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I’ve tried to keep her out of the mafia life and away from any danger, but now that she’s found herself in the midst of it anyway, I don’t see the point in continuing to try and push her away. I don’t want to keep pushing her away. I let out a slow and satiated groan as she rocks her hips against me and brings me even deeper within her. I feel her nails dig into my back as her muscles clench against my swollen cock, buried deep inside her pleasurable chasm. This changes everything now—she is mine and I will not let her go again. Maybe she’s actually safer with me and under all the protection I can offer her. I’m more powerful now than I once was, as is my entireborgata. I can keep her safe.
Making love to Dahlia is a delirium of sensory overload. Every push and pull that slides me into and out of her body comes close to tipping me over the edge. But I hold onto myself until I feel her body erupt into a fit of orgasmic tremors, and then finally allow myself to explode with such great force that my muscles spasm. This is the best sex I’ve ever had, and I know it’s because of her.
Afterward, I lay beside her, and Dahlia rests her face on my chest. She looks at me with all the curious innocence of our high school days. Her dark hair falls against my bare chest in cascades thick enough to be waves of a stormy sea, and I’m speechless at how taken I am with this woman. This is the kind of woman men fight wars for, that countries fall for, and that a mafiacapowill risk his life and fortune to protect. For a moment, I wait for her to speak. It looks like she wants to say something, and I prepare myself to hear the three words of affection I have at the tip of my tongue too. But instead, she simply kisses me once more on the mouth before laying her head back down against me. I hold Dahlia in my arms and eventually we both drift to sleep.
In the morning, things are awkward. There is complete silence as I make us both coffee and let the nanny inside to watch Lucas for the day. Not a word is exchanged between us on the ride to the theatre, either. It’s as if neither of us really know what to do about what happened last night, or what to do about what’s happening between us now. Dahlia isn’t usually the quiet type, so her silence is unusual. But neither am I, yet I know if I open my mouth without knowing how she’s feeling, I run the risk of saying something crass that might ruin everything. So, I wait.
The day’s rehearsals continue on without incident. I don’t know how he managed to do it, but somehow Hector’s been able to convince the entire cast and staff to remain silent about what happened yesterday. Since no one was gravely wounded, he’s trying to brush the whole thing under the rug. Normally I wouldn’t agree, but this time I do, because I want to be subtle and careful in my own sleuthing into what happened. I don’t know who’s on which side of things, and I want to keep watch over everyone and everything. The less frenzied attention the incident is given, the easier it’ll be for me to keep a close and quiet eye on things.
For the next few days, things seem to have calmed down on Broadway, and there are no major incidents at the theatre. Hector and I go on with business as usual, even though there’s a palpable distrust and resentment lingering between us that neither of us give voice to. While Lucas stays back at my apartment with the nanny, and I watch rehearsals continue with an increasingly enthralled focus on Dahlia, the play inches closer to upcoming performances. But as I sit in the empty theatre, reading ahead in the script during an evening rehearsal that’s running long, I find there are new scenes showing up that hadn’t been in the original script I’d previously approved, ones that almost directly implicate actual mafia bosses and expose real channels of illegal operations that are occurring in the city in real time. Things Hector shouldn’t even know about to begin with.
“What the hell is going on?” I whisper to myself as I stand up with the script in my hand and go to find Hector. “You need to remove these,” I say as I shove the script against his chest with my finger pointing directly at the scenes in question. “How do you even know about this stuff?”
I stare at him with intentional accusation, waiting for him to falter and crack and tell me who’s writing this stuff into the play and how they came to know about things they shouldn’t. But once again, Hector plays dumb. “It’s all just fiction, Vari,” he says as he laughs it off. He acts as if I’m being obsessively reactionary, but I know myself better than that. I have a good gut and it’s rarely mistaken when it comes to my intuition. “Look, if you’re that put off by it and feel like it’s a problem, I’ll be happy to rewrite those scenes, okay?”
“It’s most definitely a problem,” I say with agitation. “You could start a turf war with scenes like that, or bring the cops down oncaposwho will seek retribution by putting a bullet in your head. Personally, I don’t care whether you risk yourself or not, but I don’t want to see anything happen to any of these innocent actors just because you’re willing to endanger their lives onstage.”
Hector doesn’t say anything else. He nods and waves his hand dismissively as he takes the script and goes to rewrite the scenes I pointed out. But my distrust of him is growing by the minute.
It gets even more substantial when I hear from my brother, Petre, later that evening. “There’s nothing out of the ordinary going on with Brutus and his men,” he reports after having trailed Brutus Serrano’sborgatalike I asked. “If he’s up to anything, I sure can’t see it.” As soon as we finish our conversation, I start to wonder if maybe the critics from our meeting were right. Is it possible that this production is being used as a front for something else? And if so, what could it be and who could be behind it? Hector doesn’t exactly seem like a powerful mastermind—more like a rogue outcast with questionable interests. But something isn’t feeling right about all of this, and I’m starting to regret my decision not to pull the plug on the show to begin with.
