Page 59 of Mafia King
“You can see into his heart like a surgeon?”
“I can see into yours. You want to feel good about the way things are.”
“Maybe.” Santino’s voice warms up and drops an octave lower. He looks away from me. The admission hurts him. “If you’d known I was coming for you, what would you have done?”
I lean back, letting the water slosh around me.
What would I have done if Zia and Zio had told me? I would have been incredulous, but I would have had no choice but to believe it. If I’d been informed at an early enough age, I might have gotten used to the idea. But they couldn’t have told me until after Rosetta died. By that time, the news would have been shocking.
“I would have run away,” I say.
“You would have been found. By me or someone else. I tried to convince your zio to be brutally honest with you, but their choice was the right one. Telling you would have made it all worse for you.”
“I’m starting to think they’re all cowards.”
“They love you, Violetta,” Santino rumbles. “And there are times love has to lie to survive.”
With the bath bubbles flattened and the water cooled, I’m falling into the trap of thinking of myself as a commodity to be bought, sold, and traded, not a full human making my own choices.
“You had all the information you needed,” I sulk.
“Knowing everything didn’t give me any choice.”
“Wait.” I straighten, launching myself into a crouch as if I’m ready to pounce on the moment. “You’re talking about it as if you’re the one who was sold into a situation you wouldn’t have wanted. Right? Doesn’t it feel shitty?”
“This is how things have always been, and how they will always be. It is our way.”
“But it can be different.” I cling to his hand, relieved to know that for one minute, he can imagine what it’s like to have your life stolen. I can use that knowledge. “It has to be different.I’mdifferent!”
“You are different,Forzetta,” Santino says softly, touching the parts of my face as if memorizing them. “You are different because you are special. You are different because I want you. You are different because I love you.”
He loves me.
It’s crazy, because of the way we started and who he is. But it’s also completely sane, because the way we started is the only way I could have broken down who I wanted to be and found out who I really am.
I collapse into his embrace, because he’s broken the dam, and I know I love him too.
Santino helps me out of the tub and dries me off. He leads me to the bedroom in a flurry of kisses and caresses.
I let him lay me down. I let him kiss me. I let his hands cover my body. I let him roll me on top of him and his waiting cock, and I straddle him, on top, in control. And I know, right then, that either I will follow him to the ends of the earth, or I will pull him to the limits of his world… but wherever we go, we go together.
16
VIOLETTA
My body is sore where Santino used it, and in the half-sleep of morning, I’m aware of the pleasures of every ache. Yet my dream is focused on my hand. Though the stuck stiffness of the bandage is there, it’s Santino—standing in front of me, in a light blue jacket and white shirt with his palms up and elbows bent slightly—who’s bleeding from both palms.
Apply pressure.
Remove rings and bracelets that may compress nerves.
Clean.
Disinfect.
Ice.
Elevate.
