[english] Spin

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I spun around to find the source of the voice.

Michael stood behind me in costume: Dirty jeans. Grey T-shirt. A filthy apron and hair net. “We got a place from ReVal for the wrap party on Saturday. Some corporate loft they haven’t staged yet.”

“Wow. Nice work. Are we starting filming?”

“Nah, they’re still getting the lights up.”

I stepped deeper into the parking lot. “That getup really works for you.”

Anything would work for him. He was a celebrity waiting to happen.

“Like it?” He pointed to a particularly egregious brown smear. “I had this chocolate streak put on just so people would think it was shit.”

“Bold.”

“That’s my middle name. Speaking of—well, no, not speaking of. This is actually a major non sequitur.”

We walked through the lot, ignored in the busy hustle of the camera crew testing every corner for the right light, adjusting scrims and lamps.

“I like a good non sequitur as much as the next person.”

He stopped and turned toward me. “I heard we lost our post funding.”

“You know Hollywood gossip is cheap.”

“My agent told me.”

“And agent gossip is the cheapest. Seriously, Michael, consider the source. Pilot season’s happening when you’ll be doing scene pickups for Katrina. He can’t like that.”

“You’re not denying it.”

“You assume I know in the first place.”

“Still not denying it. You’re an artist at that, you know.” His smile seemed genuine, but it could have been acting. “Now, Ms. Ip? Not such an artist.”

He took out a pack of cigarettes and poked one out. I was reminded of Antonio Spinelli’s fluid motions, his clacking lighter, the smoke framing his face. Michael was less intense. My observations could have been colored by my sexual indifference. Sometimes, between two people who shared so little heat, a cigarette was just a cigarette.

“I’m glad you brought it up with Katrina first,” I said. “She needs to know if something like this is going around town.”

“I’ve done some of my best work in the past couple of weeks. Pilot season’s not my future. This movie is.”

“I’m glad you—”

“I do feel that way. Let me finish. If this film gets shelved, I’m shelved. I’m home in Park Forest, Illinois, working in the pizza shop on Blackhawk Way. I have no money to put up, but I would, and she knows that.”

“Stop.” When he tried to blow through me again, I held up my hand. “She won’t take money from me.”

“I know.”

“You think you know a little too much.”

“We haven’t even scratched the surface.” He took a scrap of paper from his apron pocket just as Ricky, the new AD, called talent to the set. “This guy funds low-budget, non-union gigs that run out of money.”

I looked at the paper, though I suspected I knew the name already. Scott Mabat, Hollywood loan shark and part-time p**n ography producer. “This guy’s a career-killer.”

“He made Thomas Brandy who he is.”

“A statistical anomaly. The rest couldn’t pay him back and wound up in a ditch.”

He stepped back toward set, where I also belonged. “I believe in this picture.”

With that, he spun around and trotted inside, leaving behind the implication that I didn’t. As I followed, I counted the days I had left to get Katrina her money.

***

When the set broke, I hopped over to the Spanish house in the hills. The gate was locked, and the driveway was empty. I got out and listened. No banging or hammering. No sledgehammer demolition on an ill-placed wall. Nothing but the screech of crickets.

I got back in the car. Where to, Contessa?

It had been four days. Was the trail getting cold, or was I just getting really crappy at this? I still had no idea where he lived. The car place was probably closed for the day. Where else had I seen him? Frontage. The offices of WDE. A Catholic Charities fundraiser. Katrina’s set downtown, where he’d brought dinner and wine.

Zia.

I tapped my phone a few times and came up with a restaurant in Rancho Palos Verdes. A thirty-minute drive if the freeways had cleared from the spate of violence that had something or nothing at all to do with Antonio.

twenty-six.

ia’s didn’t look authentic. It looked like what authentic was supposed to look like. If you went to Italy, you’d expect every café and restaurant to have a supply of red checked tablecloths, containers of parmesan, and baskets of bread with saucers of butter. Considering the quality of the neighborhood and the sophistication of the residents, the cheesy décor was bound to be a turnoff.

I parked in the little lot and went around to the front, where two tables sat on the sidewalk. At one sat two men in their sixties, hunched over a game of dominoes. The one farthest, with the white moustache and huge belly, glanced at me, nodded, and rolled the dice. The other, in a fedora and open-necked shirt, didn’t acknowledge me. A sense of apprehension came over me. I was stepping into Antonio’s territory. Wasn’t that exactly what he didn’t want?

A wood bar stretched over one side of the restaurant, and the rest of the floor was taken up by small round tables and booths decorated with gingham and little oil and vinegar carts. A mural of Mount Vesuvius took up all available wall space.

Half of the four booths had little “reserved” tags on them, and at the other two sat clusters of men. One of them, a short guy with a brown shirt and goatee, stood between the two tables, speaking Italian as if he was regaling them with a story. He checked me out when I entered then went back to waving his arms and making everyone laugh.

 

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“Can I help you?”

I turned and saw Zia, doughy fingers clasped in front of her.

“Hi,” I said. “How are you?”

She pointed at me. “I recognize you.”

“Yeah. I remember you.”

Her expression went from warm to suspicious, as if she saw right through me. “You’re here to eat?”

The jocularity of the booths went dead. Some signal must have been given, because I felt their eyes on me.

“No.”

“Something else?”

Best to just get to it. “I’m looking for Antonio.”

“He’s not here.”

“I…” What did I want to say? This was my last ditch effort, wasn’t it? After this, I had nowhere else to look. “I mean him no harm. I’m here on my own.”

She smiled. In that smile, I didn’t see delight or kindness, but an emotion I’d inspired many times before. Pity.

I stood up straight. “I’m going to find him now or later, Zia. So, best now.”

A man’s voice came from behind me. “You want me to walk her out?”

I turned and saw the potbellied dominoes player. But I didn’t move or offer to leave.

“It’s woman stuff,” Zia said, waving as if my appearance was just an inconvenience, not something heavy. She indicated the doors to the kitchen. “Come.”

My phone vibrated in my pocket. I knew I needed to get back to the set. I would have to go in the kitchen, tell Antonio what I wanted and that I wasn’t taking no for an answer, then hustle back. Zia walked me through the tiny commercial kitchen, past stock pots simmering on the stove and a man in a white baseball cap scrubbing a pan. I thought she was taking me to Antonio, but she opened a door to the parking lot.

“Zia,” I said, “I don’t understand.”

“He’s not here.”

“Can I leave him a message?” I asked as I walked into the parking lot.

“If you think I’ll deliver it.”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

She looked into the bright sun then back into the kitchen. “I have to go.”

She tried to close the door, but I held it open. “Why?” I demanded. “Just tell me why. Is it a trust thing? You all think I’m running back to my ex with details?”

Zia took the doorknob so firmly that I knew I didn’t have the strength to hold her back if she decided to close it for once and for all.

“Please,” I said, taking my hand off the door, “I mean no harm. I swear.”

“I believe you,” she said. “What you mean, I know. But meaning harm and doing it? Not always the same.”

“Is he okay?”

“Is he okay? Si. Until I kill him. Until I shake him out with my hands.” She opened them and hooked her sausage fingers, shiny with years in the kitchen. “Quel figlio di buona donna asks me to cater a movie set. Doesn’t tell me he’s seducing you.” She moved her hand up and down, tracing the vertical line of my body as if I was a monument to every girl he shouldn’t be with. “Stronzo. That’s what he is.”

Her insults were affectionate, but she was very angry. I could pretend I didn’t know what about me was so offensive, but I knew damn well it was my relationships, my culture, everything I was.

“Can you just tell him I was here?”

She shook her head as if I was an idiot. “No. If you chase him into our world, we will chase you out.” She closed the door.

***

I thought of every worst-case scenario on the way to the set. Antonio was dead, in trouble, shipped back to Naples. He was responsible for the violence that had taken over the news channels, or he was the as-yet-undiscovered victim of it.

And I had nowhere else to look. I had no proof that anything was anything, and if I chased him, his world would chase me out.

On set that night, as I pondered the worst, I wasn’t much more optimistic about Katrina. By the wide radius she kept around me, I could tell she sensed my discomfort. I kept my eyes on who was where, what buttons were unbuttoned, where arms and legs were placed, what lines dropped. It was the last day in the café. They were tearing it down. Nothing could be missed.

Then it broke like a fever. Katrina practically whispered “cut,” and everyone cheered. It was over. We packed up for the umpteenth time, put everything back in the trucks. The affairs that had started during shooting would either amount to something or not. The friendships would be tested. If the movie would get to theaters depended on the next few weeks, and no one but me, Katrina, Michael, and the deepest Hollywood insiders knew how unlikely that was.

I got in the car, thinking I’d just take a midnight drive up Alameda and crawl into bed. I texted Antonio, even though it felt more and more like screaming down an empty alley.

—I know I’m harassing you and I don’t care. If everything’s okay just text me anything back. A f**k you would be sufficient—

I waited ten minutes, watching the last of the PAs pack up. I was distracted by the silence of my phone. Tired of waiting for something that wasn’t going to happen, I left.

twenty-seven.

ur final shoot had been in the West Valley, a straight shot down the 101. The freeway was relatively empty, and I went into auto pilot, listening to the news that the shootings and violence were unrelated, random. A southside gang shooting had hit the wrong man. A shooting during a robbery attempt. A beating in Griffith Park.

 

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“The lady doth protest too much,” I mumbled.

A Lexus cut me off as I was complaining to myself. I slammed the brakes, screeching and swerving as adrenaline dumped into my bloodstream. The Club slid out from under the passenger seat.

“Fuck!”

The Lexus picked up speed, and I did too. I was filled with a blinding hot anger. The Lexus swerved around, and I saw the man in driver seat. Young. Goatee. Flashing me his middle finger. He sped ahead, and I had no choice whatsoever.

I chased the car. I had no idea what I would do when I caught it, but I would catch it. It sped up even as it pulled off without a blinker. I rode his ass in my little blue car. Twenty-four, then twelve inches away at eighty. I was insane, not thinking like Theresa.

He didn’t know who was in my car. I could have been a gangbanger, and he ran. Oh, if I caught him, what would I do… Choke. Kill. I couldn’t imagine it any more than I could control it.

We landed on Mulholland, the most dangerous, twisted street to speed down, but we did. He would get an ass full of vintage BMW if he slammed to a stop, and I didn’t know how to care. The Lexus turned so fast I almost missed it. We stopped on a private street with only our headlights illuminating the trees on either side of the road.

A bloated bag of unreleased rage, I grabbed the Club from the floor and got out of the car. “What the f**k is wrong with you?” I yelled from deep in my diaphragm.

His driver side door opened. I didn’t have time to hope there was only one of them. I swung the Club at the nearest taillight.

Smash.

That felt good. I went for the brake light.

“What the f**k?” shouted Goatee.

As the light smashed, I recognized him from Zia’s. He’d been in a booth. I went at him with the Club, and he stepped back.

“Lady, you’re f**king crazy.”

He reached into his jacket just as the street flooded with light. Cars. I felt caught in the act and rescued at the same time. Goatee got his hand out of his jacket. He had a gun in it, but instead of shooting me, he shot at the cars pulling up behind me. A ping and a clunk. Another shot, and Goatee spun, screaming and clutching his bloody hand. His gun had been shot out of it.

Three car doors slammed behind me. I couldn’t see the three men due to the backlighting, but I recognized the shape of a Maserati.

“Bruno, you dumb shit.” It was Paulie.