I waver over whether or not I should shut it down now, before anything else gets too out of hand. But as I watch Dahlia throughout rehearsals during the rest of the week leading up to opening night, and I see the pure, unadulterated happiness that fills her every time she steps onto that stage, I just can’t bear to steal away her starring role. I’ll stay on high alert all the way up through the final performance, and then it’ll all be done so I can get back to my regular business. Maybe then, Dahlia and I can revisit the possibility of being together.
When opening night finally arrives, the entire theatre is abuzz with excitement. The crime syndicate in the city is also abuzz, but more so with a skeptical trepidation over what this play will blow open. I’m keeping my eye on all of it. Before the show starts, I go backstage with a single red rose to hand to Dahlia for good luck. But before I can even reach her dressing room, there’s a problem—a big problem. The first scream is shrill enough to echo all the way throughout the backstage. Thankfully, the audience is still talking with enough current of chatter that no one in the theatre will have heard it.
“What’s going on?” I ask one of the other actresses as she runs past me with a look of horror on her face.
“He’s dead!” she says, looking like she’s going to be sick. “Oh my God, he’s dead!”
I push past her to see what the hell she is talking about, and to find Dahlia and make sure she’s safe, just as the curtain is getting ready to go up onstage. I find Dahlia standing outside the dressing room of the male lead, with one hand on the doorway and the other clasped to her heart. She turns and looks at me with an anguished expression as I step up beside her to look inside and see for myself what’s going on.
There, inside the dressing room, her male counterpart, the star of the show, is lying dead on the floor, with his eyes wide open and froth spilling from the corners of his mouth. Next to him is an open and emptied pill bottle with a label on it I recognize instantly, because it’s my brand of illegal designer drugs. The very same drugs I distribute throughout the underground operations of the city.
I’m familiar enough with what death looks like to know that he’s overdosed; but I’m also familiar enough with myborgata’s drugs to know that what he’s taken is a modified form of Ecstasy, and that he would need to take bottles and bottles of the stuff to legitimately overdose. Plus, even if he did manage to swallow so many pills, an MDMA overdose certainly wouldn’t produce foaming at the mouth. As Dahlia and the rest of the cast react in a grief-stricken shock and panic toward the apparent suicidal death of their friend, I am struck by something else. I’m being framed.
One of the actors has already called 911 and the police have started to arrive. The backstage area transforms into a crime scene as the ushers dismiss the audience. Luckily a few officers who are on my payroll and in charge of collecting evidence know what they need to do about the incriminating designer drug packaging. After the police are satisfied with their interviews and the cast is dismissed, Dahlia and I make our way to my car. She is still visibly shaken and quiet the whole ride back. Since my mind is racing with scenarios to uncover who might be framing me, we drive in silence back to the apartment.
It’s not until I dismiss the nanny and tuck Lucas into bed that I find Dahlia waiting for me in my bedroom, ready to question me. “I recognized those drugs, Vari. They’re the same ones I found in your study. Are you responsible for his death?” she says with tears welling up in her eyes. “Is his blood on your hands?”
I start in with my defense and I can tell that she wants to believe me, but there’s still doubt in her eyes. “I promise you that I’ll find out who did this and make them pay, Dahlia, but you have to believe me when I say I’m being framed.”
“If this is your way of shutting down the performance, you have to tell me the truth!” she challenges one last time.
“Dahlia, if I wanted the show shut down, it would be. I don’t have to resort to murdering actors and then incriminating myself. It makes no sense!” I feel myself begin to seethe. I know it’s not really Dahlia I’m mad at, so I made a quick exit and head to the kitchen to pour myself a drink before I say something I’ll regret.
An hour later Dahlia comes out and sits down next to me. “I believe you,” she confides, leaning her head on my shoulder and offering me an olive branch.
I wrap my arm around her and pull her close. We sit silently embracing for a long time as if the longer we held onto one another, the more the trust would return between us. At last, she leans over and kisses me as if to say “I trust you.”
11
DAHLIA
“Well, this is justgreat,” Hector says the next day, after the police finish with their final crime scene investigation and we’ve gathered again in the theatre. He shows little emotion, if any, to the fact that one of his actors has just died. “This is all my show needs. This is a complete disaster!”
“Someone’s dead,” I hiss at him, angered at his callousness.
“Yes, thank you for your insight,” he snarks back at me. “But regardless, the show must go on. If we don’t perform tonight, we don’t perform at all.”
