Made (24 page)

Nothing
.

Corrado gasped, his hands drifting to her head, fingers running through her soft hair. He guided her, not forcing, not pushing, instead drowning in the sensations and losing himself in her touch. She didn't hesitate. She didn't falter. There was no second-guessing. No self-doubt. She sucked vigorously, stroking firmly, teeth lightly scraping.

He was losing his mind.

"Celia," he ground out through clenched teeth. "You're killing me."

It didn't take long, minutes at most. It built and built inside of him, filling him up until it had nowhere else to go. He threw his head back, smacking it against the unyielding brick. "I, uh... I, uh..."

I love you
.

The words almost glided from his lips, but the explosion of pleasure rippling down his spine silenced him. Shuddering, his hands clenched into fists as orgasm rocked him. He convulsed, spilling down her throat. She kept going, taking in every drop. The pleasure faded into an intolerable tingle, his flesh sensitive from her touch. He pulled away, breathing deeply, and opened his eyes.

Celia remained on her knees, a seductive smirk twisting her glistening lips. A twinkle of satisfaction shined from her eyes as he fixed his pants. Corrado was vaguely aware of sirens still blaring in the distance, a subtle flashing of red and blue lights infiltrating the dark sky down the block.

He yanked Celia to her feet, wobbling a bit, his knees weak, his firm hands covering her cheeks, locking her in place as he kissed her hard. After a frozen moment of surprise, she kissed him back, lips moving feverishly against his. Celia wrapped her arms around his neck and shoved him back toward the house, slamming him against the rigid brick siding. Pain curled across Corrado's back, rippling down his spine, as a wave of pleasure washed through him. He grew aroused again, and Celia must've sensed it, because she pressed herself against the bulge in his pants.

"Stay," she gasped.

He shook his head, the movement barely registering, and forced out a response. "I can't."

"You can," she insisted, clawing the back of his neck as she tried to draw him closer. "I'll sneak you in."

"No."

The second he said the word, firm and final, a sharp pain shot through his bottom lip as Celia's teeth pierced the skin. He winced, the small gash throbbing as he ran his tongue along it, the familiar coppery taste of blood tingling his tongue. "You
bit
me."

She smiled guiltily as she backed up a few steps. "See you later, Corrado."

He caught her arm, clutching her wrist as she tried to walk away. "Tomorrow."

She cocked an eyebrow. "Tomorrow?"

He loosened his grip on her arm. "Tomorrow."

Hesitating, she stepped back in his direction, placing a small, chaste kiss on his lips. "See you tomorrow."

Corrado set off for home, strolling right by the idling police cruisers. Lights intermittently flashed, illuminating his downcast face. A small crowd had gathered, curious and anxious, but Corrado felt only contentment.

Just as he approached the scene, a blaring ambulance sped away, carrying at least one of the men in it. Corrado hazarded a glance across the street, spotting a few police officers hanging around.

No one looked at him. No one paid him any attention.

He continued on, walking the few blocks to his dark, empty house. Reaching into his pockets, he fumbled around for his keys but came up empty.

Cursing under his breath, he tried his coat, finding only his gun. No keys, no wallet, no watch.

He would have to remember to get it all back from Celia tomorrow.

Frustrated, Corrado walked around the outside of his house, shoving one of the cracked windows open the whole way to slip inside.

    
16

The sun outside had just risen when Corrado awoke to a string of knocks on the door. Groggily, he climbed to his feet, still dressed in yesterday's clothes. Grimy sweat made the stiff cloth cling to him. He tore off his jacket, tossing it on a nearby chair, as they knocked again.

Corrado headed to the front door, figuring it would probably be his father, maybe even Celia, or the Boss if he were set to have a bad day. Swinging it open, he braced himself, but he was unprepared for what he found.

Three men stood shoulder to shoulder on the porch. The one in the middle was dressed in a cheap gray suit, thick glasses on his face, his hair balding. Nothing substantial stood out about the man, but the guys flanking him gave it all away, wearing dark pants and bright powder blue button down shirts with Chicago Police Department patches sewn on the left arm. Dull badges were pinned to their hefty chests. Behind them, Corrado made out a set of police cars.

Sickness swam in his stomach. He didn't greet them.

