His Read online

  A soft curse word is an exhalation of air from Dominic.

  “I finally talked to him two weeks after I was there crying every day. He comes to the phone and yells at me to shut up and stop crying. Yelled at me that I needed to be a big girl and knock it off. He didn’t want to hear about me crying and begging to come back. I was there to stay, so get over it.”

  “That’s when you stopped talking.” It’s not a question.

  I nod. “He told me to shut up, so I did.”

  A hand goes into his hair. He smacks the dashboard, the music goes down to barely audible. “Why in the fuck did you come to America?”

  “He told me he was dying. Told me he wanted to get to know me before he died. He went on and on about how he thought he was doing the right thing by me. There was a part of me who wanted to have a father. The school was a boarding school, but most of the girls left during the holidays to spend time with their parents. Fathers came, mothers came to see their daughters and I envied that. Even though I long ago told myself I didn’t care my father didn’t want me, deep down I cared.” It’s only because he’s not looking at me that I can admit it.

  “I wanted to know who he was. Even when I was in Chicago, he wasn’t much of a father, from what I remembered. It was about him and my mother. I was told to go play, my mom turned on the television and told me to stay in my room when he came over. I thought...this was my last chance if he was dying. I was afraid I would regret it if I didn’t come.”

  A bitter laugh escapes me. “In the end I felt so stupid, like I should have known it would be a disaster. I’m not here half a day and he’s already listing my every fault and failure: I’m too fat, I’m ugly—okay, he didn’t say ugly, but he kept going on and on about how I’m not nearly as pretty as my mother. The way I dress, how it’s taken me so long to come home and be a good daughter. Then he’s taunting me how he knows I really only came back for his money, and if I don’t behave he won’t leave me a penny.

  “I was on the verge of going back to Italy when I met Richard. If it weren’t for him this would have been the worst two years of my life. Richard is the only person besides my mother who has ever cared about me, who loves me, and no matter what you threaten me with I’ll never forget that.” I shake my head as I remember how Richard made me feel loved for the first time since my mother died.

  Dominic’s quiet for a long time; he shakes his head. A press of the button and music fills the car. “Get some sleep.”

  ***

  Regina

  I can’t sleep. I retreat into my thoughts as I watch the city give way to dark, endless flat land and highway. Maybe an hour into the drive Dominic’s phone rings. He hits a button then puts it on speaker.

  “Yeah, Mary.”

  “I have you checked into a hotel in Youngstown, it’s right off the interstate. You have the room for tonight and tomorrow so you don’t have to check out until you want to. They have the kind of setup you were wanting. The room is ready for her and I’ve notified the men.”

  “Efficient as always, I don’t know what I would do without you. Tomorrow, you’ll need to work on planning the wedding. Johnny won’t last long, but I have no doubt if we go small he’ll lose his shit. With family and business, put the estimate at three hundred guests.”

  “I’ve already made inquiries, Father Carmichael will make Our Lady of St. Catherine’s available two Saturdays from now, but it will create an issue in transportation from the church to a hotel large enough to hold the reception. The wedding already scheduled for St. Catherine’s is not an issue to reschedule. The Holy Cathedral downtown will only be blocks from several hotels for the reception. However at the Holy Cathedral, a significant inducement may be required to reschedule that wedding. Personally, I think St. Catherine’s is much prettier. What do you think?”

  “I think I don’t care about which one looks prettier. I’ll look at everything tomorrow. Go to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He doesn’t wait for her to respond, just hangs up.

  “Two weeks?” The words fly out of my mouth. That’s too soon—it’s fine, I won’t be here.

  A sigh. “I told you, Johnny doesn’t have long. The sooner this is settled the better, not just for us but in the family.”

  “What happens when Johnny dies?” I don’t for a single moment think he’ll agree to a divorce. In the mafia, marriage is forever, no matter what. Divorce is not an option. Which is exactly why I need to escape Dominic before the wedding happens.

  A small shrug. “His underboss Carlo Toro becomes Don. Carlo will likely name his nephew Salvatore underboss.”

