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Later, after I’ve left Cecelia and Micah and before I head to the restaurant for the evening service, I knock on the door of the grand residence nearby, give the maid my name and request to speak to Lombardi junior. He arrives at the door a couple of minutes later, puffed up like a peacock, probably still proud of his attempt to influence Cece against me.
“What are you doing here, Luciano?” he snarls as soon as he sees me. “Get off my property.”
I regard him coolly, suspecting his domineering demand is masking his damaged ego.
“It’s your father’s property, not yours, and I’ll leave as soon as I’ve said what I came here to say.”
“Well, what you’ve got to say doesn’t count for much, especially not with Dante DeMarco.” He huffs out a laugh, clearly thinking he’s got the upper hand in this situation. I’m going to enjoy wiping the smile off his face.
I look at him through narrowed eyes. “Your plan to turn Cecelia against me has failed. She, Micah, and I are a family. You should be grateful that I’m not a violent man anymore because if I was, you would not have lived to tell the tale after what you did to her,” I hiss at him. “Whatever you say, whatever you try, whatever you do, she will never leave me for you. Go ahead and tell her father whatever you want. I know I’m a good man and he’ll know it too soon enough. Unlike you. Maybe I’ll tell your father what his son likes to get up to in his free time—attempted rape in real life and rape role plays in brothels. You’re fucking sick, Lombardi.”
He blanches but recovers quickly, puts his mask back in place. “I already found dirt on you. I can find more. You might have won this battle, but you won’t win the war,” he says, as cocky and delusional as ever as I walk away.
“Do your worst, Lombardi,” I throw back over my shoulder, confident that he won’t find anything he can use against me. Nothing now will ever tear Cecelia and I apart.
Sixteen
RAPHAEL
“Do your worst, Lombardi,” he said. He threw down the challenge and I’m going to rise to it. It’s taken a few days, another brief meeting with Bruno and a hell of a lot more cash that I’ve been forced to acquire from the not-so-secret bank of my father, but I’ve got the name of someone who might prove a useful soldier—literally—in my war with Luciano. Sonny Ricci.
Seeing as Cecelia doesn’t seem too bothered about having a murderous gangster for a boyfriend, I’ve been forced to consider things from a different angle. If I can’t convince her that he’s bad news or tell Dante about his criminal status now that Luciano’s threatened to tell my own father about my extra-curricular activities, I need to either present myself as an even more appealing prospect or get rid of him completely. Ideally both. And I think the plan I’ve been formulating these past few days will do just that. It needs to because I’m running out of time and options. The longer Luciano is in Cece and Micah’s lives, the less chance there is of us ever resuming any kind of relationship, and this plan will ensure that Cece is indebted to me forever. And then, when we do eventually marry, my father might actually forgive me for all my fuck-ups and I’ll finally get to live at the DeMarco’s with Cece, and away from him and my mother for good. Everyone’s a winner.
I’ve asked Sonny to meet me in a rundown establishment downtown; the most innocuous one I know of. Despite the fact it’s early evening and prime drinking time, it’s dead and I sit at the other side of the bar with my beer, facing the entrance. The bored barman is scrolling his phone. Time ticks by and the only people that appear are a group of four kids who set up the pool table as soon as they’ve got their drinks—which the barman doesn’t ID them for—and an ugly, skinny guy flanked by two giggling, scantily dressed women. One of them looks like a cheaper, dirtier, downgraded version of Cece. They make their way to the farthest corner booth and settle themselves in, then the skinny guy joins them with a round of beers. One of the girls —not the Cece replica—and the guy immediately starts to make out, pawing at her bare thigh and grabbing her ass roughly, not caring who’s watching.
The Cece replica turns away from the amateur porno, clearly used to it happening, sipping her drink and gazing vacantly around the almost empty bar, and after a moment our eyes meet. She smiles at me over the top of her glass, and I raise my bottle towards her in a cheers gesture. I’m in the mood for some fun, so I chance my luck by throwing a glance over towards the bathroom door and raising my eyebrows, grinning cheekily. She looks over too, quizzically, but then the penny drops. She appears to consider it for a moment then shrugs then nods, as though I’m offering to buy her a beer. Without a word to her friend or the skinny guy who are still all over each other, the girl takes another mouthful of her drink then sashays over to the bathroom. She looks back at me with a wink before disappearing inside.