When I felt strong hands on me, pulling on the Club, I knew it was Antonio. I felt like falling apart, but I didn’t, even when I saw his dark eyes, their joy and charm gone. He had the face of a mafia capo.

I yanked the weapon away from Antonio and stepped forward, nailing the side of the Lexus on the foreswing. I aimed for Bruno’s screaming head on the backswing. He ducked, and I swung again.

Everything happened at once. I was pulled back. Bruno’s screaming stopped. Doors slammed. Road dirt sprayed my face. Antonio shouted in Italian, and Paulie shouted back in English. A few f**ks were the only words I understood.

I was in the passenger side of my car, and the car was moving. Fast. Antonio was driving. I held the Club up, and he grabbed it from me while driving with his other hand.

“You’re f**king crazy, you know that?” he said.

He hit the gas, slipping the seat back to accommodate his height. In front of us, the Lexus took off, and Antonio chased it.

“Where were you?”

“Put your seatbelt on.” He threw the Club into the back seat. “What did you think you were doing?”

“Breaking things!” Why was I screaming while I was obeying? “Not like it’s your business, but I was going to crack his head open.”

“Do you know who that was?”

Our car swung around a corner. Behind us, the Maserati followed, with Paulie at the wheel, I assumed.

“Bruno Uvoli,” he said. “Cazzo! He’s a made man. He’d sell his sister for a dollar. And you’re like a f**king beacon, asking about me everywhere. What the f**k, Theresa? I’m trying to protect you, and you step in it. Deliberately.”

“Answer a text next time.”

We blasted into the Valley on the Lexus’s tail, onto flat, wide boulevards and poorly lit side streets.

“Hold on.” With one hand, he held me to the seat while he followed the car under a viaduct and out into a twisty service road, clipping the concrete wall in a shower of sparks. We were going seventy-five, and though I thought I should care about what my car would look like at the end of this, I didn’t.

“I want you,” I said, breathless. “I want you, and I’m going to have you. That’s it.”

“I’m death to you.” He accelerated. The BMW kicked awake as if that was its shining moment.

“No. You’re like mainlining life. I want it. I need it. I don’t care what I have to do to earn your trust, I’ll do it.”

He pushed me down, swung the car right, then left, bumping the Lexus onto a turn up the foothills. The Maserati shot around us and in front of the Lexus, taking it in the side with a crunch.

“Cazzo,” he growled again, but not to me. He screeched the BMW to a halt inches from the Lexus.

Paulie and Zo were already out of the Mas with their guns drawn.

Antonio unbuckled me with one hand and pulled my head onto his lap with the other. “Stay there.”

I glanced up at him, his rock of an erection at my cheek.

He looked out the windshield. “I need you to drive away.”

“You’re not getting rid of me.” I heard a scuffle outside.

 

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“I don’t want you seeing this. I don’t want you near it.”

“I’m not going back to Daniel with any of it.”

“It doesn’t matter. Look at you, ready to kill a man with a club. I’ve contaminated you enough.” He slipped out from under me, opening the door and getting out.

I sat up. In my headlights, I saw how desolate the area Antonio had pushed the Lexus into was. Bruno was pinned to the ground by Paulie’s foot on his busted hand. Zo knelt on him with one knee on his unbusted arm and the other on his thigh. Bruno’s sneaker had been stuffed in his mouth to muffle his screams.

It all sunk in, what I’d gotten into and how. I froze, becoming myself again for a second.

Antonio leaned in the door. “Contessa. Drive.”

“I want you.”

“I heard you.”

“You don’t believe me.” My eyes were locked on the pinned man.

“You want a man you imagine. If you knew who you were talking to, if you knew what I could turn you into, you’d run back to your DA.” In my peripheral vision, I saw him take a pack of cigarettes from his pocket.

I turned to him. “Walk away. Don’t do this. Not over a little road rage.”

He lit the smoke with a clack of his silver lighter. “This wasn’t road rage. He is stupid and dangerous. And he was after you. Now I have to make sure he never touches you, and that I never touch you.” He closed the door and spoke through the open window. “Make no mistake, I will hurt you to protect you. Now go.” He turned to the three men. “Zo, get off him, I got it. Drive her if she won’t go.”

“Yes, boss.”

Antonio turned his back on me, and Zo approached. My beautiful capo didn’t look back, only down at the man who had gotten me to chase him into a desolate area for a purpose I could only imagine, with the smoke and fire of hell winding around his fingertips.

Before Zo could reach me, I backed out and into the street. I didn’t get far before I had to pull the car over. I covered my mouth with my hands and cried, muffling myself as tears fell down the cracks between my fingers.

What had I done?

Of all the things I could do from the front of my dented BMW, I had not one I would do. I could call 9-1-1. I could call Daniel. I could reveal the whole thing to the press. But I wouldn’t, and I knew it.

And Antonio knew it. On some level, he trusted me.

twenty-eight.

thought Katrina would come home and collapse, but when I walked in and found the house empty, I was the one who collapsed, throwing myself on the couch with my forearm over my eyes. They hurt from crying and would continue to hurt because the tears came again. I didn’t even know what I was crying about exactly. Was it stress? Or the man I knew was going to die? Or the fact that I was responsible? Was it because I was pretty sure I had been about to kill him myself?

I don’t know how long I laid there like that, but I fell asleep. I woke to a knock on the door. I looked out the peephole and felt so much relief that I whispered his name when I saw him. I opened the door.

“Contessa.” His voice was rough.

“Capo.” I leaned on the door, looking up at his eyes, sunken and tired and a little bloodshot. They flinched when I called him that then warmed.

“Send me away,” he said. “Slam this door in my face.”

I stepped aside and let him in.

“I tried to stay away,” he said. “I’ve never wanted a woman this much in my life. I’d burn cities to have you. I’d fight armies. I’d commit murder to take you right now.”

I grabbed his lapels and pulled off his jacket. He let me slide it down his arms. I didn’t ask him any questions as I unbuttoned his cuffs. I didn’t ask how he was when I undid the front of his shirt. I must have been a sight with my swollen eyes and stained cheeks.

He touched his thumb to the hollow of my eye. “You were crying.”

I put my fingers on his lips, shushing him, and he kissed the tips.

“I can’t keep away from you,” he rasped.

“Don’t. Don’t ever.” I took his hand. “Come. Let’s wash tonight off.”

I pulled him upstairs, walking backward. Halfway up, he lifted me. I hooked my legs around his waist and my arms around his shoulders, letting him carry me to my bedroom. We didn’t kiss but kept our eyes open and our faces close, sharing breath and space.

He set me on my dresser. I finished unbuttoning his shirt and slid it off. I got his undershirt off so fast his gold charm clinked and dropped. That’s when I noticed the yellow hospital wristband.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I’m fine.”

“You were admitted.”

“Somebody had to be. For the records. Otherwise they have to report a gunshot wound, even in the hand. Nobody wants that.”

I inspected his face for a second.

“What is it, Contessa?”

“You took him to the hospital?”

“To a doctor I know at the hospital. We have people for emergencies.”

My face got hot again. I felt my nose tingle and my eyes moisten. “You didn’t kill him?”

“No.”

A breath whooshed out of my mouth, and I cried with a smile. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just wanted to see you again. I didn’t mean—” I was lost in tears.

“He’s ambitious, and he saw an opening. What he did is past forgiving, but I kept seeing your face.” He looked away and set his jaw. “If he comes near you again, I will kill him.”

 

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He held my chin in those powerful hands and tilted my face up. Our mouths crashed together. Our arms twined around each other, seeking purchase, finding it, an moving again.

He brought his lips to my ear and whispered, “When you left my office, I thought I’d never see you again, and it made me crazy. I was so angry at myself, I did stupid things it’ll take years to fix. God forgive me.”

I held him, kissing his neck and cheek with all the tenderness and forgiveness I could manage. It wasn’t enough, not by a lot, but it was all I had. I wanted his skin against mine. I pulled my shirt off and twisted out of my bra.

Looking down, he touched my ni**les with the backs of his fingers. “This is wrong. We’re wrong. You and I. One of us is going to get the other one killed.”

“I think about you all the time.”

“I can’t let you into my world. It won’t work. They’ll rip you to shreds.”

“I touch myself thinking of you.”

“I’ve done things I can never talk about. Even knowing what they are could hurt you.”

I slid off the dresser and took his hands. “Come with me.” I led him to the bathroom and turned on the shower. I wiggled out of my pants then reached for his waistband.

“This doesn’t fix anything,” he said.

“There’s nothing to fix.” I unfastened his trousers, and they dropped to the floor. I reached into his underwear and got out his cock. “This works.”

“It’s for f**king you.”

I snapped the shower door open. “Never stop putting that c**k in me.”

He kissed me hard, pushing my head against the wall. “God help me. You make me crazy. We can’t be together, but you’re all I think about. Making you mine completely.”

“I’ll be yours. Let me be,” I said.

“You’ll be destroyed, Contessa. Peacetime is over. If anything happened to you—”

“We won’t tell anyone. I’ll be your secret, and you’ll be mine. We’ll meet in the night, when no one can see.”

“It’s too late for that.”

“No, we’ll say it’s over. It’s that, or nothing. If never seeing me again works for you, then go. I won’t chase you again.”

“Promise?” he asked.

His body relaxed, and I thought he was really going to go. It seemed impossible that his body wouldn’t be pressed on mine, but it was his choice to make.

“I promise. I have the will to do it.”

He put his nose to mine, his eyes scanning my face, then dropped his gaze. “I believe you.” He kissed me, and the rigid pressure of his body returned. “You have the will, but I don’t. I have to have you. Tonight and after, you’re mine. Your first loyalty is to me. Every moan on your lips. Every wet drop from your cunt. When the thought of f**king crosses your mind, it’s mine. Say it.”

“I’m yours, Capo.”

“No more halfway bullshit.”

I swallowed nervously, because I didn’t want to test our resolve or find out his desire truly was halfway, but I wanted to surrender completely to our pledge.

“I want your skin on my skin.” I hated to bring it up, but it was my last chance. “After I found out Daniel cheated on me, I got tested for everything. I’m clean. And I left the IUD in.”

He smiled, and my heart opened. “I’m a condom guy.”

“Every time?”

“Of course.”

“No halfway bullshit, then.”

I got into the shower. He peeled off his underwear and joined me.

The water was hot and powerful. He leaned his head back and let it fall over his face in rivulets. The water darkened his lashes, making them stick together. I rolled the rectangle of soap in my hands then put them on his neck, running soap over the curves of his body. Shoulders, biceps, forearms, the space of his chest under the gold chain with the circle charm. He enfolded my hands in his, transferring the soap.

“What’s this?” I asked, touching the gold medal.

“Saint Christopher. Patron saint of protection.”

“Does it work?” I kissed it and the skin around it.

“Am I dead?”

I took his c**k in my hand. “Apparently not.”

Turning me, he put his hands between my shoulders, my ass, the backs of my thighs, then up the crack, massaging my pu**y with his finger and my ass with his thumb. I picked up my leg and rested it on the ledge so he could get his fingers farther into me.

“Oh God, Antonio. I’ve wanted you for days.”

“I’m going to f**k you so hard, little princess. I’m going to break you in two.”

I twisted to face him.“Do it. Take me hard.”

He looped his arm under my knee, pulling it up. The skin of his dick was so smooth on my pu**y, he stretched and slid into me. He had to thrust twice more to get all the way in, hitching up my leg. He was so rough that I had no choice but to be a doll in his hands.

