Viero could never suspect his loyalties were directed at anybody but Falchi. It would protect Stefano too, for the moment.
Viero stepped outside, and his three friends looked up. One threw away his cigarette. “We’re going to get rid of the body. You’ve seen what you had to see.”
Silvio nodded and turned away, aware of the disapproval licking over him as he walked back toward the entrance.
After that, come to the house.
He pulled the phone from his pocket and typed a quick
On
my way
for Stefano. He pulled the phone headset from the bike compartment and wired himself up, then put the helmet on, slapped down the visor. He tapped Battista’s name on his contact list and waited for an answer.
“
Pronto.
”
He got on the bike, rolled off the stand, and started the engine. “I gotta talk to you, Battista.”
“Sounds urgent.”
“I might have to leave America real quick.” He accelerated, but not fast enough to race anybody. Not while his attention was divided between traffic and what the conversation with Viero meant.
“What happened?”
“Fucking politics.” He left the side alley and weaved into the main traffic leaving the city proper, back to the villa. “Viero, the underboss here, has just hired me to kill Stefano.”
“And?”
“I accepted.”
“Is he that bad a fuck?”
“No.” Silvio laughed into his helmet. “We had the ‘love’ discussion this morning.”
“He does nothing halfway, does he?”
“Right now, he does everything halfway.” Silvio snorted. “Straight boys are hard work, but bisexuals? He’s going this way, then the other, gives me a fucking headache.”
And he’s not like you, so we can’t really
have the same thing
. All options were still open.
“You knew he’d be a challenge.” Battista kept that amused air.
“Fal ing in love with you isn’t easy. Most people waver between loving you and killing you, and you’re usually lucky they come out at the
loving you
side.”
Not Diego Carbone.
“I’ll need a new set of papers in case this shit goes nuclear.”
“I’ll have them deposited for you at the airport. Should take only a few days. You reckon that’s enough?”
“Yes. So far, it’s under control. I’ll know it when things start going wrong.”
Silvio left his helmet behind on the bike and made his way past security through the back of the house. The security guy pointed up and forward, indicating the large living room overseeing the front of the property.
Silvio ran up the main staircase as quickly and silently as he could, then crossed the landing, the thick carpet there swallowing every noise.
He drew close to one of the doors and touched his shoulders to the wall beside it. If he’d attempted to listen in on a conversation in Battista’s villa, the thickness of the ancient stone walls would have stifled most sounds, but Americans didn’t build houses that lasted for five or seven hundred years.
No sense of real empire,
Gianbattista used to say.
He half-closed his eyes, tuned his senses toward the presences behind the door. Beyond, tension brewed, maybe anger. He was ready to act if things did go out of control. Nobody was speaking on the other side, or they were whispering.
His phone buzzed against his chest, and he pulled it free.
Where are you?
Stefano.
He pushed the phone back into his pocket, knocked twice on the door, and entered.
Stefano was on the couch, bent forward, elbows resting on his knees. Donata stood tall and regal next to the fireplace. Neither of them said a word, even though they were focused on each other, aware of each other’s presence and of many years of shared past hanging between them. Silvio chose his position and stood near the door so both could see him.
“Well. Now that Silvio’s here.” Stefano regarded the phone in his hand with an ironic glance and then pushed it in his pocket.
“What does he have to do with anything?” Donata asked. “No offense, Silvio, but this is a family matter.”
“It always is,” Silvio responded.
“He’s here because . . .” Stefano ran his fingers through his hair.
“It concerns him, too. What I’ve been doing. With whom. I . . . felt it was only fair.”
Donata glanced again at Silvio. “Who you’ve been cheating with?”
Silvio just answered her glance, watching the first wisps of doubt, then suspicion, then knowledge form on her face.
“
You
. It’s you?”
Stefano lifted his head and looked at Donata. “He’s . . . It’s not his fault. I’m the liar and the cheater here. Silvio just did what . . . in hell it
is
he’s doing.” He cast a glance back to Silvio, pained, it seemed, and tender, then looked at Donata.