  “But people don’t like Sal.” The men who came to the condo had been vocal about their dislike of him.

  Another shrug. “No, he’s too bloodthirsty, too willing to shoot first and clean up his mess later. Carlo is a good underboss, he will make a good Don. The only other person he would be willing to put in would be his other nephew Luca Toro, a capo in Vegas who has been doing good things since he took over his father’s place last year. I haven’t met him but his reputation is solid. He’s a good earner and works well with the other mafia out there.”

  “I just don’t get the difference between the mafia and the Outfit. Isn’t it all the mafia?” I had been too afraid to ask the question of Johnny and his men.

  “We’re all the mafia, but not all mafia is the Outfit. The Outfit is separate in that we have different rules—not many, but enough that matter. We run Chicago, and no other mafia, except the Irish, are allowed to operate within our city. There are some Russians we allow to keep going because they keep the worst Bratva fuckers in line. Maryland, Philly, KC, Vegas, and Boston, they take orders from New York. No one tells us what the fuck to do.”

  “So what do you do, exactly?” I can’t keep the fear out of my voice. I’ve heard he has no problem with murder, that he doesn’t order deaths, prefers to handle it himself despite the fact that as a capo, he has several men under him willing to do it for him. What does that make him, that he doesn’t hand off killing another man?

  “For the most part we take care of our neighborhood. Pop and I don’t allow drugs harder than weed, haven’t for more than fifty years. We’ve run off developers who want to tear shit down and build places the people who were there couldn’t afford—it’s how Pop and I came to own so much real estate.”

  He shrugs. “I run liquor out of a family in the backwoods who have been doing it since they were making bootleg in the twenties. I slap a fake label on it and charge for what the label says it is and make double off it in and around the city. Mainly I run a club with gambling in the lower level, poker, craps, roulette, all that shit. That’s the illegal side of it. I also run a legit real estate business, selling, leasing property in our area, and I started importing high-quality home finishes from Europe, mainly Italy, wherever the best of the best comes from.”

  “That’s all?” I can’t keep my disbelief out of my voice.

  His voice is cold now, almost robotic. “What? You want me to tell you about the tweakers who tried to move a meth lab into another neighborhood and it became family business to remove them? How I grabbed two and tortured them to get all the info on who funded it, where it was going and who benefited before killing them? Or about the fucking MC that keeps trying to move in, and I’ve killed three of their men so far over the last few years?”

  I’m shaking my head, wishing he would stop, but he keeps going.

  “You need to know about the damn Bratva bastards me and my men took out for bringing in a shipping container filled with women? Do you need me to tell you about the gamblers I’ve had to work over, breaking bones, making sure they needed stitches when I was done with them when they didn’t pay me on time? I’m not saying death doesn’t happen. I’m just saying it doesn’t happen every day. None of those men deserved to keep breathing for the shit they did, for the lives they were willing to ruin.”

  Cold, so very cold. And why do I agree with him? Does it make it okay that those men wer
e animals? I sigh as I close my eyes, yes and no and then yes all over again. The nuns, they knew who Johnny was. They knew the money coming into the school and church to pay for me was bloody. It didn’t bother them in the least. Mother Superior and I spoke once. She told me angels were not the kind, benevolent things of lore. They were warriors, they did god’s work good and bad, they slayed the demons man could not and sometimes they slayed men. Dominic is no angel; he’s a man who just looks like a fallen angel.

  8

  Regina

  I come awake at the sound of a car door slamming next to me. What the hell? He’s tied me to the steering wheel of the car. How the hell did he do this? Had I really slept this hard? I can’t believe it, I’m a light sleeper, usually waking at the smallest noises. Yet it’s—holy shit—it’s almost seven in the morning and we’re outside the Holiday Inn. He had to have stopped for gas at least once. I slept through not just him stopping for gas, but him tying me up? He is good.

  It’s his damn necktie again and it’s too damn hard to get out of. When I escape I’m taking it with me and I’m burning it. Okay, forget trying to undo it. Maybe try and just get into the driver’s seat and—the car door opens. He lowers his head and takes in the sight of me on the center console.