“You’re so f**king hot,” he said, pressing his thumb to my ass.

“Hard, please, Capo. Take me hard.”

“Have you ever been f**ked in the ass, little princess?”

“No.”

“I’m taking your ass, right here.” He grabbed my conditioner and squeezed the cold, viscous liquid down my crack. “Are you ready?”

“I don’t know.” I was nervous and admittedly aroused.

 

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He f**ked my pu**y hard and wedged his fingers in my ass. “Your little ass is so tight. It’s so sweet.”

His fingers sliding in and out of me, stretching me, opened up new pleasure. “Oh, that feels so good.”

He took his dick out of me and lodged it at my pucker. “You ready for me to f**k your ass?”

“Yes.”

“Relax.”

I tried to relax as he pushed forward. I had to brace against the tile, and he couldn’t get in.

He reached around and put four fingers on my clit and his lips on the back of my neck. “Relax, sweet girl. Let me take you. Let me own you.”

I groaned with the rising warmth under his fingers and relaxed. The head of his c**k slid into me, and the invasion made me tense. I gasped.

“You are so f**king beautiful.” He put his other arm tight around me and grabbed my breast. I felt bound and secure, unable to do anything but let go. “This ass was made for me.”

He jammed forward, and I screamed, getting hot shower water in my mouth.

“What do you want, Contessa?”

He was asking if I was all right, and he waited for me to answer before he moved again. I needed a moment to breathe and took it. I shifted my hips until I felt better.

“I want you,” I said. “I want you to f**k my virgin ass so hard.”

He gripped me harder and pulled his dick out. The pleasure was overwhelming, reaching right to my clit, where his hand still gripped me.

“Take it,” he growled in my ear as he slammed into me again.

“Oh, God. Fuck me in the ass.”

“I love it. I love f**king your ass.”

He pumped hard, rubbing my clit and stretching my ass farther than I thought possible. I kept whispering take me take me as the feeling of an impending explosion built. I went far away in my mind, past words, past thoughts, pain, pleasure. I was only his fingers and his cock, knowing me in a way I’d never been known before.

“You’re going to come,” he said. “I can feel it.”

I grunted. The fuse sparked close to the keg, crackling and bright.

“Come on. Give it to me.”

My ass clenched and pulsed around him, and my legs dropped under me. He held me up as I had the most powerful orgasm of my life, a slow motion detonation, every piece of flak airborne in its own sweet time, trailing smoke behind. I didn’t realize I was screaming until the last bits of fiery shrapnel floated to the ground, as if I’d been unconscious. I woke to Antonio thrusting hard, slow, with a different rhythm.

“…in your ass, Contessa, si, si, si…” he whispered in Italian, sweet words I didn’t understand.

“Come, Capo. Come inside me.”

His groan was loud and final. A few more thrusts, and he molded his chest to my back, our rising and falling bodies matched in time.

“Bene.”

He kissed my shoulder. He pulled his dick from me, and I sucked in a breath.

“Bene is right,” I said.

He stood up straight, and I turned around.

“Now we should shower, no?”

I laughed, and his smile lit up the room. We washed and toweled each other dry.

“Can you stay for a few hours?” I asked. “You can still slip out in the night.”

“I have to take care of Uvoli, still. There are consequences to what happened with you and Bruno, and me. I have to talk with people.” He reached for his clothes.

“I thought I saw him at Zia’s.”

“He’s not my crew. He’s a free agent. We keep him close. I’m saying nothing else.”

I snapped his jacket away. It had his burned pine smell all over it. “Let me keep this then. To remember you when you’re pretending you don’t own me.”

“While I’m telling lies about you?” He dropped his clothes and pulled the jacket from me.

“Tell me the lies. For practice.”

He kissed my cheek. “I will tell them I f**ked her once, and she got attached. But she knows the DA and will cause us trouble if she’s hurt. I’ll say I don’t trust her. She means nothing to me.”

“Like you said about Marina?”

“It was the truth about her.” He pushed me onto the bed. “About you, I’ll lie. Say you’re not the most beautiful woman I’ve met. You’re not sexy. You’re cold, unpleasant. Nothing a man would want to keep.”

I touched his face, his lips, his stubble, his insane lashes. “What would it be like to be your girlfriend?”

He kissed my cheek and jaw. “We’d be friends first. And no touching.”

“No touching?”

“No kissing, no touching.”

“That wouldn’t work.”

He kissed my chest and br**sts gently, little flicks of his tongue on my ni**les. “You’d live with your parents, and I would come to visit you. We would sit and talk in the garden. Your mother would cook for me, and I would sit at the table with your family.” He moved down to my belly, exploring every inch of it. “I would see you at church. Other men would talk to you, and I’d chase them away. Your father would hate me for a while. Then he would approve. I might touch your hand when no one is looking.”

He got up on his knees and opened my legs. “I would f**k other women and you’d understand, because we hadn’t even kissed.” He brushed his lips inside my knee. “Then I’d ask your father for your hand, and when he said yes, I stop f**king other women.” He ran his tongue inside my thigh. “You’d plan the wedding, and I’d work. I’d build myself. Being young and blind, I wouldn’t see that you’re now a target for my enemies.”

 

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He kissed my pu**y gently. “You’d cry on our wedding night and call me a brute.” His tongue flicked my clit. “You’d tell your mother I’m an animal. I’d promise to never f**k you like that again. I’d promise to be tender always.” His tongue ran the length of my lips, circling the clit twice, then back to my opening. “It wouldn’t matter. You’d be part of my life. My world. You’d get hard and cunning to survive, or you’d stay gentle and die.”

“Antonio,” I whispered, “can you do it like that? Can you do it gentle?”

He crawled up until we were face to face. “Come volevi tu.”

I pushed against him, feeling his hard c**k on my pu**y. My ass was sore, but I wanted him again already. He guided himself in, and I took him slowly, his shaft angled to rub against my clit.

“Oh, that’s nice.” I groaned.

He rocked against me, pushing all the way in. “You’re so sexy. I love watching you walk, how your body moves under your clothes. How beautiful. How straight you are for the world, and how you bend and cry for me. I want to go so deep in you we have the same thoughts.”

His eyes were unguarded, open, warm for me. The swelling in my pu**y blossomed as I looked into his face. The sight and feeling mixed, becoming a swirl of emotion and sensation. We moved so slowly together that I felt everything, every inch of skin touching, every firing sliver of pleasure.

“I’m close, Contessa.”

“Can you come with me?”

His face contorted with effort. “Soon. I’m trying to stay slow.”

“You’re amazing, Antonio. Amazing.”

The last word barely made it out of my mouth as I was overcome with electricity. He jerked, slammed into me, and I cried out. He’d put me over the edge. I clawed his back as he jerked and thrust, growling my name. I spread my legs farther, feeling him against and inside me. We came as a crawling, rolling, single creature, as if we were having one orgasm. Even afterward, our breathing was the same and our hearts beat in time.

“I need to see you again soon,” he said into my cheek.

“You’ll come secretly in the night.”

“Yes. I will. Be ready.”

Downstairs, the door opened and banged shut.

“Maybe not so secretly,” I said.

“Ah, this is the director?”

“Yeah.”

“Is there another way out?”

“No,” I said. “But I trust her.”

He got up. “Good for you.”

***

We went downstairs together, dressed and clean, to find Katrina standing in front of the television with a quart of salty vanilla ice cream and a spoon.

“You’re up early,” she called over her shoulder. “Did I wake… Oh, hello,” she said when she turned. “Nice to see you again, Mister Spin.”

“Katrina, you’re up late. Or early, perhaps?”

She put her ice cream down and jammed the spoon into it. “Because I’m amazing!” She threw her arms up like a cheerleader.

“Oh dear, what now?” I crossed my arms.

“I got post-production financing!”

“Oh my god! How? Who? What?”

She said the next part so cheerfully, as if painting on a cartoon face. “Scott Mabat.” She did a little jazz hands shake.

“What?” I yelled.

“Gesu Christo!” Antonio exclaimed.

Her knees bent, and her hands went from jazz to stop. “I have a plan.”

“This better be good, Directrix.”

“I take the money, start post, and get fresh financing from this German investor who’s been sniffing around. I can keep the energy up, then just pay him off when the German money comes in.”

“That guy”—Antonio pointed—“is a lowlife. Okay? He is worthless shit, and he’s sick in the head. How much did you get from him?”

“Hundred thou,” she said.

Antonio and I groaned.

“That’s what it costs to finish a movie, guys. And that’s cheap. I’m sorry but these are realities.”

“Screw the Germans,” I said. “I’m giving you the money.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am. I’ll pay the note, and you’ll be done with it.” I turned to walk Antonio out. “Come on, I’ll finish with her.”

“Hey, Spin,” called Katrina as I opened the door. “You should come to the wrap party Saturday night. Strong chance of epic.”

“I’ll think about it,” he said.

I pushed him outside and closed the door behind us. The stars were drowned out by the light of Los Angeles.

“You’re coming up with that kind of money?” he asked.

“Yes. My family is well-off. I have a trust, and I can use it for whatever I want.”

He put his fingers on my chin. “I know all about your family. If Scott wants cash, you do not transport it by yourself. And you are not to see him without me. No negotiating.”

“We’re supposed to be a secret.”

“Call him, don’t see him. I’m serious. You don’t know what you’re exposing yourself to.”

I put my hands on his chest. He’d left his jacket upstairs for me, and I felt his muscles through the shirt. “I’ll stay away from all the loan sharks in Los Angeles.”

“Please. I ask only this, please.”

 

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“How are you getting home? You came in my car.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

I pulled away a little, so I could see the entirety of his face. “Don’t feel pressured to answer this question.”

“I won’t.”

“Did she stay gentle? Or did she become cunning and hard?”

“She stayed gentle.”

I didn’t feel right pressing him further. We kissed again, and I let him go.

twenty-nine.

movie opening with Daniel seemed like the easiest, most convenient way to make sure Antonio and I didn’t look attached. If he needed us to be a secret as long as possible, a few public sightings with Daniel Brower would do the trick.

—I’m going to a movie with Daniel—

He didn’t return the text. I thought nothing of it. We were in stealth mode after all.

***

Big Girls was a huge, star-studded drama about a hot-button issue. The script was built for award-winning performances, and the director had a long career of pushing talent to the limit. So even without any car chases, explosions, aliens, terrorists, or trips to outer space, the film had been declared one for the historical lexicon.

I’d noticed the bald man outside the morning after Antonio left, and again when I’d gotten home from set. I saw him through the window, sometimes smoking or poking at his phone. I’d gotten close to him once, just long enough to confirm I didn’t know him and the walking-through-dirt scent of Turkish cigarettes emanated from him. I didn’t mention him to Gerry when I confirmed I’d go to the movie with Daniel or when I met my ex outside the limo door.

I’d ended up agreeing to everything just for the sake of convenience. Even uptight, rich bitches had to deal with parking woes in Hollywood that were ameliorated with a limo.

“You look stunning.”

“No flattery tonight, Dan. I’m just here to keep you from biting your nails.”

He smiled and stopped me before I got in. “There are four guys in there. One is a bodyguard. The other three are going to talk my ear off about the press conference tomorrow.”

“That’s fine.”

“I brought you this.” He out held his hand. In his palm sat my engagement ring. I’d thrown it at him, huge stone and all.

