Page 87 of The Beast Who Broke Me
“Maybe you should drive,” I suggest while we wait in the foyer. “It could be dangerous for Vito.”
“Vito can look after himself. Besides, I need my hands free,” he tells me briefly.
I have a flash of those hands pushing me down on a saggy sofa. Ripping my shirt open. Rubbing olive oil over my asshole?—
I close my eyes. When I open them, Dami is watching me with an unreadable expression.
“What?” I say.
“Nothing. Car’s here. Let’s go.”
In the car, I try to think about Tiberius, but my thoughts keep evaporating like smoke. Every bump in the road sends a reminder through my body—not pain, not quite, but a deep tenderness that pulls my attention away from strategy and back to last night. Back to the sofa. Back to the oil.
And it gives me a secret thrill every time I feel that ache.
Vito turns onto a lush, beautiful block in Gramercy Park, driving further down toward the garden that gives this area its name. Since Tiberius lives in this area, he’ll be one of the fortunate few to have a key to that private park. That privilege doesn’t suggest someone scraping together cash for a few cut-rate assassins.
“When was the last time you saw this cousin of yours?” Damiano asks.
“I’ve never met him in person. Even at the auction, he was in the shadows. But I’ve seen him in photos, years ago. And I do know a few things about him. They say he’s very charming, very…” I search for the right word. “Continental. I don’t know why he’s in New York again. He grew up all over the place. Italy. Spain. Monaco. New York for a while. But after Carmine Vicario’s death, he disappeared.”
“Here we are,” is all Damiano replies. We’ve pulled up in front of a gorgeous townhouse overlooking the park. It’s red brick with black shutters and a fanlight over the front door. The park that gives the area its name sits opposite, enclosed by an iron fence, and through the bare tree branches I can make out a statue standing in its center.
I’m about to meet a blood relative. One who might want me dead just as much as the rest of this city seems to. But I can’t stop the desperate hope that he’ll prove friend rather than foe.
Because I’ve ruined any chance I might have had to be a part of Dami’s household of odds and ends.
“When we get in there, you stick close to me,” Damiano says, putting a hand on the back of my neck as though to make sure I’m paying attention to him. “If this guy was trying to buy you, maybe he’s been trying to kill you, too.”
“It does seem to be a common thread among those who want to own me,” I agree.
His fingers comb through the hairs at the nape of my neck. “And this time, if I tell you to run, you run in theoppositedirection. You hear me?”
“I can’t promise anything, Dami. It was instinct.”
He shakes his head. “We’ll work on that. And I’m out first,” he reminds me. “Always.” With that, he gets out of the car. Whatever he sees must meet with his approval, because he comes around to open the door for me and pulls me out. His hand stays on my arm as we head up the small walkway to the front door of the townhouse, and his head swivels this way and that. Nothing is going to get past him this time.
But before we even reach the door, it opens.
“Please, come in,” says a silver-haired man with a rich Italian accent.
It’s the proxy bidder from the Obelisk auction. Tiberius’s right-hand man. I recognize him at once. And I can tell by the set of his shoulders, by the way he takes in not only me but Damianobehind me, that he’s a dangerous man, just like Dami. The kind who has done violence and would do it again without hesitation.
If Tiberius Vicario wanted to send someone after me, he wouldn’t need to hire amateurs. He could just send this guy.
“My name is—” I begin, but he holds up a hand.
“We know who you are, Don Clemenza. We have been waiting for you.”
I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing—and ditto for his use of the as-yet-unearned title. But with a glance at Dami over my shoulder, I step across the threshold into the townhouse.
“I am Marcello,” the man says. “Please, follow me.”
He leads us deeper into the house, and from the first hallway I can tell this is not what I expected. It’s not old-money traditional like the Park Avenue townhouse. No heavy drapes, no dark wood paneling, no oil portraits of dead men glowering from gilded frames. But it’s not the gaudy excess of the newly rich, either.
It’salive. That’s the word that comes to me. Everywhere I look, there’s color and personality. The art on the walls is modern, chosen with a confident and eclectic eye—I spot what might be a Basquiat beside a Turkish textile that has no business working next to it, but does. Walking past a sitting room, the bookshelves are full, and the books have been read. Spines cracked, pages marked, a few lying open on the coffee table.
This home suggests someone curious, restless, and possessed of the kind of taste that cannot be bought, only cultivated.
