“Don’t . . . touch me.”
Too late,
Stefano thought wryly, ironically. Donata lay down on Silvio’s other side, touched and caressed him like she was calming some frantic animal, or just exploring a new lover. There was really nothing Stefano could do for her right now, apart from grabbing her for another kiss. Silvio’s breath came harsher, and he tightened, almost pushing Stefano over the edge, so he pulled out and away and finished Silvio off by hand, pressed close to him. Silvio came with a gasp, then went almost entirely limp, just resting between them.
Donata smiled at Stefano and brushed some hair from his sweaty forehead. “Some left for me?” she asked in that playful voice she sometimes used.
“Oh yes.” He pulled the condom off, untied the silken scarf that held Silvio’s hands, then climbed over him because there was a lot more space on the other side of the bed. They could well use a bigger bed if threesomes became a habit, he thought as he stretched out and pulled her on top.
She straddled him and sank down on his cock immediately. Wow, she was wet and just as needy as he was. Silvio moved closer and slid his fingers to Stefano’s cock where it pushed inside her. Donata closed her eyes and pressed her lips together when he rubbed her clit, seemingly skilled and just right, because she was getting close really fast, for which Stefano was more grateful than he could have said.
Coming together was a Goddamned art form, and right now he didn’t quite have enough stamina. He clutched her to him when he felt his own climax hit, and then felt hers, that soft and demanding and control ing thing her muscles did that always felt like she wanted him even deeper and further, soft and hot and utterly irresistible.
She rested on top of him, and Silvio was at his shoulder, and he couldn’t touch any of them enough. Silvio’s deadly grace and Donata’s proud strength. All his. He wasn’t sure what he did to complete them, but he was endlessly grateful that he’d found them both.
Stefano wondered why they’d chosen this particular hotel for the meeting. It was either deliberate cruelty to do this in the same hotel he’d used to be with Silvio, or really the best way to do this. He stood in the corridor for a moment or two, then the door opened.
His lawyer stepped out. “Mr. Marino, just a moment.”
Stefano followed him to the end of the corridor, where a thoughtful soul had arranged a table with a newspaper and two leather chairs and a shoe polishing machine. “Well, I’ve talked to Beccaria.” He tapped the folder in his hand. “That man is a killer.”
“I know,” Stefano agreed. “How badly did he fuck us over?”
“Well, I got you all the guarantees he’s likely to give anybody, but I don’t know exactly how much he has. He’s playing this game very well, and he’s a tough bastard.”
“That’s done and over. I’m ready to take the deal.”
I won’t fight
him.
But he couldn’t tell Rinaldi that. Rinaldi had encouraged him in so many words to fight the US Attorney every step of the way, like it was a matter of professional pride. But it wasn’t Rinaldi who’d go to prison if that lawyerly dick-waving contest ended the wrong way.
“As you wish, Mr. Marino.” Rinaldi offered him some papers from the file. “If you need anything else for this matter . . .”
“No, I’ll be all right. Thanks.”
I know you did what you could.
Rinaldi paused, his smooth exterior cracking as if he were waiting for a cue or didn’t know how to proceed. Stefano glanced at his watch.
“I better be going.” He gave a shrug and a smile, then turned away and returned to the hotel room.
Behind the door, further into the room, sat Beccaria and two other men. Official-looking. Feds.
Stefano endured a pat-down, though the indignity of it all went right into his bones. He fucking hated them, all of them, the faceless men who’d spied on him and Silvio, who’d high-fived each other when they’d caught the sex on camera. When they’d found the key to destroy his life.
They rifled through his briefcase, even his laptop, like he was some suicidal maniac who would bring a gun or a bomb to this meeting.
Beccaria carefully uncapped an expensive fountain pen and began writing on an unlined sheet of paper. “Please, have a seat.”
Stefano sat down, set his laptop on the table on top of his briefcase.
Beccaria folded his hands and leaned forward a little. “This won’t be easy for you, but you’ll see that we’re keeping our side of the deal.
A new life, a new identity, and all the help you could possibly want to start again.”