Daniel had scrupulously saved to get me a ring that wouldn’t embarrass him in front of my wealthy family. It hadn’t mattered to me, but it mattered to him. He took me up to the Griffith Observatory on a night when Saturn was close and bright. He helped me onto the apple box as the astronomer showed me how to look into the telescope. There, with Saturn’s rings as close and tangible as they’d ever be, he slipped the ring on my finger and said, “This ring around our world, Tink.”

I picked up the ring. Did he say that? Or did he say, my world? Did it matter?

“You don’t have to give it back,” I said.

“The wronged party keeps the ring.”

“No, the one who initiates the break up surrenders it. You would have stayed if I’d let you.”

“Just take it.” He opened the door. “One day, maybe you’ll put it on again.”

I got into the car, holding the ring. There were indeed four men in the back, and they did indeed talk strategy the whole way to the theater. Though I understood what they were talking about and I would have had plenty to contribute before the break up, I felt disconnected. It just wasn’t fun anymore. I was watching animals in the zoo discuss their escape, but I was already outside. I’d moved on.

Cameras flashed, and Daniel answered questions as we entered. I smiled. I’d done it a hundred times, yet I couldn’t believe I’d almost agreed to a life of it.

Right around the middle of the movie, the heroine and her husband had brutal, bruising sex, and I thought of Antonio. I wanted it again. Hard and fast with a side of hair pulling intensity, him grabbing me from behind as if he would tear me apart. When the movie ended and I stood, a drop of warm fluid escaped my underwear and ran down my thigh. I pressed my legs together to stop it.

“Are you okay?” Daniel asked as we got into the limo alone. The others seemed to have been dispensed with. “You seem flushed.”

“I’m okay.”

“I meant what I said.” He touched my jaw by my ear, a move that had always made me shudder. “You are beautiful.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m seeing if I lost you,” he whispered, coming close to me.

I pushed him away. “No, Daniel. Just, no.”

“I still love you. You know that.”

I took a deep breath, and said something I never thought would be true. “I’m sorry Daniel. I don’t love you anymore.”

The mood in the back of the limo changed with an almost audible snap.

“It’s him—”

“It’s not.”

“I can bring him up on murder charges tomorrow.”

“I don’t care.”

“Fuck someone else,” he pleaded. “Fall in love with anyone. Not him. All right? Just not him.”

“It’s over, I told you.”

“He’s a murderer.” He looked as though he immediately regretted saying that. “I have no control around you. You leave, and I fall back into the guy I was because I can’t be that guy around you. God, Tink, you were my valve.”

“Daniel, I—”

“No, stop. Let me explain. I’m going to stick to the issue. This guy, I can’t even say his name right now. That nice peacetime we’ve been enjoying? It’s over as of last week. It started with a fistfight with one of his soldiers, and snowballed into what you’ve been seeing on the news.”

 

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Impassive. I couldn’t let on, not even a little. What we intended to keep a secret in Antonio’s world had to remain a secret in mine as well. Daniel wasn’t above using his position to administrate his personal grudges.

“Daniel,” I said firmly, “do not get distracted. You’re trying to win an office in the second biggest city in the country.”

“Not without you!” His voice got tight and sharp, his litigation voice. The voice of a man with a list of righteous grievances. “He killed Frankie Giraldi and Domenic Uvoli.”

Uvoli. Bells rung, but I kept my face impassive.

“He came here for the men who raped his sister. Two, he tracked down and killed. The third, he’s still looking for.”

Nella. The sister he’d left behind.

“Do you want to know what he did to them?” Daniel asked.

“No.” It felt ugly to be told like this. “Stop it.”

“He castrated them, then he choked them with their own genitalia. In front of the men he needed to take over their businesses. What he did to find them, I can lay it out for you. You’ll never say his name again.”

“Stop it.” I felt filthy hearing things I shouldn’t from a man whose hurt was so apparent. “If you have proof, you need to prosecute. If you don’t, you shouldn’t gossip.”

“It’s not gossip when I’m talking to you—that’s what I’m trying to say.”

The car stopped at the building where Daniel and I used to live together. He looked at the front door, leaning over so he could see up to the eighth floor. Was he homesick? I didn’t have the courage to ask.

He sat back. “When I failed you, you threw me out. I never blamed you, but I’m fighting for you. I’m going to win you back. Hell or high water, Tinkerbell. You’ll be mine again.”

Daniel opened the car for me and led me to the door, his door, without another word. I wondered if he could smell the Turkish cigarettes as he walked back to the limo looking more determined than ever.

***

The text came when I was almost asleep, from a number I didn’t recognize.

—Sweet dreams, Contessa. I will see you soon—

I jumped at the phone.

—Come now—

My message bounced. The screen announced that number had been disconnected or was unavailable. I was relieved he’d sent me a text but disconcerted that the number was unavailable. What if I needed him?

I couldn’t sleep. I put my hand under the sheets and slipped it beneath my underwear. I was soaked by just the thought of Antonio. My clit felt as sensitive as an open wound. I felt powerful, furious with desire, and I was going to come. My fingers wanted it as much as my engorged pu**y. I counted to twenty, then I came forever, crying out for no one. When I was done, I cupped my pu**y and looked at the ceiling, thanking God for the release.

My phone rang. Again, I didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”

Just breathing. A swallow.

“Antonio?”

No. It was a woman. On the off chance she was on a borrowed phone, I hedged my bets.

“Deirdre? Katrina?”

A sniff.

“Marina.”

Still no answer. Just a weeping woman. What if she was me? What if Antonio was cheating on her? What if I was the mistress this time?

“Are you okay?” I asked. “There’s no point calling if you’re not going to tell me off or something.”

“He’s one of us,” she croaked. “Not you. He’s not one of you.”

“I understand,” I said, even though I didn’t really.

“He thinks...” She choked a little before continuing. “I know him. He thinks you can make him something he’s not.”

“I don’t know what he thinks, Marina. You should ask him.”

She shot out a little laugh that must have soaked her phone in snot. “Maybe you should ask him.”

I was about to answer, but she hung up.

thirty.

magine being cooped up in small spaces with a hundred people in your age group, eight to eighteen hours a day, strictly focused on a project’s completion. Imagine long waiting periods where you talk at length about the project and the most important thing in the world—the state of cinema. Imagine you connect intellectually and spiritually with those people. Imagine you can’t connect physically because you’re so busy.

Now imagine the party at the end of it.

“Honestly, I want to wait to hear from the Germans,” Katrina yelled over the music.

It was the first time she’d been willing to entertain a serious discussion of my offer, and only then because she had a few drinks in her. Katrina and I had gotten a downtown loft that was between owners for the party. The rental and cleanup were paid for by the last pennies in the budget, and some sneaky dealing on my part paid for a DJ and open bar. People had melded into a simmering mass of hot, wet flesh pulsing with the music. The loft, someone’s future overpriced home, had turned into a nightclub without the safety permits.

“If they fall though, I want a piece,” I said. Meaning, a piece of the pie. I tried to couch it not as a charitable offering but an investment in something I believed in.

“You heard from crying lady again?” Katrina asked to change the subject.

“Nope.” I hadn’t heard from Antonio after his good night text, either. I didn’t know what that meant. Did he plan to just come and go as he pleased? Were sweet little texts I couldn’t respond to some kind of leash?

 

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“Well, epic party ahead,” Katrina said. “Maintain speed through intersections.”

She grabbed my hand and dragged me into the middle of the loft where the thump of the music was the loudest and the press of bodies hottest. With the floor shaking, the kisses from the camera man, the bumping and grinding, and the gleeful exclamations over the music, I got diverted. Michael came up behind me, put his arm around my waist, and moved his hips with mine.

I let go. No Katrina and her money woes. No Antonio or his secrecy and lies. No Daniel, period. Just a fine-looking, nice man dancing behind me, a few more in front of me, smiles all around, and a feeling that I’d been part of something bigger than myself.

When Michael moved his arm, I kept dancing for a second. Then I felt a whoosh as an area behind me opened up. I turned with the music just in time to see Antonio throw Michael against a table. Michael bounced off the top and fell cleanly, like any actor worth his salt had been trained to do.

“Antonio!”

If he heard me over the music, he made no indication. He stepped forward, stiff and enraged. Michael, being the class clown, spread his legs, waggled his brows, and dodged. Antonio caught his wrist, the motion so fast and effortless that Michael was slammed against the wall with his arm twisted behind his back before I took three steps. A circle of stunned people surrounded the two men. Antonio was such a ball of power and rage that no one dared come near him.

“Maybe you shouldn’t let her out by herself then,” Michael grumbled when I got close enough to hear.

Antonio twisted his arm harder. I put my hands on Antonio’s shoulders, tightening my fingers to make sure he felt them and knew it was me.

“Capo,” I said in his ear, “he’s my friend. Please.”

Antonio’s face was contorted in rage, and Michael was trying to smile rakishly through the pain. I pulled Antonio back, and he stepped against me. Michael turned and shook his arm out, giving his attacker a hot look.

“I’m sorry,” I said, taking Antonio’s hand.

“Put him on a leash,” Michael said.

I feared Antonio’d take the bait and attack the actor again, but personal insults didn’t seem cause for violence. He squeezed my hand and looked down at me, working his jaw.

“You have no right,” I growled as the crowd dissipated.

“I have the only right. I’ll hurt anyone who touches what’s mine.”

I knew we were being watched, so I smiled and touched his face. His jaw was tight and tense.

“Put a smile on your face or someone’s going to call the cops,” I said.

He stared at me with white hot intensity.

“I said smile.”

He shut me up with a kiss. I must have tasted of sweat and hormones. The one beer I’d had was probably stale on my breath, but we kissed as if I was clean and fresh from the shower. Our tongues curled around each other, eating each other alive. His hands crept up my wet shirt, slipping under my bra.

“No,” I said, turning away. “You can’t just kiss me and make everything okay.”

His mouth was on mine before I even finished. I pushed away with my arms, but my mouth had a mind of its own and stayed locked on his. My resolve melted like butter in a frying pan, leaving a streak of bubbling grease behind.

He put his hands on my face and moved an inch away. “You’re mine. That means no pretty boys on the dance floor. No fake dates with the district attorney.”

He must have seen me with Daniel on the news. Maybe in the paper. Maybe the man with the smelly Turkish cigarettes had told him.

“I’m not telling him anything about you,” I said.

“I know you’re not. In my heart, I know you have too much grace for treachery. But he wants to f**k you. I don’t like it.”

I wanted to draw the rules out for him in a cold, businesslike manner. But I couldn’t, and it wasn’t just his beauty but the intensity of his gaze. Something spun inside him, some toxic lava. It terrified me, and it was the thing I wanted most. How could I draw lines around that? Was there a law I could lay down that it would obey?

“I can’t see you with anyone else,” he whispered into my ear. “It makes me crazy.”

“We’re supposed to be discreet. This isn’t helping.” He pushed his erection against me, and I gasped. “And where have you been? Your phone’s disconnected.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“You’re asking questions.”

“I don’t have the right to ask questions? Still?”

He held his finger up to my face. “I f**k you. I take care of you. That’s what I offer.”

“It’s not enough.”

“You American women make me crazy.”

I closed my eyes for a second, getting a hold of myself. I couldn’t fight him like this. He’d only come back at me like a bull.