I finish the remains of my own beer and slide off my stool. Have I got time before Sonny gets here? He’s already late. Fuck it, I think. I’ve been waiting for him; he can wait a few minutes for me. My dick’s hard now and I need to release some of this pent-up stress.
As soon as I push open the bathroom door, the Cece replica launches herself at me and I push her back into the small, smelly cubicle as we kiss messily. She’s all tongue. She slams down the toilet lid and sits on it as I yank open the button and fly on my jeans. Thank fuck she doesn’t want to chat first. As soon as my cock springs out she takes it in her mouth, sucking and licking noisily while looking up at me, presumably in what she imagines to be a sexy way. It’s not, and seeing her badly made-up face this close, not looking anything like Cece after all, is just gonna deflate me. I pull out of her mouth, and she looks crestfallen, like she’s failed a test. I pull her up and she goes to kiss me again, but I twist her around so she’s facing away from me. She presses her ass against me, rubbing her hands up and down my thighs in a sort of seductive stripper-type move before lifting up her strappy top and pulling my hands onto her small bare tits, encouraging me to caress them.
“Do you like that, baby?” she asks me, her voice husky.
Behind her, I screw up my face in response and push her forward so she’s bending over the toilet seat. Her tight skirt is so short it’s practically a belt and I only have to push it up an inch to get immediate access to everything. I yank her thong down with one hand and lick my other before wiping it along her shaved pussy. Surprisingly, she’s already wet. Wow, the dirty skank must be more turned on by me than I thought.
I thrust into her, right to the hilt as she repositions her hands on the stained cistern, steadying herself on her high heels. She throws her long dark greasy hair back over her shoulder and arches her body. That’s better. If I squint, it looks a bit like Cece’s hair. I grab a fistful of it in my hand and pull her head back as I pound her quickly, imagining she’s Cece and we’re back in that hotel room. The girl moans and gasps unconvincingly as I fuck her, but I don’t care if she’s enjoying it or not, she’s just a placeholder until I get the real thing. I come quickly and quietly, screwing my eyes shut, savoring the dregs of my fantasy.
As soon as I’ve spurted my load, I zip myself up and leave the bathroom without another word, resuming my place at the bar and ordering another beer. The girl emerges a couple of minutes later and looks over at me with a coy smile. I look through her as if we’ve never met and she slides back into the booth and out of my eyeline.
Nearly an hour after our arranged time, a lone man walks in and orders himself a Peroni with a whiskey chaser. He’s a walking military stereotype: muscled, clean shaven, blonde buzz cut, the outline of his dog tags visible under his starched white t-shirt. I sidle up to him while he’s taking a long glug from his bottle of beer.
“Sonny?” I ask, leaning against the bar and offering him my hand to shake. “Raph.”
He looks me up and down, aggression and suspicion radiating from him. Ignoring my outstretched hand, he drinks more of his beer. It’s already half gone.
“What the fuck is this about?” he asks.
Straight to the point. I like that. “Your brother, Anthony,” I tell him.
He tries to disguise his surprise, but I see it. I wonder what else he thought this meeting was about. I was deliberately vague when I called him, just told him we had a common interest and suggested it’d be worth his while to hear me out. If I’m honest, I didn’t expect him to turn up. I know he’s currently based in Sicily but I’ve no idea where.
He sniffs and eyeballs me. “What about him?”
I glance around, making sure the pool table kids and the corner booth group aren’t within earshot or paying any attention to us. They aren’t. My playmate from earlier has disappeared. There’s no sign of the barman either but I still lower my voice.
“He was shot, wasn’t he? Sorry for your loss.”
Sonny scrunches up his face. His eyelashes and eyebrows are so fair they’re practically invisible. The complete opposite to Anthony Ricci. I wonder if they’re half-brothers rather than full, especially as the man I’m looking at only looks like he’s in his early thirties. There’s a big age gap between them. Or there was—it’s five years less now.