  He sighs. “You are seriously getting on my nerves right now.”

  Sullen, I get back into the passenger seat, but it’s not easy. He drives a short distance to the long row of rooms. There is a main tower of the hotel, then there is a smaller box of hotel rooms that look out onto the parking lot. He parks at the end of the row. I don’t bother moving as he gets out of the car. Opening the back seat, he grabs a small leather duffle.

  Back on my side, he opens the door. “Can you please get my bag?”

  He shakes his head as he tugs me out of the car. His hand tight around my arm sends a current through me that has me wide awake. The door opens smoothly with the slide of a keycard and a beep. It’s a large room with two queen beds, a small seating area with a table and two chairs. There is a long low dresser with a flat-screen television on the wall in front of the beds.

  I try to tug free of him, hating the way my stomach flips at the sight of the beds. At what his touch is doing to me.

  His hand tightens. “You need to learn something. I touch you when I want. You belong to me. I make the rules.”

  “You said you wouldn’t force me.” I spit out the words, afraid of the dark intent in his endless blue eyes.

  Those sexy, full lips tip up at the edge. “There is force, then there is force.”

  Why the hell does that one word make me wet when I don’t even know what it means? He lowers his head, his free hand goes around my neck. Oh god, it should scare me the way his big hand wraps around my neck so easily, only it doesn’t. I’m ashamed at the way my nipples harden, at the beehive that hand has kicked over in my tummy. I can’t move as his tongue traces my lips. He inhales my breath, my lungs stutter to a painful halt as those bees freak the fuck out, buzzing wildly inside me. Slowly the hand around my neck tightens to the point of pain. It doesn’t scare me, it causes a rush of wet heat to flood the apex of my thighs.

  “Interesting, my princess likes force. Hmm...it makes your pussy wet, doesn’t it, Regina? I can hardly wait to sink deep into you and stay there for hours, hell, maybe even days. Before I’m done I’ll know every inch of your gorgeous body. My cock will be seared into your hot, tight pussy.”

  Then he does the unthinkable: he lets me go. I fall against him, and the bastard laughs as he swings me up into his arms, then seconds later drops me on the bed.

  I hate him so fucking much. Squeezing my eyes shut, I roll onto my side away from him. A shiver runs up my spine as I hear him undressing. Then the bed dips. Fear sends me rolling away from him.

  “Don’t you dare touch me,” I screech. Ouch, fuck. I’m on the floor, my hip hurts. Heat hits me, and I look up to find Dominic staring down at me, his hands on his hips. Oh god, I swear his eyes are heavy as a touch. It jerks my own gaze down to find my dress is undone. It doesn’t really wrap around me. It’s secured at my hip, or it was until my fall has it open, showing the boring tan cotton bra and black cotton panties.

  An eyebrow goes up as he studies me. I go bright red in agony. He has to be thinking of all the ways I don’t measure up to the beautiful women he’s been with in the past. There is no doubt in my mind they wore matching silk or lace bra and panty sets designed to entice. I’m too fat, I’m too tall, I’m—oh god.

  I take him in, standing there wearing only silk black boxers. Holy crap, he is stunning. My mouth waters as the insane desire to lick every inch of him hits me hard, there between my legs. Beautiful caramel skin is stretched taut over sinew and muscle. Black hair swirls over his chest and his stomach—no. “You’ve been shot.”

  He nods, his eyes don’t move from my breasts. Oh god, they are tingling and tight beneath his gaze. “If you wanted to show me your beautiful body, you just had to say it. All I wanted was to get some sleep. Now you’ve woken the beast, princess, and it’s time to pay for it.”

  I shake my head, I try to move but I’m still in the cuffs and it isn’t easy. His foot comes down on the back of the dress on the floor, keeping me in place.