“Tell me,” I said. “Tell me what’s happening. Where have you been? Are you all right?” I took him in, his eyes blacker, deeper from the moonlight coming through the window. “Don’t tell me facts. Your truths all sound like lies anyway. I don’t care about names and dates. I don’t care about the situation. Just tell me about you. I want to know you, Capo.” I touched his chest with the flat of my hand. “I want to know your heart.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Let me know you.”

 

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“Contessa,” he said so tenderly I barely heard it.

“Let me know you,” I repeated. “Let me in.”

He brushed a strand of hair off my cheek. “You dance with your friends. I don’t. You see movies. I don’t. You have a good life. I have something else.”

“Come with me. You can dance too. We can go out to movies with friends, do all the things people do.”

He put his arms around me and kissed me fully. When I slipped my hands under his jacket and felt the lump of a gun holster under his arm, he stiffened. I kissed him harder, because the feel of it had dumped a bucket of desire between my legs. I clutched him, the gun on the inside of my forearm.

He shook his head. “You turn me around every time. You’re going to make me soft.”

“A soft man wouldn’t say that.”

Something changed in his face. His jaw got tight again. “No, a soft man would.” He grabbed my hand. “I’m taking you now, Contessa. And not gently.”

We were in a room full of people. I had no idea what was on his mind, but he pulled me to the back of the loft and through the kitchen, which had been stripped to the lathe. He pushed through a metal door and yanked me into a fluorescent-drowned hallway with cracked walls and mottled concrete floor.

He rushed me into a dark closet and slammed the door behind him. Brooms and mops fell around us when he grabbed me, pulling my hair back and hitching up my skirt. The painted-over window let a little of the streetlights in, and when my eyes adjusted, I saw the fire in his eyes. Was this his reaction to a moment of softness?

“You’re going to get me killed.” He ran his fingers over my pu**y roughly. “That make you wet?” He jerked my hair.

“Mercurial, much?”

“I will not die because you made me weak.” He put me on the edge of the slop sink. I leaned on my hands, and he jerked my legs open.

“Fuck me then, you son of a bitch.”

He ripped a gaping hole in my panties and shoved two fingers in me. With his other hand, he released his erection as if it was a weapon. He took his fingers out of me and put them on my throat, thumb and middle finger on each side of my jaw, pressing me to the windowsill.

“I f**k you, and you take it, do you understand?” Without waiting for an answer, he shoved his c**k all the way in me in one thrust. The wind went out of me, and his hand on the throat kept me from speaking. He said, “You’re mine. I am who I am, and I own you. That’s all it is.”

He f**ked me hard and dirty. One hand pinned me by the throat, and the other hand spread my knee wide. My ass was balanced on the edge of a sink, and somehow, as rough as he was, his hands kept me from falling.

“You take it. Take it.”

“Yes, yes,” I croaked, pressure building every time his c**k went in me.

He hooked his pu**y-soaked fingers in my mouth. “Come, Contessa. Do what I tell you. Fucking come.”

In three painful thrusts, I had to obey. I shuddered and cried out into his fingers, coming for him, only for him. He ground his teeth and plowed into me so hard, the pain was muffled by another rising orgasm. Still he came at me, punishing me with his dick, and still my body rose to him. He slowed, and I thought he was done, but he pounded twice more, lengthening my climax.

“Please stop.” I gasped. “Please, Capo. I can’t take it.”

He sighed, shifted his hips, and gathered me in his arms. I wrapped my legs around him and rested my head on his shoulder.

“You’re going to be my death,” he said. “I don’t know what to do. I feel weak around you. I’m going to slip up.”

“I want to be there for you, but I can’t. I can try to stay out of trouble,” I said.

“I’m not worried about you getting into trouble. I’m worried about trouble coming to you. I’m worried about spreading myself too thin. II have enemies all around me. Every man wants his own thing, and not every man can have it.”

I felt a light vibration at his hip. He ignored it and pulled his lips along my cheek, then to my ear.

“A bunch of my crew broke off. Is that enough for you to know?” he said.

“Yes.”

“It’s my fault, and it’s going to take time to make right. I’ll have someone on you.”

“Will you come see me?”

“If I can.”

His phone vibrated again. We kissed briefly before he dropped me, stepping back to button up his pants then his jacket. He checked me out and, finding me presentable, kissed my cheek and took my hand.

Back in the loft, in the middle of the crowd, he kissed my hand then stepped back. He bumped a girl in a tiny skirt then Michael. Michael held up his hands, and Antonio did the same before he spun on his heel and walked out, one hand on his phone.

Katrina crept up behind me. “Got a live wire on your hands, girl.”

Michael passed by, a pretty girl on his arm, and said, “No dancing,”

I slapped his arm, but he walked to the dance floor with his new girl as if that sort of thing happened all the time.

thirty-one.

omeone knocked at my door early the next morning. Katrina still wasn’t home. I’d left the party twenty minutes after Antonio.

Looking out the window, I saw a bald man in jeans and a long black jacket. He was smoking. Would answering the door be stupid? Would that be getting myself into trouble? I decided not to risk it and let the curtain close. I waited one minute, then two, then looked out. He was gone, and a little package had been left behind.

 

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I opened the door and peeked at the package without picking it up.

Contessa

Same handwriting as the cards on Antonio’s flowers. I brought it inside and opened it. A phone dropped into my hand.

This device is secure. My number is on it. Please only use it for emergencies. And be very safe.

I checked and saw one number in the contacts with an area code in Nevada.

The front door opened, and I jumped. It was Katrina, and her lip was split.

“What happened?” I asked.

“He picked me up.” Her breath hitched in a loud sob. “I got in the car, I didn’t think anything of it. He said I lied about who I was. That I couldn’t pay him back because no one was going to buy my movie.”

“What did they do to you?” I said with an edge I didn’t recognize from my own throat.

“The lip. It’ll go away. I’ll just make my vig until I prove him wrong”

I did something I’d only done once before, on the side of the road with a Club in my hand.

I lost my temper.

“What do you mean make your vig? Do you live in one of your goddamn movies? Who the hell even knew that f**king existed anymore?” I paced.

Katrina cried. She’d never seen me like that. I’d never seen me like that. I didn’t even know who I was.

“I’m calling the cops!” My hand was shaking so hard, I couldn’t dial before Katrina snapped the phone away.

“Central?” She spat the name of the LAPD’s Downtown division like a curse. “Are you f**king with me? They’re a bunch of blabbermouths. The editor of the Calendar has every one of them on the take. If this gets out, I’m finished.”

“When what gets out? That he pulled you into a car and slapped you around? No. No. A thousand times no. I’ll call Antonio.”

“No! I don’t want to be rescued by your boyfriend. That’s weird. Forget it. Just forget it. I’ve handled douchebags like this before.”

“How much do you need?”

She leaned on the back of the couch and pressed her fingers to her eyes. “A thousand for last week and a thousand for next.”

“Interest compounded minutely if you don’t pay.” My arms were crossed. I was so mad, all my compassion had run away in fear.

“I can pay it all back when I get distribution. He just...” She drifted off, and tears welled again. “He didn’t know about the lawsuit I lost. He found out. I think it just... I don’t know.”

“For someone so smart,” I said, unable to stop myself, “you leave yourself open to the stupidest mistakes.”

I stormed into my bedroom. My closet held a few thousand in small bills for emergencies. I counted out three grand and stuffed it in an envelope. I called Antonio from my new phone then hung up. Was this an emergency? Did he just tell me to stay away from Mabat because he was being protective? I really didn’t want to bother him when he had so much going on. I’d apologize later for disobeying him if I had to.

I went downstairs. “Come on. I’m delivering it personally.”

***

Katrina drove. The place was in East Hollywood, a trashy nightclub as big as my childhood living room. Vtang. I had no idea what it meant, but it was in big, flat red letters on the front, bathing the people in line in blood.

The bouncer, his hairline a receding M, moved the rope before we’d even slowed down. He ushered us past the register for the cover and into a room so dim I wouldn’t have been able to tell the girls from boys if there had been no high hair involved.

I was still mad. I didn’t know how I’d held onto it that long, because anger wasn’t my forte. It was unattractive and uncontrollable. It pushed people away andm for the most part, achieved nothing. This anger was mine, though, and it was a caged mink about to get skinned.

The bouncer nodded to the bartender and opened a door to the back room for us. We passed through then down steps, past a smaller door, into an underground office. I should have been scared, but I was too pissed off. Even when I saw four men lounging around the room, two playing backgammon, one on the phone, and one tending blood on his knuckles, I wasn’t afraid.

Before anyone had a chance to explain our presence or introduce us, I spoke. “Which one of you is Scott Mabat?”

One middle-aged dirty-blond man in a black leather jacket, bent over the backgammon board, raised his hand slightly, the pointer extended to say, one second.

“Scotty, come on,” the skinny guy across from him demanded. He pushed aside a tiny cup with a lemon peel in the saucer.

“Shut the f**k up, Vinny,” Scott said.

“This is a fast-paced game.”

Scott moved his piece. “Not when I play it.” He stood. “Kat, nice to see you so soon. Who’s the friend?”

“She’s—”

“I’m the money.” I wanted to throw the envelope down and storm out, but common sense cut through my anger. “I’m putting up her interest, and I’ll be paying off her loan next week.”

He stepped around the desk and slowly opened his top drawer. “Cash.”

“Cash.”

“I recognize your face.” He flipped through a folder. “You marrying the district attorney?”

“No. Let’s get this over with. I have last week, this week, and next week on me. I’ll get you the—”

“Whoa, whoa, lady. Don’t rush. Kat, did you explain that our terms changed?” He spoke to her as if she was a child.

 

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I wanted to kill him slowly.

“No,” she said.

I’d never seen her so cowed. She was the f**king Directrix, for Chrissakes.

“This is the contract,” he said. “It’s easy as shit. A moron could understand it. The studios give you a ream they nail together. You go to the Giraldis, they don’t even write shit down. You’re lucky.” He flipped me two stapled pieces of paper. The contract was in bullet points and looked as if it had been the result of a hundred generations of photocopying.

“Point four,” he said with his arms crossed. “Kat, would you like to read aloud to the class?”

She held out her hand for the pages. Was she insane? That docile girl couldn’t direct a movie.

I read point four myself. “‘Recipient has made no misrepresentation of their ability to repay the loan.’” I shrugged. “Okay, so?”

“So?” he said. “So!”

Throats cleared and chairs squeaked. A heightened intensity vibrated in the room.

Scott pointed his rigid finger at me as though he wanted to stab me. “This bitch didn’t tell me she was poison. I put up half a mill on an Oscar nominee, not a whining cunt no one wants to touch. Her f**king shit’s gonna be at the CineVention selling to Latvia for five G.”

“A little underwriting would have gone a long way, Mister Mabat.”

The guy whose knuckles were now fully bandaged snorted a laugh.

“That’s f**king funny?” Scott said.

Knuckles shrugged. Scott, a man who could not be rushed through a game of backgammon, picked up a dirty coffee mug and bashed Knuckles in the back of the head so hard his neck seemed to shake back and forth like a seizure. It happened so fast, Knuckles’s head had dropped to the table before either of the other guys could stand to aid him.

“This was easy money.” Scott pointed the cup at me. There was blood and a single black hair on it. “A no-fucking-brainer. Terms changed. There are no prepayments. There’s a thirty-year schedule she’s keeping.” He slapped the cup down. “We’ll be happy to take it out of her ass when she can’t shell out.”

