Page 54 of Mafia Queen
Have they moved Marco? Was he alive when they did it? Or is he still tied to a chair?
A short guy with a leathered face brings a mop and bucket inside the little building.
I excuse myself and run upstairs to the room where I slept. It’s just as I left it, but the bathroom door is open, and the shower’s going. The black T-shirt with the stretched neck is pooled on the floor, and smoke and the smell of burning tobacco mixes with the shower’s steam.
I strip off my clothes and open the shower curtain. Santino has his elbows on the wall and his head dropped between them while the hot water pounds his shoulders. When he looks up, the cigarette between his lips gets spotted with droplets.
“Santino,” I say, reacting to the exhaustion in his eyes. “What happened?”
“There was no point fixing his knee. That’s what.”
I get into the scalding shower with him.
“He had it coming,” I say, running my fingers in the same direction as the wet lines of hair down his chest.
“Listen to you. Judge and jury.”
“Did he tell you where they are?”
“What if he did?”
“We’re going to go there and fuck them up, right?”
“I don’t know.” He takes one last drag on the wet cigarette before it’s too soaked to smoke, then tosses it into the toilet.
“You don’t… What?”
“It could be a trap to get me to leave you alone here. Then what?”
“This is a fucking compound.”
“I’m aware.”
“Okay. So you can take me with you.”
He scoffs, hands roaming over my body. “Which is more dangerous? Leaving you here so they can take you again? Or bringing you into the mouth of the volcano?”
“How many times have you left me home and nothing happened? Or the times you went out with me and we were fine? It doesn’t matter which you choose. You just have to kill them…or I will.”
He puts his arms on either side of my head, backing me against the wall. “Do you have any idea what this life does to a person? First, you lose control of the people you love. Then, you lose control of yourself, and this is happening, right now. You were so pure when I took you. You were clean and innocent. Now, you want a trail of bodies behind you.”
“If I changed, it’s because of you.”
“You think I don’t know that?” he snarls in my face. “You’re filthy. Ruined.”
Oh, fuck him and his dumb chauvinist ideas. I have no time for it.
I push him away. “If you don’t want me anymore—”
He pushes me back against the wall, and I’m flooded with desire.
“Are you blind?” He caresses my breast, sucks in a breath when he pinches the nipple. “I want you more than ever. Can’t you see that? I’ve destroyed you, and I should be sorry. I should get on my knees and beg for God’s forgiveness, but why? I’ll only do it again.”
This poor man is going to wreck himself with guilt. He should be proud of how strong I’ve become.
“I know I wasn’t dragged into marriage by an altar boy.”
“You’re wrong.” He tilts his head. “I was an altar boy.”