"Corrado Moretti?" the middle one asked. "I'm Detective Walker. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions."

Even before the detective reached into his pocket, Corrado knew he had made a terrible mistake. The fact was confirmed when the man held up a set of keys. "Do these look familiar?"

Corrado shrugged noncommittally.

The detective singled out the marked car key in the bunch. "There's only one Mercedes parked on this street. We ran the VIN, and it came back to you. The key worked when we tried it."

Corrado stared at the man. Was that even legal?

"So?" the detective pressed, jingling the keys. "Familiar?"

Tense silence swarmed the air between them. He was torn on what to do. Lie and deny, hoping for the best? Or implicate
himself
in something inadvertently? He couldn't decide, so he did neither.

He just stood there in stone cold silence.

The detective lowered his hand, slipping the keys away. "We're going to need to take you downtown."

Corrado recognized the absurdity of his stubbornness, but cooperating was out of the question. The officer on the right whipped out a set of handcuffs as the other grabbed him and patted him down. Thank God he had taken off his coat.

The thick metal handcuffs, heavy on his wrists, dug into his skin as the officer secured his hands behind his back. Both officers snatched a hold of him, violently yanking him toward an idling cruiser.

"You have the right to remain silent," one officer started, reciting a set of words Corrado would come to hear over and over again. "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."

The right to remain silent... Corrado had every intention of following through with that.

Two counts of felony aggravated assault.

Corrado sat in a flimsy wooden chair beside Detective Walker's desk in the middle of the hectic Cook County police station. His left hand had been freed, but his right was secured to a locked drawer on the desk, keeping him fastened in place.

Officers huddled around in a small group, whispering conspiratorially, their eyes fixed on Corrado. He ignored it, avoiding their judgmental gazes, his mind spinning over his charges.

Two counts of felony aggravated assault
. It had to be a joke.

"He isn't deaf, is he?" an officer asked, just loud enough for Corrado to overhear. "That secretary downstairs knows sign language, doesn't she? Maybe he doesn't understand what we're saying."

"No, he understands," another responded. "He's just a Moretti."

Despite himself, an amused smile tugged Corrado's lips. They clearly had been acquainted with his father.

The group of officers grumbled to themselves in unison, agreeing with the sentiment. They disbursed, shooting him sideways glares on their way to their desks, as Detective Walker made his way back over. Pulling out his handcuff key, he freed Corrado only to yank him to his feet and force his hands behind his back.

"Since you have nothing to say, we're
gonna
go ahead and book you," Detective Walker said, securing the handcuffs tightly on both wrists again. "Maybe a night in lockup will loosen your lips."

They transferred him to Cook County Jail and shuffled him around, from cell to cell, from room to room. He had no sense of time, but gathered it was well past dusk when they placed him in a dingy two-man cell. There were no windows, no view of the outside, but the chill of night hung in the air as if it had somehow seeped through the thick concrete slabs. Corrado stood still just inside the small space as the guard closed the bars, locking him in. He assessed his cellmate, a scrawny middle-aged man, and slipped into the unoccupied bottom bunk when he decided the man wasn't a threat.

He closed his eyes but didn't sleep, listening all night to the shriek of inmates and the clatter of metal in the darkness, acutely aware of every squeak of spring from the bed above him. Hours passed this way, tense and uncomfortable, before the jail came alive with daylight.

His hearing was that morning, in another grungy windowless room. He didn't speak, didn't address the court at all. He stood with his head held high as the gruff old man in a black robe read his charges in a scratchy voice. He banged the gavel, his gaze never once meeting Corrado. "Bail's set at ten thousand dollars."

Ten thousand
.

Leaving the hearing, the guard escorted Corrado back out to the tier, releasing him from his handcuffs before showing him to a set of phones lining a wall. "Make your call."

Corrado grabbed the receiver of the only free phone and dialed one of the few numbers he had memorized—his father's.

It rang. And rang. And rang. Frustration brewed inside of him during the fourth ring, but it cut off when Vito's voice came on. "Yeah?"

"It's me," Corrado said. "I'm in jail."

"No shit?"

"No."

Sudden laughter rocked the line, so loud Corrado had to pull the phone from his ear.

"Your first arrest," Vito said. "I wondered when I'd see the day."