“Don’t patronize me.” Stefano clenched his jaw.
Don’t you fucking
dare.
Beccaria nodded as if he’d expected that. “Let’s get to it, then.”
Stefano glanced at the uninvited, un-introduced Feds, but what would have been a breach of etiquette in his world didn’t matter in this one. He’d crossed the line now, and would forever live on the other side, where he didn’t know the rules, where he had no power whatsoever. Worse, it was a life under constant threat. And for what?
You always loathed your father.
Was that enough to see him through this? Some extremely late, ill-timed rebellion? He suddenly wanted a stiff drink or several, but he was alone in this room with people who despised him and who were a very real threat to his life and future. He’d need every scrap of wits and willpower to get to the other end.
“Why don’t we start with who you are and how you became the boss of the Marino clan.”
All the knowledge they asked for was unacknowledged; some people knew more than others, but Stefano couldn’t remember any instance when he’d spoken any of this out loud, let alone given a complete account. All of this was inside him, had lived there, pale but powerful, far removed in caves and recesses. Speaking it was surreal, sharing something terribly intimate he’d be judged for with strangers who were watching him for a sign of weakness, guilt, remorse.
The only thing he could do was keep his emotions in check. The sheer horror of what he was doing, the fact that he was breaking
omertà
and every sacred rule he’d believed in, and that by breaking them, he was becoming an unbeliever. Turncoat.
Pentito.
Traitor.
Scum.
He was surprised how intense the self-loathing got during the confession. That several times, during breaks, he considered heading up to the roof of the hotel and jumping off, because that seemed the only way to stop the flow of words and questions, the only way he could still thwart what they were doing. Yet, there was that fragile, nervous hope he’d find a life after this.
But at least Beccaria didn’t goad him, just stayed cool and composed, as if he knew that was the best way to deal with him. Stay rational, factual. There were no further threats, and not even once did Beccaria step outside his professional role. As much as Stefano hated the man for what he’d made him do, the solidity about Beccaria, a kind of strength and reliability, implied he was a firm but merciful confessor.
“So who killed all those Russians?” Beccaria asked eventually, after hours and hours of interrogation.
Stefano’s mind was sore, and his stomach churned around the water he’d drunk. The only thing he could get down. “I don’t actually know. Augusto Viero, my underboss, hired an ex-soldier.”
I’m sorry,
Franco, but they won’t be able to find you, and nobody knows the truth
anyway, and by the time Augusto cracks, Silvio will be far away.
“The scale of that hit was well beyond our own capabilities.”
“Did you order them to do it that way?”
“No. I just asked him to take care of it. I trust my men,”—
oh, the
irony
—“to fill in the details.”
“Yes, that kind of order would have been understood in that way,”
Beccaria murmured, possibly translating for the benefit of the Feds.
“Anything more?”
“I believe he came over from Europe, but I don’t know where he got the explosives from. I did provide a car and two Bushmasters.”
Beccaria nodded. “Where did he stay?”
“I don’t know. I assume he figured we weren’t trustworthy, so I don’t know where he stayed or what happened to the car.”
“Sounds like a pro,” one of the Feds said.
Beccaria gave a noncommittal snort. “We’ll work that angle later.” He wasn’t going to say anything more, anything that would have allowed Stefano to warn anybody in a final fit of remorse.
“Well.” He capped his pen. “Considering the threat to your life, I’ll let these gentlemen accompany you home now. Call your wife, don’t tell anybody but her, pack very light, leave everything else. We’ll get you to a safe place, and we’ll take it from there.”
Stefano stood, and the Feds put their jackets back on. They looked exactly the type of official enforcers they were, so he could only pray that nobody saw him with them. Or, if Silvio saw them, that he didn’t do anything stupid.
They accompanied him to the car. One sat down in the passenger seat, as if to keep an eye on him, and the other followed in a limo behind.
When he got home, Donata was already waiting for him, looking apprehensive, but not scared or spiteful. Did she, somewhere deep inside, despise him for selling out? For not standing and fighting?
For tearing her from her friends, her family, her life?
