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I hug my arms tighter around myself, ignoring the shivers dancing through me. After ten more minutes of quiet driving, he parks around the back of a restaurant. He climbs from the car and walks around to my side. When he opens it, a silly, big grin spreads across my face.
“What?” he says, smirking down at me.
“You… opening my door. It’s like a real date.”
He leans forward and gently presses his lips against mine. It’s like he’s doing it softly so he doesn’t lose control. I can feel the hunger in him trying to burst out. It triggers something deep in me, the lust that somehow smooths everything else away.
He puts his hand on the small of my back and leads me to the back entrance. Flipping on a light, he leads me through a cool kitchen into a large restaurant area. It looks somehow eerie with nobody in here.
“I’m a silent partner here,” he tells me, turning to me with an unreadable expression like he’s hiding something.
I reach up and touch his face. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” he growls.
“Your whole stone-face thing. It’s like you can lock yourself down, like our apartment.”
He sighs. “I need to explain something to you.”
He takes my hand and leads me to a nearby table. As he pulls my chair out, I imagine this place bustling and loud, but I prefer it to be like this. Just us. Just the dark look in his eyes.
“This place has a hidden basement,” he says. “There’s a cell in there. Sometimes, the Family gets into scuffles with people: bikers, gangsters, plain old criminals. Sometimes, it’s easier to settle this nonviolently, but often, Mia, we learn things about these people just in case we need to use them against them. We learn evil, evil things.”
Dante clenches his hand into a fist on the table. When he trembles, the table judders around. I rest my hand on him, feeling his knuckles bulge against me.
“Let the law handle it, the Family says, but I can’t always let that happen. Sometimes, a person deserves to pay for what they did.” His voice trembles. “Let’s say a man breaks into a woman’s home, kills her pet in front of her, then kills her. Should that scumbag be allowed out withtenyears?”
I say nothing, sensing he needs to vent this.
“So I take the job for myself. I make arrangements. I handle them, and I get rid of them. The Family doesn’t know. Nobody does… just you. The owner thinks the downstairs is just for the secret freezer. I tell him we’ve got a cheap deal on meat. It’s a good vendor, and I just pay the difference. It’s a good excuse. It lets me do my business.”
“Business,” I repeat, my mouth suddenly dry.
Dante looks at me bleakly. “I get it. You’re terrified now.”
I sit up and look at him with as much confidence as I can come up with now. “I’m not scared,” I tell him. “I know you. You’re a good person.”
He laughs, shaking his head. “When I handle these bastards, how do you think I feel? Do you think it’s just business?”
“They deserve it,” I tell him.
“Not according to the law. A man served his time; we should let him go, butIdecide to take them. Hold them. Force them to admit what they did and explain the parts they enjoyed. Then end their lives andsmileas I do it, evenlaugh.”
He turns away, pulling his hand away. I stand up and walk around the table. When I push into his lap, he doesn’t try to get away from me or get me away, but he doesn’t hold me either.
“Why do you laugh?” I whisper, moving my hands through his hair.
“Because I’m sick,” he says darkly.
“No, think. Give me the real answer. Go deeper than that.” I keep moving my hands, stroking his scalp as if I can get to his thoughts that way. We’re so messed up, but all this twistedness is somehow making me want him more.
“Because I think of what they did. Like with Ritchie, I imagine him threatening you, a child. I imagine how he felt afterward. Did it make him feel tough, or did it not even register with him? To him, that sort of stuff was normal. I think of that, and then I realize I’m giving them what they deserve.”
He sighs, slowly stroking his hand over my lower back, holding me in place. “You should be scared, Mia. You should run.”
“Have you ever hurt anybody who didn’t deserve it?”
“Is that my choice to make?”