“So you’re gay? Is that what this is all about? You married me as some kind of protection? What’s the word, Silvio?”
“Beard,” Silvio assisted.
“Thank you,” she said coolly. “Is that what this is?”
“No. I . . . I love you. You have to believe I didn’t lie about anything I said to you. Ever. I love you. You’re my wife. At least, that’s . . . what I hope. I hope you’ll stay my wife.”
Silvio felt his own chest tighten at the emotion in Stefano’s voice.
The man was scared, and hurt, and tender. Few men could hurt like this without lashing out. He wasn’t sure he’d ever met one. Battista became sarcastic and retaliated, rarely physically, but his words cut deeper than a whip. Sebastiano was very similar. Franco just walked away; it was a mystery how he always managed to strangle the rage and every other feeling, drown them all like surplus puppies in a river and walk away with dry eyes and not look back.
But Stefano was different. Was it weakness? Was his dominant posture breaking? Or did he have several faces, too?
“I don’t know how I can trust you,” Donata said. “Are you . . .”
“I’m not gay. I don’t know. I think I could just fall in love with a man or a woman. I guess that makes me bisexual.” Stefano shook his head. “I wish it weren’t so, I wish . . . I was just normal. I don’t want to risk my life doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Donata, Joey D’Amato died because of it. If you tell anybody what you know about me now, I’m dead. They’re gonna kill me, and they’ll do it in some messy, horrible way. They have no mercy for faggots, even a part-time faggot like me.”
Silvio felt that self-loathing sear his skin. He looked at Donata, whose face had softened a little. Still, the glance she threw him was weary above all else.
“I know. My uncle’s gay. The one with the antique shop in Paris?
He’s living with his partner. They’ve been together twenty-five years.”
She sat down on one of the chairs. “Of course, nobody talks about him much.”
Stefano rubbed his face again. “I’m so sorry.”
She nodded and regarded Silvio. “Well. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be thinking.”
Silvio said nothing, just watched Stefano with a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t like that.
“Now, what are you going to do? I doubt you and Silvio will move to San Francisco, will you?”
“No.” Stefano lifted his head, but his eyes were tightly closed. He looked like a boy wishing very hard for something. “You both mean too much to me. I can’t . . . I don’t want to live without you, Donata.
But I don’t think I can give Silvio up, either.”
Donata met Silvio’s gaze. “What about you? Would you go back home to Italy?”
Silvio shrugged. “Depends on the reason.”
“If I told you to stay away from my husband? Would you stay away?”
“Donata!”
“Would you, Silvio?”
Now, this was odd, that tightness around his throat.
If it’s better
for him,
was the first thing that came into his mind. He’d had him, after al , many times, knew what the man was like when he fell apart.
Had touched that oddly powerful center in him, sensed his strength and integrity. He wasn’t sated, not by a long shot, but he’d had enough of a taste to forego the final course.
But then, that possessiveness attracted him, and Stefano, who was never, or very rarely, intimidated by anything. The man who’d cried at night while sharing his bed and hadn’t dared to find solace, hadn’t dared wake him up to cry in his arms or against his shoulder.
Oddly, he knew Stefano loved Donata. And there were those words they’d spoken, too.
I love you.
Same thing.
He looked Donata in the eye, impressed when she didn’t look away.
“I asked you a question.”
Silvio glanced at Stefano, who looked at him with something like hope. “Yes. I’d go away.”
“No, Silvio.” Stefano looked hurt now. “I wouldn’t just send you away.”
Ah, yes, that discussion they’d had. About being hurt when people told him to get the fuck out of their lives. “It wouldn’t be you sending me away. I’d just go. Of my own will.”
Stefano groaned. “Donata, he’s never really had anybody. Falchi sent him away, and it’s not like he can just return home and live there in that house with his ex. He doesn’t have anybody but his brother, and Franco’s gone, and I have no idea where he is.”
Donata glared at Silvio. “The homeless puppy?”
Silvio grinned, briefly. “Not quite.” Although that was exactly what he was. Living with Battista in the Tuscan villa would hurt too much. He’d have to get his own place somewhere, but that meant being alone. Stefano did understand him too well.