I was scared finally, but I didn’t flinch. Knuckles was conscious and being tended by his two compatriots. Katrina sniffled behind me.

“Shush,” I said to her. I held my chin up to the loan shark. “You will take the prepayment, plus five thousand, and you will be happy with that.”

“Oh, really?”

“Really.”

“Or what? You getting the mayor after me? I’m all grown now. He can’t do shit.”

I pressed my lips together in a smile. “He can’t. But if you knew my name, you’d know I have a family. And if you knew anything about how they settle debts, you’d back away slowly.” I pulled the envelope out of my jacket and plopped it on the desk. “I suggest you do your research before dismissing my offer out of hand.”

I dragged Katrina out by the forearm and didn’t look back. I pulled her up the stairs, through the club, and into the street. I walked with my shoulders straight, confident that I owned everything in my sight. My friend blooped the car and got in. I followed and got into the passenger seat as if I was being chauffeured. It wasn’t until Katrina stopped at a light on Temple that, in order to release the tension, I started crying.

Katrina rubbed my back. “Look, I’ll pay what I can, and he’ll get bored of me at some point. I mean, he can’t make it so bad that I go to the cops.” She laughed bitterly.

“Your memoir is going to be a blockbuster.”

“How To Ruin a Perfectly Good Career in Two Years.”

“The Girl With the Busted Kneecaps.”

“Maybe I’ll make him fall in love with me. I’ll be Katrina Mabat.”

“Oh God. no. You’d drive him to his ultimate death,” I said.

“I think you should back off. Self-preservation is honorable.”

“I’m paying him off and walking away. You’ll release your movie, and everything will be back to normal.”

She sighed and left the dead weight of it in the air. There was a shadow and a clack clack clack at the window that I recognized from my car breaking down in Mount Washington. Bald guy. Cigarette.

“Who’s that?” Katrina asked.

“My shadow.” I rolled down the window. “Hi. Can I help you?”

The smell of turned earth overwhelmed the air coming into the car. He handed me his phone. I hesitated.

“Spin,” Turkish Cigarette Man said. “He wants to talk to you.”

“Wow, Tee Dray. Wow, okay? Weird and possessive much?”

I took the phone. I had to stop myself from calling him Capo in front of Katrina.

He took the moment’s pause to demand my attention in a tight voice. “Contessa?”

“Hi.”

“You were in an Armenian nightclub? This somewhere you usually go?”

That was him asking me what I was doing without making assumptions. His tone was a coiled spring. He needed a flat truth, or he would wind himself tighter.

“I was seeing Scott Mabat.”

He was silent, but in the background, I heard the mumblings of men, as if he was in a crowded room.

“Antonio?” I said.

“Otto will take you to me.”

“No, I have—”

“He will pick you up and carry you.” He would have been shouting if his voice had been raised, but he kept all the power and tension while practically whispering.

 

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I knew then why he was capo. I hung up on him. I wouldn’t disobey him, but I didn’t have to tolerate the tone either.

“Kat,” I said, “this guy’s driving me to see Antonio. We’re going to follow you home first and make sure you get in the door, okay?”

“Okay, Tee Dray.” Her voice was suspicious even as her words were compliant.

I turned to Otto. “Okay?”

He held up his hands in surrender and smiled. Both of his pinkies were missing. “It’s no problem.” He had a thick accent.

He opened my car door. I started to get out, but Katrina put her hand on my forearm.

“Thank you,” she said.

“It’s no problem,” I said in Otto’s accent.

She smiled. “You’re pretty badass. I didn’t know that about you.”

“Me neither.”

Otto had parked his incredibly nondescript silver Corolla two spaces down, and he opened the back door for me.

When he got in, I said, “The car smells nice.”

“Grazie. There’s no smoking in the car. Still smells new, no?”

“It does.”

“Okay, I take your friend home, then we go, okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

***

“Where are we going?” I asked after we’d walked Katrina to the door.

Otto tapped on his phone from the front seat. “The office. But I confirm now.”

“How long have you been watching me, Otto?”

He shrugged and pulled out. “A week. I sleep in the car. But no smoking in it. My wife, she’s mad I’m not home, but I have a job to do until the boss tells me to stop doing it.”

“I hope you get to see her again soon.”

He waved the notion off with a flip of his four-fingered hand. “Spin, he save my life. She just make me crazy all the time. Watching you? Like a vacation.”

“How did he save your life?”

“That is a long story, I promise.”

“I have time.”

He made a motion of locking his lips and throwing away the key. “Let him tell you. But he won’t. He is too modesto.”

“Antonio Spinelli? Modest?”

“Like a priest.”

I bit back a laugh.

thirty-two.

e approached East Side Motors. The yellow and black sign faded orange in the dimming light. The parking lot was clearer, so we pulled in without much trouble. Antonio stood in the middle of the lot in a black suit, waiting. The security lights cast a sunburst of shadows around him.

Otto pulled up. “Buonasera, boss.”

“Thank you, Otto,” Antonio said as he opened my door. “Go on inside and get coffee, then go home and rest.”

“Grazie,” Otto said and disappeared through the garage door.

Antonio took my hand, and I got out of the car.

“Contessa,” Antonio said softly, his face deeply shadowed in the artificial light.

“Yes, Capo?”

He pushed me against the car. “I told you not to see him.”

“He slapped Katrina around. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t wait for you to take care of it.”

“And did you take care of it?” His hands moved up my rib cage, thumbs tucking under my br**sts.

I looked down. “Not really. He won’t take prepayment. He made threats.”

He held my face in one hand, a little too tight, to make me look him in the eye. “He threatened you?”

“He threatened Katrina.” I pushed him off me. “I want to go home. My God, how did I let myself get stuck here?”

I pushed him hard, and he stepped back. Having gotten out from under him, I walked to the open gate. I didn’t know where I was going. I guessed I’d have to call a cab. I could wait for it in the pupuseria down the street, but I knew he wouldn’t let me go. I still wanted the freedom of that open gate and that dark street and those empty sidewalks. I heard him one step behind me, then he grabbed my forearm.

I twisted and yanked away. “Stop!”

His gaze was dark and unreadable for the second I saw him. He shifted, a blur in my vision, then he became a force of movement against me. He picked me up at the waist and carried me over his shoulder. I would have screamed, but he’d knocked the breath out of me. All I could do was watch the light shift on the blacktop as he carried me across it.

I pounded his back, but I was helpless. “Antonio!”

“Be quiet.”

“Stop!”

“Basta, woman.” He avoided the garage where Otto had gone and opened the door to the dark office without breaking his stride, passing the water cooler and the reception desk. He smacked open his office door then slammed it closed with his foot.

With a lung-emptying thud, I was dumped into a chair. He leaned over me, so threatening and powerful that if he demanded it, I’d have told him the sky was beneath my feet.

“Listen to me,” he growled, putting his hands on the chair arms. “I will kill any bastard who touches you. So you walk into a room like that again without me, you’d better want the man dead.”

He meant it. From the tightness in his lips and the lines in his brow, I knew he wasn’t speaking metaphorically. He’d kill for me, and it would be my responsibility.

“I’ll admit I was scared, and you were the first person I thought of,” I said. “And the last person. But in between that, I was afraid of getting you involved.”

 

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“You’re involved. I’m involved. We can’t go backward now. You said you saw that stupid punk face to face, and I went crazy. I saw you with that other ass, the one who cheated on you, and I went crazy. I don’t have a brain when it comes to you. You know how much trouble it could be for me if I get arrested for something stupid? Like beating that guy with the ugly Porsche? But I thought he kicked you, and I lost my mind.”

“You didn’t even know me.”

He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “When I was a young, they called me Tonio-botz because I’d go off over nothing. But I’m a man now, and I don’t do that. Tonio-botz was a garbage kid who had no control over himself. But he’s back every time I see you.”

I was scared of him, for him, about him. I was also turned on. I touched his face. “I bet he wasn’t so bad.”

“Please understand.”

“I do. Would you kiss me?”

With breakneck speed and intensity, he kissed me, using his tongue without prelude as if it was a dick shoved in me. I leaned up and he knelt back until we were both on the floor.

“Here.” I pulled his wrist and slid his hand between my legs. “Feel how wet I am.” I pressed his hand under my skirt to my damp panties, moving until his pinkie touched my soaking skin. “It’s never been this easy, and it’s you. This is how I react to you. It terrifies me.”

He sucked air through his teeth. “We’re even then, Contessa.”

“Take me now, please. Fuck me scared.”

He slipped two fingers in me all the way, pressing as if he wanted to get his whole hand in, and I spread my legs as if I wanted exactly the same thing. He put his face to mine until he took up the curves of my vision. His breath fell on my open mouth as he watched me react to his touch.

“I want to f**k you so hard we have the same skin.”

“Yes,” I gasped, reaching for his belt.

A knock came at the door. “Spin? You in there?”

“Fuck,” he grumbled, then shouted to the door. “What, Zo?”

“Uh, sorry, but uh, we got word from Donna Maria. And you said—”

“All right.” He removed his fingers from me.

Zo didn’t get the message. “You said if we heard from her that—”

“Zo! Basta! I’ll see you inside.” He straightened my panties and skirt. “I’m sorry, Contessa. Business calls. You and I will share a skin later.”

“Can Otto drive me home?”

“I’m sorry, but you’re not going home tonight. I’ll have one of the guys go to your house and pack you a bag. But until I take care of Scott Mabat, you’re staying at my side.” He stood, erection apparent under his pants.

I was still splayed on the floor. “Antonio, really?”

“Really. It’s like the kids’ shows. When the song comes, the bouncing ball tells you when to sing the words.” He put his hand out to help me up. “Just follow along.”

***

We crossed the parking lot holding hands, and when we went into the pitch dark garage, he squeezed my hand. I heard men talking and a thup thup sound.

“Follow along,” he said and opened a door in the back.

In a low room decorated in wood paneling and cigarette smoke, a handful of men faced the same direction. Zo crooked his arm and straightened it quickly. A thup followed, and the others reacted by exchanging handslaps and cash.

Darts.

An Italian flag draped one wall. The chairs were wooden and well worn, like the desk and linoleum floor. I recognized a man in a fedora from outside Zia’s restaurant. Silence fell on the room like a lead curtain.

Antonio kissed me on both cheeks, left first, then right. He stared me in the face for a second before facing his crew. “Signori, this is Theresa. Theresa, you’ve met Lorenzo.”

Zo came up to me as if for the first time and took my hand. “Piacere.” He kissed me on each cheek, right then left, and stepped back.

“Otto, you’re still here?” Antonio said.

He stepped forward and took my hand. “Piacere di conoscerla.” He kissed me the same way, left then right.

“Good to meet you,” I said.

“Now go home,” Antonio said. He indicated a man in a checked jacket and receding hairline. “Enzo, meet Theresa.”

“Very nice to meet you,” he said in a clean California accent I wouldn’t have noticed in any other group.

“You, as well.” I counted three more. Fedora was next.

“Nicolo, this is Theresa.”

“Piacere.” He kissed me quickly, in the middle of counting a stack of bills, as if the whole process was inconvenient.

“Nice to meet you, too.”

“Last, Simone, I’d like you to meet Theresa.”

“Good to meet you!” The only blond in the crew, he shook my hand like a car salesman and smiled big, only kissing each cheek when Antonio shot him a look. He did it right then left, and the mix-up meant we almost kissed on the lips. He laughed.

