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“Yes, sir,” I say the words, and it's enough for the throbbing between my legs to turn into an ache.
I rise up on tiptoe and touch my lips to Vittorio's before fitting them together and moistening his bottom with my tongue. His free hand infiltrates my hair, and he claims my mouth in a kiss that forces me to do what I love most about facing his will: surrender.
CHAPTER 47
________
Vittorio Cataneo
I close my eyes and squeeze my hands into fists, containing the instinct of violence controlling my upset pulse. I don't need a mirror to know that the veins on my neck and forehead feel like they're about to explode because I feel them with every insane contraction.
The door to the office at the training center opens, and a Matteo as impassive as ever walks through, defying my current state of mind. I lunge at him immediately, pinning his body against the wall and cutting off his air supply by pressing my forearm against his neck and lifting him off his feet.
The consigliere stares at me, keeping his arms loose at his sides, not daring to try to react. His eyes dart from my face to the newspapers spread out on the glass top of the table behind us and the headlines emblazoned across it. The man doesn't even blink at them.
This morning, Italy was abuzz with photos of Gabriella and I on the boat trip she asked me for. But if the photographs of our previous outings, which I had been releasing to the press, were strategically planned to provoke Coppeline, the ones that are scattered everywhere have no other intention than undisguised exposure.
Images of me practically fucking Gabriella's half-naked body on the deck of the yacht appear in every publication, printed or online, with today's date. These photos shouldn't even exist, much less be spread all over damn Italy.
Yesterday was a mistake, I never had any doubts otherwise. Leaving the property with Gabriella has only one purpose, and our departure yesterday was never intended to serve it. When I asked thebambina, days ago, where she would like to go, it was a reflex. The kind of sequence of words that only the Brazilian woman is capable of pulling out of my mouth and that I got used to delivering to her without a fight.
Her response was surprising enough that I wanted to humor her. As I looked at the still healing cut on her temple, I wanted to please her. The pleasures awakened by doing this, however, caught me completely off guard.
It started with the smile that appeared on Gabriella's lips the moment she received a yes. Then there was that completely surrendered expression on her face that I find myself becoming more and more determined to feed every day. Then there was the day itself. Mybambinasmiled from the moment she woke up until the second she fell asleep, in my arms, back in the Cantina, in my bed.
I fed off every laugh, sigh, and orgasm she delivered to me on that boat like a starving man, because the more I have of Gabriella, the more I seem to need. When I said I wanted to consume every bit of her, not even I was aware of how true those words were.
I mapped out her expressions of discovery, delight, and happiness, trying to memorize the exact lines of her face that moved with every minute change in her expression, and I discovered that if I'm not willing to share the view of her body,I'm even less inclined to share any of these other things. Waking up and seeing them plastered across every damn Italian headline definitely put me way beyond my worst mood.
“I want answers.” The words are said in a low tone of voice and at a slow cadence. The portrait of control I don't feel. “A very limited number of people knew where I was yesterday,Consigliere. And a ridiculously small number of people knew how to get there. So, would you like to tell me how, exactly, I was photographed and how these photos ended up on the cover of every media outlet in Italy without you knowing or lifting a finger to stop it?”
Matteo's completely red face betrays his almost inability to breathe, but I don't relax my grip on his throat. Not until he gives the answer I want to hear.
“There was a mistake,” he admits, and I would laugh if there was any disposition left in me for that.
“I said I wanted answers,Consigliere. Things I already know don't fall into this category.”
“There was an undercover journalist on the yacht.” Despite his almost inaudible voice, Matteo manages to say the entire sentence. “He was controlling a long-distance drone.”
“And how,Consigliere, did a journalist infiltrate my yacht?” I ask and increase the pressure against his neck. Matteo's eyes begin to become as red as the rest of his face, veins forming in thin lines on the white globes.
“Coppeline,” he replies with much more air than sound, but upon reading the words on his lips, I remove my arm from his throat and his body falls to the floor.
Matteo coughs, but I don't waste time paying attention to the seconds it takes him to recover. I turn my back to him whilemy mind puts the pieces together. I walk to the glass windows, covered by blinds, and stop, resting one hand under my chin and the other on my waist.
Massimo Coppeline thinks he can force my hand by rubbing in thefamiglia's face the type of involvement I'm having with Gabriella. The old man was associated with Sagrada long enough to know what pressure from photos like the ones that were leaked would do inside the organization.
The total lack of modesty in exposing his supposed granddaughter practically naked on the cover of every media outlet he could confirms my suspicions that Massimo doesn't want a granddaughter for anything other than to use her as a bargaining chip in some negotiation. I look at my table again, and hate feeds my conscience like an inexhaustible source of fuel.
There is so much to consider about Massimo's move, so many possible developments, so many different aspects of his intentions, and yet all I can think about is Gabriella's body available to any eager pair of eyes and Massimo's impertinence in thinking he had the right to expose what was mine.
“I want every copy with one of these photos burned, Matteo. I want every website, be it blog, gossip channel or newspaper, taken down within two hours or completely deleted from the internet without a trace. I want every magazine, pamphlet and sheet of paper that was once a channel for these images to be nothing more than ashes. And I want tomorrow, Matteo, that these photos are nothing more than clandestine whispers on street corners where the name of La Santa is not known.”
“Don...” He begins with a hoarse voice, and I turn to theconsigliere. Despite the still reddish tone of the skin and the eyesfull of veins, the impeccable posture of the body dressed in a three-piece suit does not waver.
“I don't want to hear it,” I interrupt him with the warning. “You’ve failed. Protecting the image of Sagrada is your responsibility,Consigliere, and you have failed. I don't want names or means of how this happened, but I do want its ashes as part of the pile I hope will be left behind. Was I clear?”
“Yes, Don. What about Coppeline?”
