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The sight alone drops my urgency by a couple degrees and floods my thoughts with distraction.
My hands twitch into fists, jaw tightening as I look her up and down.
How the fuck am I going to get anything done now?
12
Contessa
It takes two days before I can sit down with a straight face. I would pay that price over and over for what it resulted in—a taste of freedom. For the next few days, I am Salvatore’s dedicated lap dog. That is where he likes to keep me in casual company, with just Marcel or some of his lieutenants, stretched on his lap while they talk over my head about the business.
I’m not surprised to learn that so much of Salvatore’s time is taken up by purely administrative work. My father’s life was the same way. At a glance, you could mistake him for a CEO, whose business happens to include illegal products and morally questionable services.
Salvatore has in-person lunches with sweaty, pale city councilmen and speaks furious and fluent Spanish with mysterious muffled voices on the phone. The meetings, I don’t get to sit in on, in his lap or otherwise.
Salvatore’s men struggle to stop side-eyeing me and talking in riddles in my presence, no matter how many times he loses his patience with them. With the lieutenants, I understand. They don’t trust me. I wouldn’t trust me, either. Marcel, I think, has a different concern. Every secret I put in my pocket is one more reason that I cannot ever be allowed to fall back into my father’s hands. If that scenario were to ever occur, the smartest thing to do—the only thing to do, would be to have me killed.
I think he pities me.
But Salvatore’s days aren’t all work and no play. He starts the morning with a workout in a home gym, and once I get some proper clothes for it, I’m going to join him in the routine. He spends some of his spare time with his niece and nephew. Little Nate seems obsessed with Salvatore, underfoot whenever he can be. When they have lunch with us, I catch the boy trying to mimic Salvatore motion for motion. He eats when Salvatore eats, drinks when he drinks, and follows along in his huge footsteps wherever he goes.
After, I comment about how good Salvatore is with him, but the man shuts down and shrugs me off. He says Nate needs a father figure, but that he’s looking in the wrong place. His tone alone puts the topic to bed, and I’m not brave enough to press the subject again.
When not managing his empire, Salvatore is also making arrangements for our wedding.
In mannish fashion, he’s mostly concerned himself with all the practicalities. A guest list, security, budgeting. That it’s my wedding is still settling in, and even when listening to Salvatore talk about it in front of me, it still feels as though it’s happening to someone else.
Since I have nothing but free time even while at his side, he gives me the task of helping with the aesthetics. My days are spent considering color schemes and wedding dresses, while trying to swallow down the bitter-sweet disappointment that comes with planning a loveless wedding, where I will be surrounded by people I don’t know and a groom I didn’t ask for. I get no joy out of it.
When I prove myself to be a good, obedient girl, even the rules when Salvatore is gone aren’t quite so strict. With Marcel’s distant supervision, Ava and I are allowed a day outside in the fresh air. The season is still too cool for sunning by the pool. Ava takes me through the soon-to-flower gardens. I can’t look at them without my face getting hot, which I refuse to explain.
Luckily, Ava doesn’t seem to notice.
I didn’t have time to appreciate the gardens the first time I was in them, and there’s still a newness to it as we wander through together. There’s a play set in the back yard I didn’t notice before, an elaborate wooden structure, coated in dew and old spiderwebs. Ava says no children have lived in the house since Vera moved out. When she assures me that Salvatore will have it cleaned up for my children, I don’t know what to say.
We visit the kennels in the far back corner of the property. Ava is terrified of even ‘normal’ dogs, and she stays behind Marcel as the family’s huge Mastiffs rush to the chain link fence, slamming into it so hard, even I take a shocked step back. They bay and sniff at me curiously, the commotion attracting the attention of the guard posted on the closest tower. A familiar face appears, leaning over the railing—Lance. I haven’t seen him since the night club, not even at the family dinner.
Marcel waves away the attention. Lance and I lock eyes briefly, then immediately look away as though we do not know each other.
Ava suggests a picnic under one of the trees. The sun isn’t bright enough to need shade, but it is strategically far from the dogs. Marcel takes our orders to the windows of the kitchen overlooking the backyard.
We settle in together, and I stretch out against the cool ground, the grass under my hands.
Ava sits on the blanket. In case of spiders.
Constantly, I find myself looking for Salvatore—thinking we will turn a corner and he’ll be there, even though I know he won’t. Now that I’m used to having him around, I can’t shake him. He lingers with me like a shadow, trailing me even in my thoughts. I find myself wondering what he’s doing right now. Is he standing in an office or an alleyway? Is he having lunch, like I am? Is he washing blood off his hands in a shadowy back room?
When I am not with him, it’s like sobering up after a night of drinking without sleep. The world slowly shifts back to the way it should be, when I am not so clouded by him, though I can never pinpoint the exact moment he is completely out of my system.
That he’s dedicated his right hand to keeping track of me is another mystery. Marcel comes back to us, and though he sits far enough away that Ava and I can speak privately, he’s not too far for conversation.
“I’m surprised Salvatore can afford to lose you for a whole afternoon, Marcel.”
“He wouldn’t trust anyone else to do this,” Marcel says. “And I appreciate a half-day off. I don’t exactly have office hours or weekends. My job only stops when the world does. Or when I do.”
“Which is never,” Ava says, with a roll of her eyes. “Marcel doesn’t even take sick days.”
“If I’m so sick that I can’t be useful, you may as well find a place out here to bury me.”
