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I left shortly after breakfast to meet the manager of several of our whorehouses. The only thing Father did anymore was play golf with politicians or test the whores.
We were a bit early in the Foxy and took a seat in two plush armchairs. One of the whores came over with our drinks. She put them down on the low table, giving us a prime view of her ass, then she straightened and touched my shoulder with a flirtatious hand.
“Did I give you permission to touch me?” My eyes flashed up to hers and she quickly dropped her hand before she rushed back to the bar. I wouldn’t break the promise I’d given to Aria, not even in that small way.
“What’s crawled up your ass?” Matteo asked after he’d taken a sip from his Negroni.
“Do you think I’m growing soft?”
I leaned back and watched through narrowed eyes as my fucking brother almost pissed himself from laughing.
“Gi---give me a moment,” Matteo bit out.
“Know what?” I muttered. “Maybe I should beat some sense into you to test my theory.”
Matteo grinned, eyes teary. “Oh, Luca. This was good.” He shook his head with another fucking chuckle. “You’re many things, but soft? Come on, what’s wrong with you?”
I considered not saying anything. Making myself vulnerable in front of others, even my brother, wasn’t something I ever did.
Matteo’s smile slipped off. “It’s because of Aria?”
Fuck, I trusted the asshole, so fuck it all. “I still haven’t fucked her, and I promised her never to touch another woman either. What does that make me?”
Matteo shrugged. “A good husband by normal standards, I suppose.”
“As if we give a fuck about normal standards. Those aren’t the rules we play by.”
“You will be Capo as soon as our father dies. You’ll make the rules soon enough.”
“Some traditions can’t be shaken, and our father is still Capo. If he knew that I haven’t fucked my wife yet…” I trailed off.
“He’d probably do it himself,” Matteo said. And I lost it.
“He touches a fucking hair on her body, and I’ll end him, that’s a fucking promise,” I growled.
Matteo nodded. “One word from you, and I’m in on it. You know that, right?”
“I know,” I said quietly. Matteo and I had been entertaining thoughts of how to kill our father for years. “But the Famiglia won’t accept a Capo who killed his father.”
Matteo sighed. “Why can’t the old sadist just die?”
“Maybe Nina finds the courage to slip poison in his food at some point. How much longer can she or anyone bear the humiliation and beatings he gives her?”
“Maybe she’ll kill herself instead of him,” Matteo muttered. Not voicing the “like our mother” that we were both thinking. “And you’d have to kill her if she killed our father.”
“She’d run off to Europe, and I won’t have time to hunt down a woman,” I said. If Nina ended our father, I definitely wouldn’t punish her for it. I hated her but, compared to my father, she was a victim.
“You know,” Matteo said in a low voice, “I knew you wouldn’t force Aria.”
I regarded him, not liking the heavy note underplaying his words.
“You still hear our mother’s begging in your nightmares?” he continued in a whisper.
My stomach twisted. “Too often.”
Matteo took out his knife, his eyes focusing on the gleaming blade as he turned it slowly. It was his favorite. The knife our mother had used to cut her wrists with. “A woman shouldn’t have to beg her husband not to rape, beat and humiliate her. I’m a cruel fucker, but even I know that.”
I nodded. I remembered only too well how our mother had looked in the mornings after those nights. Bruised, with a look in her eyes like a beaten dog. The idea that Aria could ever look like that made me want to kill everyone around me. Aria would never look like that. She’d never suffer violence through mine or anyone else’s hands. I’d cut my fucking fingers off before I’d hit her, and I’d chop my dick into pieces before I’d ever rape my wife. She would be safe with me, in bed and anywhere else.
“You’ve got your Aria expression on again.”
I frowned. “What the hell is that supposed to be?”
Matteo smirked. “It’s a mix of protectively murderous and dreamily reverent.”
I pushed into a standing position. “Fuck you, Matteo.”
His smile widened. “I have enough women to fuck, but thank you.”
I gave him the finger and turned on my heel, heading for the bathroom to take a piss.A few minutes before seven, we pulled up in front of the Vitiello townhouse. The drive had passed in silence; neither Matteo nor I felt like chatting before a dinner with our father and Nina, and Aria hadn’t tried to make conversation either.
Nina opened the door before we could even ring the bell. Seeing her so eager to have us over wasn’t a good sign. My hand on Aria’s hip tightened, and she gave me a curious look, but then she greeted my stepmother with an awkward hug. Aria’s eyes lingered on Nina’s face, which was covered in a thick layer of makeup, but it didn’t hide her swollen lip despite the dark lipstick she wore. Aria’s expression remained perfectly polite. She’d probably seen more than enough bruises in her life.