They packed a few things, barely enough to fill a large bag each.
Some clothes, jewelry, papers, the second laptop. All under the eyes of the Feds. He pondered how to leave a message for Silvio, just a few words, but that would possibly lead to disaster. Beccaria had made very clear nobody was meant to know whom he didn’t trust with Donata’s life and his own. Nobody should even suspect.
“We’re ready,” Stefano said, bag in hand.
When the Feds led them out of the house—he would never come back here—Donata asked softly, “What about Silvio?”
Yes, what about Silvio. Not like his mind had run frantically around that question for hours. Days. Nights. “He’d have to give up the life,” he said, hoping Donata understood. Silvio was a
sicario
and ful -blooded
Cosa Nostra
. As yet, he was safe inside the family; nobody would out him. He wasn’t a major player, and he was well protected by the looming shadow of Gianbattista Falchi. Charmed as he was, Silvio was untouchable, at least for the moment. Yet more powerful men had fallen.
Capos
had broken the rules and turned against their betters. There was always the potential for dissolution, chaos, outright revolution.
“He might,” Donata said. “For what you mean to him.”
“He’s Battista’s.”
He’ll always be that.
In any direct competition with Gianbattista Falchi, he had to lose. And God knew what Falchi would do if he learned of this deal. For a powerbroker and a trader in secrets, this had to be too tasty a morsel to let lie.
Donata touched his arm in silence. She wouldn’t show emotion in front of the Feds. She’d never do anything that made him look like he
needed
support. Not in public, and definitely not in the face of the enemy.
Silvio would be all right; no doubt about it. He’d return to Falchi, and eventually find another man with the kind of strength it took to love him.
That he had to rely on the Feds for anything was getting old really fucking fast. In the safe house, he relied on them for
everything
. And what was worse, his
wife
had to rely on them too.
He hadn’t anticipated how fucking emasculating this would be, sitting here, waiting for them to be done with his family, his life, his past. He knew they were rounding up everybody now. Every name he’d given them. Every made man, every associate, everybody, from his accountant to his banker.
Well, most of them deserved it. Apart from Vince, poor bastard, but then, Vince hadn’t done much to bring down the heavy boot of the law. He might get off lightly. Stefano stood near the window, gazing out, watching the traffic and who walked past. It was why he noticed the car pull up and the US Attorney get out. Something was very wrong; the man was charging at the door like an enraged bul . Stefano enjoyed the sight—he hated how controlled and cold the man was. Seeing him upset could only be a good sign. Belated satisfaction.
He turned away from the window and crossed his arms.
“Attorney’s dramatic entrance in three . . . two . . .”
Donata looked up from a book on antique furniture. It was a huge heavy catalogue, one of several she’d recently ordered on the internet. With nothing much to do but wait, they had to kill the time as best they could. But furniture, of all things?
The door flew open, Beccaria in the doorframe. “We have to talk, Marino.”
“Good day to you, too,” Stefano said. Where he took the cool from he didn’t know. Maybe it was the boredom that made him emotionally flat these days, the waiting, the seclusion, or the fact that Silvio was out there, hopefully still free.
Yeah, as flat as his emotions felt, that thought still hurt, still went deep. Silvio. Whenever Donata tried to make him talk about Silvio or that night, he just shook his head. He wasn’t sure how to mourn that thing he’d had with Silvio; he just hoped it would stop hurting.
Beccaria closed the door. “You failed to mention a few rather important details. Are you aware that your whole deal hinges on you telling me everything? Every name, every identity, every crime?”
“To the best of my knowledge and what I remember,” Stefano shot back. “What? So you found something. Big fucking deal. Interfered with your hard-on over taking down the Marino clan, did it?”
Beccaria hissed. “You completely omitted Silvio Spadaro.”
Oh shit. Oh holy hell. Not Silvio.
“According to my witness, a
sicario
, a professional killer.”
“I know what the word means, asshole.”
Beccaria actually
recoiled
. And then something odd and frightening happened. The charging bull turned cold as the man slipped his mask of superiority back in place.
That man is a killer.