Complete Corruption (Corruption #1-3) (73 page)

“Antonio,” she said.

“Valentina,” he said.

“You won’t call me Tina, all of a sudden?”

“
Come stai, Tina?
”

“I learned a little English.”

“
Fantastico. Mi dai il cappotto?
”

“Don’t make your girlfriend feel left out,” she crooned.

“Can I take your coat?”

“I have it,” Daniel interjected.

Was I wrong to find the whole thing delicious? All of the emotional upheaval of the last few days had inured me to the threat of his wife. I’d already surrendered to her. I’d already accepted what her existence meant. I was already crushed under the weight of it. Her presence in the same room as us couldn’t hurt me.

Daniel slipped off her coat, and I felt not an ounce of jealousy for that either. I doubted Valentina Spinelli would let Daniel get one over on her.

“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” Valentina asked, one eyebrow raised. She didn’t move but comported herself perfectly. She reminded me of me.

So that was it.

That had been the initial attraction. She and I couldn’t have been more physically opposite, but Antonio had seen both deeper than that and less deep. Because her comportment wasn’t courteous. She attacked by staying still and asking a question designed to make her husband feel ill-mannered and to draw attention to discomfort.

I didn’t like it, but I understood it.

“My name is Theresa,” I said, holding out my hand.

She waited a half a beat then shook gently. “I am Valentina. Valentina Spinelli.”

“Nice to meet you.”

She was far away, taking her own counsel. She had no intention of giving an inch. I’d seen that look in press agents and lobbyists who knew they had the upper hand and had no intention of budging.

“Zia!” Antonio called. “Let’s get something to eat out here!”

Zia came out and, seeing Valentina, said a greeting in Italian and kissed her on both cheeks, twice. They chattered in Italian for a minute while Daniel fidgeted. Poor guy.

“
Si, del vin rosso per favore,
” Valentina said.

“No,” Antonio cut in as if putting his foot down for the benefit of a defiant child. “No wine.”

I thought he would get his way, as strange as it was.

“You are still bossy,” Valentina said in choppy but quick English before addressing Zia. “A chianti.”

“No! And that is the final word.”

Zia looked from Valentina to Antonio, not knowing what to do. I didn’t know what his objection was about. Did he find it unbecoming? Was it too early in the day? I’d had a drink or two in front of him, and it had never warranted this level of protest.

“I could use a glass myself,” I said.

I went to the sideboard. It was lined in clean white cloth napkins. The grey tray was loaded with silverware, and the empty water pitchers were stacked neatly. Above, wine glasses hung. I snapped up five, wedging the stems between my fingers.

I put the glasses on the counter then flipped up the end of the bar and walked behind it. The floor was coated in a black rubber honeycomb mesh half an inch high. My feet bounced when I walked. I’d never been behind a bar before, and everything seemed neat and compartmentalized. I located the fridge immediately.

I stared at it. I was nuts. I couldn’t diffuse the tension in the room with a little wine. I was an outsider.

To hell with it. I opened the fridge door and resolved to choose a damned bottle and do what I was supposed to do. Serve wine and celebrate the continued and uninterrupted life of Antonio Spinelli.

As if I’d called him forth with my mind, his scent filled me. The knowledge that he was close melted the skin right off me.

“You’ll never make a good Italian wife unless you learn to obey,” he said in my ear.

He said it in good humor, trying to relieve his own part of the tension, but it was a stupid, hurtful, wicked thing to say, especially with a fuckable growl that acted as a whisk for my arousal and anger. I didn’t know whether to spread my legs or spit in his eye.

I put a random bottle on the bar with a smack, trying to look casual. As if I didn’t want to kill him for saying that stupid thing. Though I wanted to eviscerate Antonio with a steak knife right then, I didn’t want to undermine him. I didn’t want any of them to think he’d shown poor judgment in being with me. I didn’t want them to think I was a liability or that his wife was more refined and mature. I wanted to leave, walk out the front door as if it just happened to be what I was doing at the moment. No more, no less.

I didn’t know where I was going. I just had to get out of that cramped restaurant. The December air hit me full in the face, and I wished for a jacket. But more than that, when I got outside, I immediately calculated the width of the street, the movement of the cars, the foot traffic, the rooftops. I was completely exposed. I’d never felt that while walking across the street before. But every window was a gun perch, and every car was a moving crime scene.

I wasn’t concerned for myself but the fact that I was drawing Antonio out into the open.

Antonio came out of the restaurant, dinging the bell, and our eyes met across the seven-foot expanse of the street. Miles between us, and close enough to kiss. He could take one leap and be on me in the most pleasing agony.

“Get out of the street,” he said, pointing into the restaurant. “Anyone can take a shot at you here.”

I tore my eyes from his and went to the covered driveway that led to the parking lot behind the restaurant. Jesus. I was backing myself into a corner. I wondered if I could hop a fence, then I felt him behind me, and before I even got to the back lot, his hand was on my neck.

Time stopped. I didn’t know how much longer I could do this.

antonio

he back of her neck, bare except for the stray hair that got out of the rubber band, was warm under my fingers. When I touched her there, getting my finger under the gold chain that held the St. Christopher medal, she stopped, like an animal with an instinctive reaction not to obey but to listen.

“I want you,” I whispered in her ear. “Only you.”

“I know,” she said. “But am I what you need?”

The scent of the food in the restaurant and the idea that any man knows what he needs triggered the memory that had haunted me for years.

My mother never made risotto, but Valentina had been raised in the north, so she’d brought the dish with her. It had to be stirred constantly. If the spatula stopped moving, the grains could get hard in places. For a consistent texture, not one grain could be still for one second. Nor could the temperature fluctuate. Hot broth went in to increase the moisture without cooling the pan. If she put in cold broth, the rice grains would crack into mush. It was a balancing act she did without even thinking.