Corrado leaned against the wall, stretching the phone cord as far as it would go. "Bail's ten thousand."

Vito let out a low whistle. "Damn, kid, what did you do?"

He hesitated. "Nothing. I'm innocent."

"Of course you are."

"They charged me with felony assault," he said. "Two counts."

"Ah." Silence. "Thought I told you never to use your fists."

"I didn't."

"Right, right… innocent."

Corrado didn't correct his father, but that wasn't what he'd meant. He hadn't used his fists… he'd pistol-whipped them.

"Well, tough break, kid," Vito said. "Get up with me when you find a way out of this mess."

The line went dead.

Vito had hung up on him.

Corrado replaced the phone in the cradle and approached the guard. "I need to make another call."

"It'll cost you."

"What?"

"Only the first call's free. The rest you have to pay for."

Corrado stared at the guard with disbelief. "I have no money."

"Well, I guess you shouldn't have wasted your first call then."

Another day passed, then two more like it. Hunger and exhaustion ravaged Corrado as he lay in the filthy bunk, his arm draped over his eyes hour after hour, attuned to everything going on around him.

It was late on the fourth day when someone came for him. A guard pulled him out of his cell and led him out of the cellblock. Corrado walked leisurely, in no hurry to get anywhere, and was stunned when the guard led him back to intake. "I'm still not answering their ridiculous questions."

Are you angry
?
Do you want to hurt someone
?

Corrado nearly laughed when they asked him that.

The guard chuckled under his breath. "You will if you want to get out of here."

He shot him a look of surprise. "I'm being released?"

The guard nodded. "Someone posted your bail."

Although he still said little, Corrado was much more cooperative on the way out. He couldn't believe his father had come around and bailed him out. He rubbed his wrists, sore from being handcuffed, and headed for the front door of the jail. He stepped outside, squinting from the late evening sunshine. Raising his hand to shield his eyes, he glanced across the parking lot, seeing the last person he had ever expected to see waiting.

Gia DeMarco.

She stood in front of Antonio's Cadillac Deville, rivaling Erika Moretti with her poise and stern expression. Corrado approached her, squaring his shoulders as he bowed his head. "Mrs. DeMarco."

"Enough of that," she said. "It's time you call me Gia."

"Gia."

She nodded in greeting. "Corrado."

"I'm surprised to see you here."

"Don't be," she said. "Nobody else is. As many times as I've had to spring my husband from this place, they ought to erect a statue for me out here in the parking lot."

"I thought my father—"

"Vito?" Gia scoffed, silencing Corrado right away. "They would've let you stay in there forever to teach you a lesson. And I would've went along with it had I not spoken to my daughter."

Corrado's stomach knotted. "What did Celia tell you?"

Gia didn't respond, but her eyes told the answer:
everything
.

"Come." Gia walked around to the driver's side of the car. "I'd rather not linger."

Corrado climbed in the passenger seat, glancing around the
DeVille
as Gia drove. He'd never been in the Boss's car before. "Antonio lets you drive this?"

"
Lets
me?" Gia scoffed. "I may yield to my husband on occasion, but nobody lets me do anything, Corrado. If I needed his permission, you'd still be rotting in that cell... especially after what Celia told him."

Corrado stared straight ahead, gaze fixed through the spotty windshield, as words tumbled from his lips. "I'm dead."

"Dead?" Gia laughed. "Only if he's feeling merciful."

He said not another word as Gia navigated the streets of Chicago, driving right past Corrado's house without even slowing down. Corrado took a deep breath as they reached the end of Felton Drive, pulling right to the front of the brick mansion. He got out, tugging on the collar of his shirt. The days-old clothes were scratchy against his skin, smelling of sweat with just a hint of Celia's perfume still clinging to the fabric. He'd never been so unkempt in his life, his sockless feet sweating in the stiff leather shoes, his hair not brushed, everything wrinkled, as he walked into a house to face punishment.

He felt like abused cattle being herded to the slaughterhouse.

Gia's high heels clicked against the foyer floor, echoing through the downstairs. Corrado stepped in behind her and shut the front door, glancing around cautiously. His eyes drifted to the staircase when he heard footsteps, taking in the much-appreciated sight of Celia.

She made it halfway to the foyer when Gia stopped her. "I don't think so, young lady. Back upstairs."