related to the body? Wait a second. What did Rami tell me? That the body was found on Leone’s turf, that it had multiple knife wounds, and that it was not reported. I know that Luca is trying to find out who left the corpse there. Every-fucking-thing points to Mario, but let’s be real, killing and ditching the body on their turf would be suicide for him right now. My father told him to stay under the radar until after the wedding. But the main question is, why would Mario do that? He doesn’t give a fuck about Leone or Coretti.
My brain is short-circuiting. I’m not a fucking detective, and this is not aScooby-Dooepisode. I always hated mysteries and secrets. Who the fuck cares? This is not the right day for all the thinking. I go to the bathroom to wash up a little and check my phone. I quickly tell Aurora not to worry about the club since I talked with the manager the other night, and that the wedding is still on…probably.
Sometimes I wonder whether it’s better to have a quick death than a torturous life?
I head back to the bedroom and find Luca wearing a floral-patterned black blazer with peak lapels, classic and sophisticated. The necktie I chose for him looks great under it—and it’ll feel amazing on my skin later. The mobster certainly has taste. I throw myself on the bed and then roll over, belly down to look at him—chin propped on my hands, feet crossed in the air. I’m suddenly curious about him.
“Given a choice, would you rather have your brain in a beetle’s body or a beetle’s brain in your body?” I ask, and as always, he does the opposite of what I expect. He actually answers.
“My brain in a beetle’s body.” That’s it. No explanation.
“That’s preposterous. Everybody would try to step on you that way!”
“The alternative is being committed to a mental institution.” His rational answers annoy me.
“But you would still have your looks!”