She had no family to speak of, so she made mine into hers. My mother and aunt loved her, and she loved them. We’d lived in a small house in the outskirts of Napoli. Two bedrooms, a barely finished kitchen, and a backyard big enough to farm in. The winters were mild, and in summer, we buried our trash twice a day in a hole by the back fence because of the humidity. An apple tree took root where we put the garbage, so we moved our digging spot.

She had been making dinner when I saw her last. I was leaving for the night in an hour, and I hoped for a fuck before I went. But she was making risotto for dinner, and I couldn’t stop the process, nor could I skip eating entirely for the sake of the pressure on my dick. She was cooking, and that was all there was to it.

I couldn’t tell her where I was going. That was a given. When I was a mechanic, then a law student, then a lawyer, she didn’t have to ask where I was going, because I wasn’t going anywhere. Work-school-work-study-work.

I’d told her I would take care of the men who had hurt my sister, then I was done.
Stupidi
. She and I both. I hadn’t cleared my desk of all of them while she lived, and there was no “done.” Ever.

“I have to go,” I said. “I’m sorry. I have to miss supper.”

“Antonio!” She indicated the risotto as if it were its own reason. And it was. It couldn’t be stored or refrigerated.

“I’m sorry, it’s business.”

She slapped the spoon on the edge of the pot and put it down. Watched it bubble for a second before starting to stir again. She’d never ruin a risotto just because she was angry at me.

“Business. You do mental Olympics to make excuses for yourself,” she said, twirling the arm that wasn’t stirring the rice. Her nails were trimmed but unpolished. Her hair was thrown up in a quick pile on her head that I wanted to take down and pull from behind.

But no. There was no hair pulling, and there was no “from behind.” That had been agreed, but I could still imagine her on her hands and knees. My mind was my own.

“Oh, you think?” I snapped up a spoon. “Maybe I’ll leave tomorrow and show you Olympian stamina tonight.”

“Stop with your filth.” I wedged a little risotto onto the edge of the spoon, and she swatted me away. “I’m serious. Do not dismiss me.”

She was always serious. Her mother said it was because she had a heart condition. Even a misunderstanding could start the pains. I’d never seen any such thing until the night of our wedding, when I’d pulled her hair and she had palpitations.

I popped the bite of risotto into my mouth. It was delicious. Perfect. I remembered that bite of risotto for years after that day. The layers of flavor coated my mouth no matter how much bile I walked around Los Angeles with.

I’d dropped the spoon into the ceramic sink and clasped her at the rib cage. My hands went nearly all the way around her. I could ask her to keep stirring while I fucked her. That would be fun. But not only was that position off-limits, the kitchen was as well.

“Tell me about my excuses then.”

“I won’t tell a man what to do,” she lied, and I smiled. She was so bossy. “But, Antonio, I cannot do this anymore. I cannot watch you go away overnight and not know if you’re coming home.”

“There’s no safer job in Napoli.” I brushed loose strands of hair from her neck. “Consigliere is a protected position. If anything happened to me, every capo would make sure I was avenged.”

She slapped the spoon on the edge of the pot. “And you’d be in hell.” She turned her back to the stove, letting the risotto sit. “I can’t live like this anymore. What you do is wrong. It’s against God. I won’t be a part of it anymore. I won’t raise children like this.”

I took the wooden spoon and reached around her waist to stir the rice. “You don’t like the nice things I buy you?”

“I don’t care about them.”

She must have forgotten how unhappy she had been when we had nothing. She nagged me to change jobs, work harder, go back to fixing cars.

“And the children? When they come, you’re going to want things for them? We can buy a bigger house with what we’ve saved. Public lawyers don’t make shit.”

“I mean it, Antonio. Stop now. Today. Stay home tonight.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“What do I get if I stay home tonight?”

She stared at me with her almond eyes, lips pressed together, and all the filthiest things she might let me do went through my mind.

“You get to go to confession and have your sins removed.”

“And then?” I was such a hopeful bastard.

She put her hands on my chest. “You go to heaven.”

“In the bed? Or maybe against this counter?”

She nudged me away and turned back around. “The kitchen isn’t for that.” She snapped the spoon away, grumbling, “Dirty boy.”

I was suddenly very, very angry. She didn’t have to promise me anything. She didn’t have to give me any part of her body she didn’t want to. But she pushed and pushed, and I was expected to do as she asked for the love of the same shit.

I put my hand on the back of her head and curled my fingers, grabbing a handful of bunched up hair. I yanked her head back. I was playing with fire, but I didn’t know how to stop myself.

“Ow! Stop!”

I spoke right into her ear. I wanted my words to be so tight between us, the air didn’t even know what I said. “I’ll tell you when I’ll quit this job. When I come home and you’ve got your palms on the counter and your skirt around your waist. When I spread your sweet cheeks apart, and you say, ‘Yes, Antonio baby, fuck my ass.’ And I stick a finger in your cunt and you’re wet.”

“Stop it,” she said, crying.

I pulled her head back harder. I was so fucking mad, I didn’t care if her arrhythmia went crazy and I spent the night apologizing in a hospital. I was on some kind of track and I couldn’t get off. “When I take your juice to wet your asshole, and when it’s wet, my cock goes one, two, three, right inside. And you sit the fuck still and take it.” I let her hair go with a jerk. “That’s when I’ll stop doing what puts food on the table.”

I left before I did something stupid. I had a panino from the street cart for dinner, and I never saw her in Italy again.

theresa

is hand rested on the back of my neck with just enough pressure to let me know he was there. I didn’t need the reminder. I knew he was present. Knew he loved me. I’d just needed a moment to breathe.