Page 2 of The Beast Who Bought Me
I shove forward, hard, and he lets me go. “Lets” being the operative word—I feel the exact moment he decided to release me, which pisses me off more than anything.
He steps back with his hands raised, that dangerous smile still in place.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” I demand.
He reaches up to adjust his jacket collar. Tattoos pepper his hands, disappearing into his sleeves. But one symbol in particular, just below the webbing of his thumb, makes my stomach drop. The stylized “G” that marks high-ranking members of the Giuliano Crime Family.
The Giulianos are former allies turned hyenas, gorging onmyFamily’s corpse. Opportunists who forgot generations of friendship the second my grandfather’s body hit the floor.
“You sure you’re alright, little Clemenza?” he asks.
He knows who I am. Alarm bells start ringing—and I hear it now, the enjoyment in his voice. He’s watching my reactions, relishing them. But then his tone shifts. “You’ve got blood on you.”
I look down. There’s blood on my hands, my sweater, soaked into the navy fabric where I couldn’t see it in the dark.
“I’m fine,” I spit out, backing away. “I’m fine.” I hold his gaze until the last possible second, and then I turn and run.
“Run all you want,” he calls after me. “I like a chase.”
I run faster.
And I absolutely do not think about the way my body responded to his hands on me. It was adrenaline. It was fear.
It was nothing.
The hotel I end up in is a shithole. The guy at the desk doesn’t look up from his phone when I check in. Cash only, no questions asked.
My kind of place, these days.
I turn on the TV the second I get into the room for noise cover, and to give the illusion I’m awake and alert. Then I lock myself in the bathroom to survey the damage.
He was right, that giant Giuliano. There’s blood all over me. My hands, my sweater, dried rust-brown under my fingernails. Clemenza blood.
Not mine. I found my cousin, Louie, in a puddle of it three hours ago, shot in the back of the head.
Louie was the heir apparent. He’d texted me to meet, told me he’d figured out who was picking us off. I was desperate enough to go, even though there was no love lost between Louie and me. I found his corpse and the killer still lurking, waiting around formydumb ass to show up.
I tripped over Louie when I turned to run, stumbled through a sticky pool of blood on my way to the door. I was still fast enough to get away with my life. And now I’m the only direct descendant left. The very last grandson of Don Louis Clemenza.
The last of my kind.
I wash my hands until the water runs clear. Rinse out my mouth to quell the nausea. Scrub at my sweater in the sink until theworst of the stains fade, and then hang it over the crooked chrome towel bar to dry.
In the dirty mirror, I take in the face that’s always thinner than I expect these days, the smudges under my eyes that make them look darker than their usual amber, the greasy cast darkening the roots of my hair, tarnishing the blond to bronze. It’s longer than I’ve ever worn it, months since my last cut.
I look like shit, but at least I’m still standing. Still alive.
Still a Clemenza.
The eyes of that cold, implacable stranger in the mirror travel down to the marks on my arms.They’renew. Where—ah. The Giuliano. His fingers closed on me so hard…
I rub my bicep as the memory alone makes it twinge. Traditionally, the Giulianos don’t come to this part of town without an invitation. It’s not their turf. And they wouldn’t come solo, either, unless he was sent alone for a reason.
My attention is snagged by a familiar name coming from the TV in the other room.
…been identified as 26-year-old Louis John Clemenza the third, rumored heir to the Clemenza Crime Family who terrorized New York through much of the eighties, though their influence waned with the…
My cousin Louie’s face comes up on the screen in multiple photos from his social media accounts, followed by his mug shot. Our grandfather and my cousin’s namesake, Lou Clemenza, had been furious about that mug shot.Clemenzas don’t get arrested!Of course, that was before Nonno Lou got put away himself for a few months on some trumped-up charge.