  “It would help me believe you don’t want me to touch you if I couldn’t clearly make out the wet spot on the front of your panties spreading down lower and lower. The scent of your pussy has been fucking with my head all damn night. The moment I laid eyes on you, I wanted to back you up against the wall and fuck you where you stood.” His tongue snakes out over his lips.

  “That’s it, princess.” He purrs like a lazy lion. “you know your eyes turn to honey when your pussy weeps for me? Hmm...I love pussy even though I’m not sure if you deserve my tongue yet. I still need to pay you back for that smack you gave me.”

  Shame hits me all over again as I remember slapping him.

  “Yes, princess, if you were a man you’d be dead right now. Then again, it was probably the only thing that kept me from fucking you then and there. Pull up your bra, princess, let me see your tits.” His foot comes between my knees, forcing them wider apart.

  Even as I’m shaking my head, shame fills me at how badly I want to do as he says. “I’ll scream,” I warn him.

  “Regina.” His tongue caresses every letter, twisting it into something incredibly erotic, flashing those dimples that are so unfair. “You bet your ass you’ll scream. I’ll make you scream until your throat is raw and there is no air in your lungs. Until you wonder if you can stand another second more. Then, princess, I’ll do it all over again, and you’ll love every fucking minute.”

  Oh god, I don’t doubt him at all, and I’m biting down painfully on my lip to keep from begging him to do everything he promises.

  “Your pussy will run like a river, down my face, to your ass, all over my cock as I fuck your tight little pussy. It will hurt the first time, no way around it, I’m big and your pussy is brand new. I promise even with the pain you’ll come long and hard and then beg for more.”

  I blush so red I feel faint as his hands go around my arms, lifting me up off the floor. I’m on the edge of the bed, Dominic only inches from me. Oh god, I shiver as my mouth waters. Why is it doing that? Another hot flood soaks my panties even more. I’m frozen in fear even as heat is consuming every inch of my body.

  My eyes rise, meeting Dominic’s, what I see has me trembling.

  “Touch me, princess.”

  The words are a growl, they have me squeezing my legs at the way I’m tingling, there. I blink and his boxers have been pushed down. A whimper escapes me at the sight of him. Big, too big, thick, hard. I move on the bed, trying desperately to soothe the ache between my thighs. A small pearl of clear liquid forms at the blunt mushroom head. Fascinated, I stare as another builds.

  “Touch me, Regina, taste me.” The words are guttural from low in his chest.

  Swaying toward him, I catch myself and shake my head. His hand goes into my ha
ir, stopping me. I gasp as the tip of him is pressed against my lips. The second my mouth opens Dominic presses into my mouth. I’m a slut, a freak, I’m shaking my head even as I open my mouth wider to take him deeper. Lightning fast, Dominic pushes into my mouth.

  “Careful, princess, suck lightly, there you go, so fucking good. That’s it, such a soft hungry tongue you have, princess, oh fuck.” The word comes out of him as if he’s choking on it. His hand tightens in my hair. The sound of him gasping, moaning my name spurs me on to learn every inch of him with my tongue.

  I give in to need and touch him. He’s so big one hand won’t go all the way around him, I need both hands. Soft, so silky soft, yet hard, thick, hot, exquisite. How odd I find this as beautiful as the rest of him. That sane part of me is screaming to stop, this is dirty, bad, wrong only I can’t, any more than I could stop breathing.

  “Both hands, up then down, yes. I need your mouth, princess. Suck deeper, you can take it.”

  His hand in my hair is moving me on him. I can barely keep up with him, yet I can’t let him go either. I welcome this; feeling him tremble sends a surge of pride through me. I’m doing this. I’m making him feel so good. With a groan he comes, filling my mouth until I choke. It shakes me from the stupor I’m in...what have I done? Horror comes over me, I try to get away from Dominic, except his hand is still tight in my hair as his other hand wipes away what I couldn’t swallow on my cheek.

  “That was disgusting. I don’t want you to touch me—”

  Ouch. He yanks on my hair, sending me back to look at him. “What a little liar you are. So disgusting you swallowed every fucking drop you could. So disgusting you hummed with pleasure seconds before I came.”