“Enzo, Nicolo,” Antonio said, “go get the half-Armenian strozzino. Call me when you have him. Zo, bring the lady to the little house then pick her up a bag.”

Otto, Enzo, and Nicolo left, chattering in deep voices.

“Antonio,” I said with warning in my voice.

“The ball with the music,” he said. “Please. Call your roommate and tell her Zo’s coming.”

 

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“I have work tomorrow.”

“I hope so.” He whispered in my ear, “I’ll come to you. Just wait.”

Paulie burst in. “Hey! I heard there was a formal introduction.”

“Hi, Paulie,” I said.

“This is Theresa,” Antonio said.

Paulie joyfully kissed my left cheek, then my right, and took me by the shoulders. “Welcome. Good to have you.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Paulie turned to Antonio. “We taking care of the Donna Maria thing?”

“Yes. Let me get Theresa set up, then we’ll talk about it.”

thirty-three.

he little house stood up into the foothills behind a hundred feet of allergens. It could have been in the Tennessee mountains for all its foliage and acreage. A skinny kid of about nineteen with an acne problem sat on the porch. He stood when Zo and I drove up.

“Don,” Zo said, “this is Theresa. The boss formally introduced her tonight.”

“Huh,” the kid huffed, as if surprised. “All right, then. Piacere.” His accent was terrible, but he kissed me on both cheeks, left then right.

“Donatello’s gonna be on the porch. He’s keeping his eyes on you so, don’t worry about him.” Zo punched the kid in the arm, and he almost fell over.

“Thanks,” the kid said.

“This is a safe house, isn’t it?” I said.

“Used to be. Now it’s just safe.”

He took me through the two-bedroom house, which looked more lived in than any safe house I’d seen in movies. I saw old world touches all over in the unfinished wood and hand-painted ceramics. The quilt on my bed was deep burgundy, the oil paintings showed seashores and mountains, and the kitchen, the only ultra-modern part of the house, had a basket of fresh fruit on the counter.

“This is Antonio’s house?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“It’s smaller than my loft.”

Zo shrugged. “He likes it that way.”

“Can you bring Katrina? It’s her I’m worried about.”

“Boss has it covered. He takes care of his people. And after tonight, you’re with us.” Zo kissed me on both cheeks again and left.

***

“Katrina? Are you all right?”

“I got a shard of swan in my foot, I want you to know.”

I was curled up on a strange couch, in a strange house, with a strange guy on the porch to protect me. I had the news on and muted. The ticker moved, and the heads talked. “There’s a guy coming to get a bag for me. Can you put some stuff in it?”

“Cups? Plates? Saucers? What do you want?”

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“When I’m not crying, I’m fine. God, I botched this.”

“We’ll make it right. I don’t know how, but we will. It’s a good movie.”

“I’m going to my parents in the OC tomorrow. I’ll stay a few days and get my shit together. If he chases me there, my dad will just shoot him.”

“Great plan.”

She sniffed. “Do you want the electric toothbrush? Or a regular one?”

“Regular. I don’t intend to be gone long enough to charge the electric one.”

“Okay. I gotta go. Michael’s coming over.”

“Really?”

Daniel’s face appeared on the screen. The ticker told me he was doing the unprecedented: opening a major case against an organized crime family at the tail end of a mayoral campaign.

“Reckless ass**le,” I mumbled.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing. Have fun with Michael. And, Kat?”

“Yes?”

“There are going to be men around watching you. Stay calm, okay?”

“Jesus, Tee Dray, what are you into?”

“I don’t know, but I think I’m up to my eyeballs.”

***

I slept on the couch until the navy sky faded into morning cyan. He came to me in a haze of pine and musk. His lips were my awakening, the hard firearm at his back a reflection of the hardness between his legs.

“Capo,” I whispered through my sleep.

“Ah, Contessa. I could barely talk tonight. All I wanted to do was make peace so I could f**k you every day and night.” He pulled up my shirt and kissed my belly.

“Is this about the trouble with your men?”

“Done for now. Tie up loose ends tomorrow.” He pushed up my bra.

I wove my fingers in his hair when he sucked my ni**les. “I can go to work?”

“Shh. No talking.” He pulled away and got on his knees, looking at me. He yanked at my skirt and panties, slipping them off. “Spread your legs.” He shrugged out of his jacket and pulled off his shirt. “Touch yourself.” There was a sense of urgency about his manner as he wiggled out of the last of his clothes.

I watched him with my fingers between my legs, stroking my hardened, wet clit. “I want you so bad.” I moaned. “I want you inside me.”

“Shh.” He put his c**k at my opening. He thrust forward.

I put my hands on his shoulders, letting the thrust of his hips take me. He took my hands and pinned them to my sides, wrapping his arms around me tight. He pressed the whole of his body to mine as if he was trying to crawl into my skin. If he did, I couldn’t have stopped him. He had me powerless under his weight, restrained by his desire. My legs were free but pinioned by the fulcrum of his cock.

 

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“Every day,” he whispered, “I’ll take you like this. In the morning, before coffee, I f**k you. At night, I f**k you harder. In our bedroom, our living room, our kitchen, I’ll love you in every room. Mi amore, I’ll break you with my love and put you back together. And when I retire, you still call me Capo because you’re mine. Always mine.”

His lips spoke into my cheek. I felt wrapped in him, past, present and future. I had no whim or hunger outside the building pleasure in my legs and safe pressure of his skin and muscle.

I gasped. I was going to come. I wondered if my explosion would be held down, tamped by the weight of his arms and the swirling affection in his words. But my orgasm came in a flood. My back arched, and my thighs got stiff. I saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing but Antonio. His weight, his breath, his scent, and his pleasure, concurrent with mine, swirled together inside my skin, and I, inside his.

***

We stayed wrapped around each other for a long time, just breathing together. I was so tired, I fell asleep under him. He whispered mi amore, kissing my neck and shoulders, then relaxed his arms.

“My Capo,” I said. “Always.”

“You should sleep.” He brushed wet strands of hair from my face as if it was of great concern. “I brought your bag.”

“I hope she packed work clothes.”

“You stay here today. I haven’t taken care of the strozzino yet.”

“Antonio, please. I have to live.”

He pressed his fingers to my lips. “What do you think happened last night?”

“I followed the bouncing ball.”

“You are under my protection. My crew recognizes you. They can’t touch you, and they will protect you. But you also have a responsibility to us to stay out of trouble. For a few days, things will be disrupted. Bruno and Vito, they’re doing their own thing. I didn’t want that. Vito, with the young girls…” He rubbed his eyes. “I don’t like it, but…” He looked up and crooked his neck as if shaking off the thought. “We have to pay tribute to another family, so everyone recognizes them as their own thing, not just us. This has to be completed before I can let you walk around without an escort.”

“What?” I sat up, and he moved off me.

“I couldn’t isolate you and keep you safe. This was the only way. You’re untouchable now, as long as you obey the rules.”

“What are the rules?”

“Do not talk to the press or police. Not talk about our business with anyone. Not ask questions.” He held up his hand to my pending objections. “You can ask me. But no one else. I have all the information. My men only know some things, and if they talk, you get half the story. And I know what can hurt you.”

“You might have mentioned this before all the double kissing happened.”

“What am I asking? That you be loyal? That you come to me first? Only the saying of it makes you sit up and cross your arms.”

I huffed. Of course he was right. Of course I had no intention of ratting him out or investigating him further. It was indeed the list of rules that bristled me.

“This needs to be on a probationary basis,” I said.

“One minute probation,” he said then kissed me, his hand tight on my jaw, his tongue prying my mouth open. He stopped. “My minute’s up, Contessa. Are you still mine?”

“You are my Capo,” I whispered. “But I’m mad at you.”

“Get in the shower then before I f**k you again.”

***

Katrina had packed everything I needed. One set of work clothes, one set of regular clothes. Shoes, toiletries, and a note.

Tee – Thank you for everything. You are a shining star. I promise not to let you down. You’ll be proud of me one day.

Be safe, okay?

The Directrix

When I got out of the bathroom, Antonio held up my phone. “What are we going to do about this guy?”

There was a text from Daniel.

—need to speak with you in person by tomorrow—

“What are we going to do about you looking at my texts?”

“As long as you’re talking to him and the thing is face up on the table, I’ll look.”

“You don’t trust me?” I asked.

“I do.”

“I think you’re missing an opportunity to get some inside information, Capo.”

He crossed his arms and narrowed his gaze. “Contessa.”

“If I don’t see him, he’s going to get suspicious. He’s just opened a case against, I’m assuming, you? Knowing I might be with you? Let me see him and find out what he wants.”

“You’re going to spy for me? I don’t want that from you, ever.”

“To be honest, I just want to go home and have kind of a normal day. You know, one where I don’t see a gun or take part in some ritual I don’t understand.”

“And you need to see Daniel Brower to do that?”

“He’s not a loan shark or a baby capo looking for territory. He’s not going to hate you any more than he already does, and he’ll never touch me. What’s the harm in me putting on my work clothes and taking a lunch?” I put my hands on his forearms, and he dropped them. “We’ll be in public. I promise.” I slipped my hands around his waist and held him close.

He put his arms around me and kissed my head. “Come volevi tu.”

thirty-four.

 

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nzo drove me home in a charcoal grey Ferrari and left me in the parking lot. I went right to my car and made it to work just in time.

Pam was business as usual, dozen red roses on her desk notwithstanding.

“Good morning,” I said.

“Morning.”

“What do I have today?”

Pam rattled off a list of meeting and conferences. I texted Daniel.

—What time today?—

—Stuff exploded. Tomorrow ok? Before lunch, 30 min?—

—No prob—

“Can you reserve the big conference room at eleven thirty tomorrow?” I asked Pam.

She tapped around. “It’s free. Who are you meeting?”

I looked over her shoulder. The blinking cursor required an answer to who would be in the room with me. “Daniel Brower.”

She tapped it in, her expression sour under her rhinestone-tipped horn rims. “You know, polling this morning shows he’s in the lead for mayor.”

I plucked the card from the roses. “I knew he didn’t need me to win.”

Tonight.

I smiled to myself. Tonight, indeed.

***

I tried to keep my mind on my meetings and rows of numbers. I smoothed things over between two accountants on my team while think about Antonio’s body. I didn’t know how much longer I could stay at WDE. I hadn’t been fully engaged in my job in months. After spending time with Antonio, the job felt like a blunter, dimmer version of life.

I kept Antonio’s phone in my pocket. When it rang during a meeting, I excused myself and answered in the hall. “Capo?”

“Paulie.”

I might have blushed, as if he’d walked in on my dirty thoughts. “Hi, Paulie.”

“I’m coming to pick you up from work. Is six okay?”

“Sure. I can leave my car in the lot.”

“See you then.”

***

Our valet was in the alley behind the building, and Paulie’s Ferrari fit right in. When I came out, he was leaning against it in the shade of a bougainvillea hedge, smoking a cigarette.

“Hey,” I said. “What happened to you?” I pointed to my lower lip, indicating the split on the bottom of his.

“Fell on a guy’s fist.”

“You should watch where you’re walking.”

“He’s taken care of. You can tell your friend the loan’s forgiven.”

“I’ll give him his money. I don’t want to steal it,” I said.

“Don’t worry about it.”

He opened the passenger door, and I got in. He obviously didn’t want to discuss the money. I’d wait, but I had every intention of making sure Katrina’s production was clean.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“San Pedro.”