“So what are you after, Silvio?”
“Battista sent me with Stefano to fight the war. I’ve done that.
There are more threats, so I should stay around for a while longer. But after that, I’m getting on a plane and going somewhere.”
“I want you to stay, Silvio,” Stefano said. “Donata, please. I’ll do whatever you want, but don’t make me choose between you.”
Because
I will choose you, but I’ll hate you a bit every day for it,
Silvio imagined he was thinking.
Donata looked between them, seemingly conflicted and preoccupied with thoughts, maybe memories, maybe several impulses about what she should do. “How are you going to hide him?” She sounded calm and a bit sad or worried.
“He could take over for Vince. Be the bodyguard; he won’t draw much suspicion that way.”
Donata’s gaze flickered over Silvio and immediately away, like he wasn’t worth her attention. “As long as you don’t bring him to our bed, or expect anything from me but guarding your secret.”
“No, I won’t,” Stefano said on nothing more than a breath.
Donata seemed more confused now than angry. Maybe hurt, too, and reeling, but she was holding herself remarkably well. “Good.
And don’t you forget that,” she said, but her voice was less stable than she probably thought.
She left the room and closed the door behind her.
“That went better than I thought it would.” Stefano leaned back on the couch. “Sit down, Silvio.”
“Do you think she can share you?”
“I don’t know. We haven’t . . . we never made any plans for that kind of thing. I don’t know. A third person never figured. I mean, other people manage. Lots of guys have a wife and a girlfriend. Some even have two families.”
“That an arrangement for you?”
“No. I’d be all right with one woman and kids and a . . . you. I don’t want anybody else. I don’t want to lose her, either.”
“I know you love her. I can see that.”
“I love you, too, Silvio.”
Maybe. Or maybe Stefano was just fooling himself. Silvio pushed his hands in his pockets. “You want the same deal Battista got?”
Even
though you have no clue what that means?
“I want you, Silvio, with the commitment and the meaning behind it al .”
Odd to think that Stefano would compare himself to Battista.
He’d have sworn Stefano detested Battista, but maybe he was just envious. How odd to be jealous of former lovers. And this here, this was all different than his relationship with Battista. Stefano wasn’t teaching him, wasn’t protecting him. If anything, those roles were reversed.
“I’ll be the bodyguard,” Silvio said. Not that he had many other options after the pact he’d made with Viero. It only made sense, moved him into the best position, for all their sakes. He could either be Stefano’s deniable bit on the side, or his executioner.
Dark Hunter II
ebastiano was getting irritated by how hard it was to get Stefano Marino out on the street. Whenever he moved, a guard on a Smotorcycle accompanied him, and he rarely ventured outside the villa grounds. The memory of the ambush was probably still too fresh. He wasn’t even seeing a therapist, which was an unwise choice, but then, did a mafia boss ever trust anybody enough? That was, outside movies like
Analyze This
.
When the opportunity arose—and the observation post told him where Marino was going—Sebastiano was in a taxi and at the destination before Marino had moved on. He emerged on the pavement, walked past the three shops there (shoe shop, not likely; book shop, even unlikelier; pet shop—there he was), and entered the last one.
The smell of birds and grains hung in the air. Behind the counter stood one woman, talking to Marino, a pile of leashes between them.
Marino held a golden retriever puppy, a mere two handfuls, and was apparently trying to decide which leash suited the dog. Sebastiano watched the display for a while from the side, until Marino picked out special puppy-training leashes and col ars and a pile of expensive dog snacks and paid for everything in cash. Keeping the purchase a secret from the Missus?
Marino grabbed puppy and bag and headed out. Sebastiano obliged him and opened the door.
“Thanks,” Marino said, and headed toward his Porsche.
Sebastiano scanned the street. No guard in sight. “Mr. Marino.
Sorry to interrupt your shopping, sir, but I would really like to talk to you.”
Marino hesitated, then turned and looked at him. Not a pleasant look. Sebastiano opened his arms slightly, as if to show he was unarmed. “I’m here as a friend. I really do believe you want to talk to me.”