“We going to the beach?” I asked facetiously. San Pedro did indeed have a beach. It was also home to the loading docks and a notorious organized crime stronghold.

“We have an office down there.”

“Of course you do.”

With that, he drove into the traffic of Wilshire Boulevard.

“Where are you from, Paulie? You sound American.”

“Here. Born and raised. Pure-blooded Angelino dego.”

“Have you always been, um, in the life?”

He flung his hand back, as if indicating everything behind him. “Few generations. I’m as in it as Spin.”

“And you guys partnered? I mean, were you here first? Did he just muscle in or what?”

“He told me you were full of questions.”

“Did he tell you how frustrating it is to not ask any?”

He swung south onto LaCienega. “Doesn’t occur to me. I stay inside the lines. Safer that way. No questions because everyone already knows the answers.”

I didn’t say anything all the way down to the 10 freeway. He went east, and the wind drowned us out.

Paulie started talking as if he’d been working on his answer the whole time. “Spin came here with a bloodline, which is important. Gives him credibility, you know? He came right to me and asked for my permission to do some business. Did it exactly right, too.”

“I can’t imagine him asking permission to do anything.”

“Wasn’t like I couldn’t tell right away he could run a crew. And I’ll tell you, it would have been stupid for me not to partner up.”

“Why?”

“Because I like money, that’s why,” he said.

“He knows how to get it, I presume?”

When he didn’t answer, I thought I’d said too much, pushed him past his comfort level. He rubbed his lip as he changed lanes.

“How did your family get their money?” he asked.

“Generations of stealing followed by a few generations of legalized thievery. Now it’s all compounded interest.”

He laughed. “You’re honest.”

“Sometimes.”

“I’m going to be honest with you then.”

“Oh, this is already so much better than that meeting I cancelled.”

“My partner, he likes you.”

I was going to joke about being relieved but decided against it. This seemed very serious to him, so I shut up.

“He introduced you. That doesn’t happen every day. He’s got girls who are in the life. Like family.” He turned to me briefly then looked back at the road. “Do you know what I mean by that?”

“I think so.”

 

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“Okay, so none of them are anything. But you? He’s lost his shit. He’s pissing himself. After today, shit’s gonna change, and I don’t know if you can handle it.”

“Are you sure he’d want you telling me this?”

“I’m not telling you anything you can use. Reason is, and I’m being honest here, I don’t trust you.”

I watched the train stops in the center of the 110. The road was relatively clear. Paulie kept left, and everyone got out of the way.

“I guess I don’t blame you,” I said.

The paper bag-brown sky of San Pedro crept over the horizon. Giant chair-shaped cranes loomed over the portal to the sea.

“Thanks for helping with my sister that night,” I said.

“No problem.”

“You were very level-headed.”

“Thanks. You too.”

thirty-five.

aulie pulled into the docking area with a wave. Yellow and black striped barriers went up everywhere, allowing a right, then a left, to an alcove inside a parking lot that housed two trailers and a couple of cars.

“You really know how to schmooze a girl, Paulie.”

He winked at me, and we got out. I followed him to two red shipping containers fifty feet from a sheer concrete drop to the fouled water of the harbor.

“Okay, kid, here’s the deal,” Paulie said. “You’re not going to care for this, but you’re going in there with me. I am not going to hurt you. I’m not going to hurt anyone you care about. I’m telling the truth when I say you need to see something.”

I hadn’t been nervous. I knew Antonio was at the end of this journey, so I’d felt safe. As Paulie spoke, I became unsure and my heart pounded. The container had no windows or doors. Once I went in, I could be easily trapped.

“Let’s go then,” I said.

He grabbed the silver pole and yanked it down with a clack. He swung the door open, and it creaked so loudly I was reminded of a horror movie. When the triangle of light cut the dark tunnel, I had second thoughts.

“I’ll leave the door open a crack,” Paulie said.

“You coming in with me?”

“Right behind you.”

I didn’t feel safe. I didn’t feel threatened, but I didn’t delude myself into thinking Paulie would jump a pack of wolves for me, double kiss or not. I stepped up to the entrance anyway. Maybe curiosity drove me. Maybe a quest for self-destruction. Maybe I wanted to grab a little badass cred and put it in my Prada bag or walk in riskier shoes.

Two steps in, I heard wet, arrhythmic breathing. Then the door closed, and the box went dark.

“You said you were leaving the door open,” I said.

“Oops.”

The light flicked on, drowning the tunnel in flat, industrial illumination. A man was curled against the wall, his ankle chained to a hook on the side of the container. I’d thought I was nervous and scared before. But when the door opened again, I understood what it felt like to jump out of my own skin.

Paulie laughed. He leaned on the wall casually tapping his phone.

Zo stuck his head in. “There you are.”

“Come on in,” Paulie said.

“Hi, Miss Drazen,” Zo said. “How you doing?”

“I’m fine.”

Zo glanced at Paulie then the guy.

“She’s cool,” Paulie said. “Let’s see him.”

Snapping the door shut, Zo crossed the length of the shipping container in about four steps. He kicked the guy to semi-consciousness. “Hey, ass**le.”

He picked up the man by the back of his collar. His face was beaten bloody, but I still recognized Scott Mabat. Zo plucked a bottle of soda from his jacket pocket and shook it before tossing it to Paulie. Paulie nodded as he passed me, tapping the bottle cap to his forehead as if tipping his cap to me. It left a dot of condensation. The soda must be ice cold.

“Time to get up, Scotty.” Paulie opened the bottle into Mabat’s face.

“Fuck!” Scott yelped.

“Welcome back.”

“Fuck you!” He spat blood.

“I know it’s been a rough night. So I brought you something pretty to look at.” Paulie yanked Scott’s face around until I was in his line of sight.

Shit. I had to decide what to do quickly, and I decided to do what I always did. Show nothing. Give nothing. Own it.

“Where’s Antonio?” I asked.

“Taking care of business. He’s on his way.”

“Fucking frigid bitch,” Scott said.

“Same wonderful sense of humor, I see.” I said.

Zo laughed long and loud then petered.

Paulie capped the soda bottle and turned to me. “So I have a problem, and I think you can help me solve it. Scotty here is the victim of my partner’s protective streak. I didn’t know he had one. But it’s there.”

Scott coughed and sputtered. “I’m gonna f**king kill you.” He stared at me then coughed again.

“You’re being paid, Mister Mabat. I have the money ready to be wired.” I clipped every word, keeping it business despite the piss I smelled on him. I refused to be sick. I refused to even have a feeling about what was happening. Now wasn’t the time for feelings, only thoughts. Cold ones. I couldn’t get muddied.

“Fuck the money,” Scott said. “I’m getting your friend’s tits.”

“See,” Paulie continued, before I could snap back at Scott. “I have this trust thing with you, like we talked about. So I looked into you, your whole family. You’re clean, but a couple of you got your fingers in shady pies. Your father could teach me something about the business.”

 

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“And you could teach Scott something about the importance of research.”

Paulie’s mouth tightened, and I knew he was holding back a smile. “You hear that, Scotty? You taking notes?”

“I’m gonna put my fist up her little Viet-cong ass,” Scott growled at me.

“Yeah,” Paulie said. “Scotty over here is touching on something I’m getting to.”

“Make her suck my fingers after.”

“Shut up, douche.” Zo slapped Scott, sending a splash of blood to the wall.

I noticed then that there was no blood on the walls or floor. A gruesome observation, but it told me that he’d been beaten and moved there.

“Personally,” Paulie continued, “I like you. I think I mighta f**ked you if Spin wasn’t already whipped. But here you are, hanging around the neighborhood, DA’s girlfriend, looking for shit. So I'm nervous. Then there you are, being introduced, and I can’t say shit. Even if it’s common sense, I gotta button it because those are the rules. Everyone’s got rules but the women.”

“I got pulled in. You forget.”

“No. I didn’t forget, and I don’t care what you do on purpose,” Paulie said. “This whole thing with Vito? Spin was already pissed he had a valet thing on the side. A straight job, no less. But then he beat his ass over some bullshit about a girl he didn’t even know. And why? Because he’s pu**y whipped. Then Bruno partners up with Vito, and I got two guys Spin’s after, guns blazing. He’s beating on their friends trying to find them. Four days, my partner didn’t make no sense. Four days he forgot the rules, and everyone runs to Donna Maria looking for help. It gets so bad he’s gotta ask permission from another family to do what’s his right to do. Now I’m dragged in, thinking you must have a magic cunt.”

Scott scooted around on his knees. His hands were tied behind his back, and one shoulder looked dislocated. He needed a hospital stay.

“Here’s what I told our boy here,” Paulie continued. “I told him I’m not gonna kill him. I told him you were an accessory to all this. And I told him he couldn’t touch you. You are protected, by us, indefinitely. This will keep my partner happy, and you alive, because this guy’s pissed.” He pushed Scott down with his foot. “Right, you Armenian f**k? You’re pissed, right?”

Scott tried to spit on him, but gravity put the spit back on his face. Paulie leaned closer, in spit range, but Scott didn’t appear to have a drop of saliva left.

“You’re gonna take it out on someone, aren’t you?” Paulie asked.

Scott smiled through a bloody mouth.

“You sold him Katrina,” I whispered.

“Maybe. That’s up to you.”

He stepped back and let Scott and me look at each other. Worry and fear crept through my skin. Resist them though I might, I wasn’t calloused to this. I was a nice girl with a beach house and perfect grades.

“Well then, Mister Patalano, it looks like I’m going to have to figure something out.” I turned to leave, but Paulie held me back with a hand to my shoulder.

“I’m not done.”

“I disagree.”

“You can run to the DA. You can run to daddy. But I know your father better than you do, even if I never met him. Our families aren’t strangers, if you know what I mean. And the DA? Don’t get me started. Your girlfriend has a couple of family here in Orange County. A few friends. She disappears, it’s in the news this week, and next week London Westin’s worn-out pu**y’s in the papers.”

He reached in his jacket. He was going for his gun. I think my panic must have been visible then, because he held out his hand to calm me. He slowly pulled the firearm.

“I have a solution for you,” Paulie said. “You want to earn my trust? If you earn that, you and your girlfriend will be under my protection. This guy won’t touch either of you.” He handed me the gun.

Zo spoke up, “Paulie, whoa! The f**k?”

“Shut up, Zo.” It sat in the flat of his hand like an offering. “Take him out. Problem solved.”

Scott laughed, lightly at first. Maybe a smarter person than I am would have deduced another solution. Maybe a more naturally manipulative person would have stalled long enough to change the course of events. But I was empty. I took the gun. It was lighter than I expected. Easier to pick up. Maybe I thought it should weigh some more supernatural amount, equal to the death inside it.

“Take him out, and you’re going to solve all kinds of problems,” Paulie said.

“You’re nuts, you know that?”

“I’m hedging a bet. It’s a million to one you have the spine for it. And I gotta be honest, I want you out of the picture.”

“Paulie, come on,” Zo said.

“Shut the f**k up, Zo.” The man with the bow lips stood close to me, engaging in a staring contest I had no intention of losing.

“She can’t get made, no ways,” Zo pleaded.

I said softly, “This is a very risky proposition.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Shit.” Zo was freaking out. “Pauls, what if she misses and hits me?”

“Pick him up,” Paulie said without releasing me from his gaze. “Let her get a good shot.”

“I’m not killing anyone,” I said.

“My money’s on you not even pulling the trigger.”