Dark Soul Vol. 3 (7 page)

But that understanding, even the stupid mistake of fumbling under the covers a few times while pretending to be asleep, didn’t have to lead to anything else now. It wasn’t inevitable. He could stop it now. He should.

He took hold of Silvio’s wrist and turned in his chair, then stood.

Silvio didn’t move away, so they stood chest to naked chest, so close that Franco more felt than saw Silvio’s erection tent his training slacks.

The black eyes held a challenge, but above al , so much affection that it clenched Franco’s heart.

He kept that hand trapped in his grip and placed his free hand against Silvio’s cheek, then kissed him on the lips, briefly, because he was way too self-conscious, and because doing more seemed wrong.

Silvio opened up, though, flicking his tongue over Franco’s lips.

“Nobody can stop us, Franco. I know you want to.”

I know you want
me
.

Yet still he’d walked away from Silvio. He was the fucking king of quitters. He’d always just walked away like he wasn’t interested. Like his father was in the room.

I’ll kill you before you turn into a faggot.

“He’s not here,” Silvio whispered. “He won’t interrupt us.”

“Silvio,
listen
to yourself.” Franco pushed away, but damn, it was hard. And what kind of man was he that he was seriously considering having sex with his brother? When he barely managed to do things with strangers. He just didn’t like to be touched by people he didn’t know, didn’t like, and those he did like were the worst of al . “Don’t touch me. Leave it.”
Leave it or I’m gone.

Silvio studied his face, then pushed back against the kitchen counter, soft grey training slacks doing absolutely nothing to hide that he was turned on. Morning wood, possibly, but that was an excuse and he knew it. He looked sexy like hell, willing, ready, and Franco couldn’t imagine a single gay man who wouldn’t jump his bones. Men and women both, he assumed, but he could really only speak from one side.

Mind over fucking matter.

Fucking
matter? You’re a comedian, Franco.

He tried to summon outrage, self-righteousness, but all he found was a sense of nausea, like he was drifting out at sea without any land in sight. And whichever way he might turn would only yield more water, more wasteland. Hard to make any decision if it might be exactly the wrong one.

“I love you, but not like this.” There, he’d said it. The l-word, the biggest threat of them al . “Don’t force me there.”

Silvio shook his head, but Franco could see him shut down, close up and push him away. It hurt, but it was for the best. Even if there was nobody stopping them, it was just wrong. Silvio would never understand that, but Franco wasn’t the older brother for nothing.

Sometimes that meant protecting Silvio from himself.

“Well, you have time off,” Franco said, forcing his voice to stay level. “Want to show me the city?”

Silvio nodded. “We’ll take the bike.”

The shopping spree started innocently enough, with a leap of faith—trusting Silvio on his motorcycle, even though he wore no protective clothes. Silvio would never harm him deliberately, and Franco found he could relax, sitting tight behind Silvio, feeling every movement translate into both their bodies. Intimate, yes, but not threatening. Far less so than his own brother kissing him.

The first stop was a place that sold those leather bike suits with Kevlar plates. Franco was measured, and then Silvio flashed plastic and paid for gloves and a leather suit and boots and a helmet. He didn’t listen when Franco told him that wouldn’t be necessary—
I’ll
go, I’ll leave again, Silvio
—and half an hour later, Franco was wearing a suit very similar to Silvio’s—black with jagged white highlights.

Side by side, helmets in hand, they looked even more like brothers, Franco thought, staring at them in the mirror. He was thinner than Silvio, two inches taller, looking not unlike a jackal with his long limbs and sharp angles and the lines under his cheekbones, more pronounced due to the acne scars at his temples and on his cheeks.

His hair was shorter, his eyes different, more green than black, but compared to him, Silvio was really striking, and the staff in the shop fawned over him not just because he wielded the power of American Express.

The leather racing suits with their Kevlar plating felt somehow raw and masculine, and Silvio certainly wore his exceedingly well. He also had no qualms about driving to a clothing shop next.

“Stefano invited you to dinner. You’ll wear something nice,” he said.

More measuring, because after all the years in the Legion, wearing a uniform or workout clothes, Franco had no idea what size he was—or what it translated to in American sizes. When he reemerged from the dressing room, he had to go looking for Silvio and the shop assistant, who were in a more protected area of the shop. Silvio was pressing up against the other guy—an attractive young black man— kissing him like he was trying to steal his chewing gum.

Franco was about to pretend he hadn’t seen them when the black guy suddenly startled aware and slapped Silvio’s shoulders a few times.

Silvio disengaged, licked over the guy’s lips and turned around, but held the shop assistant in place. “Want a taste of that?”

Franco saw the black guy’s eyes widen, but he didn’t protest.

And God, but he was gorgeous, aroused and panting. What was he thinking, if anything?

“I’ll wait outside,” Franco said and dumped the clothes he wanted on the counter for Silvio to pick up.

He sat outside near the motorcycle, feeling the autumn sun on his face, watching passersby walk and chatter and the traffic, calming his nerves, trying not to think of Silvio and that other man, what they were doing and how. Or why Silvio was trying so hard to drive him into a corner with all this. Trying to tie him down with clothes, like he’d stay around, and trying to push him away with sex. It didn’t make much sense.

Silvio came out of the shop and sat down on the bench beside Franco. “What was that?”

“I should be asking you that.”

Silvio grinned. “You didn’t like him?”

“Silvio . . .” Franco shook his head. “There’s . . . not many people I like.”

“You’re not in a monogamous relationship, are you?”

“No. Hell, no.” Franco rubbed his face. “I don’t . . .”
I don’t
do
relationships. They’re messy and scary and would require trust. And I
guess my trust bone got broken too often.
Admitting that to Silvio felt pathetic, though, so he didn’t. “I envy you that.”

“How easy I score? Yeah, it’s a talent.” Silvio put his hand on Franco’s leather-clad thigh and squeezed.

Franco couldn’t help but see the disapproval in the face of a man rushing past. It didn’t matter that the man in question was ugly, fat, and old; all he saw was that sneer. He’d never be able to just live this like Silvio did.

“Is Marino your lover?”

Silvio laughed. “We’re working on it. It’s . . . a work in progress. I hope he will, yeah.”

“Falchi?”

“Yes, for eight years.”

“Then what do you want with me? Am I like that?” He nodded toward the shop.

“No. We could be something real, Franco.” Silvio’s lips quirked into a sad little smile. “If you wanted.”

Something real. God help me.
Again the responsibility. “If I don’t show you how to do it, what will you do then?”

“I’ll do it anyway.” Silvio leaned back against the bench. “I’ll still kill them al . I’ll find a way.”

No doubt about that. Silvio would do it—and might make a mistake, or have to try again. It would be safer for him if he had help and a quick brush-up of his skills. Also, if they were fighting a war, sniping seemed like the cleanest way to take out a high-value target.

A lot less messy than a shootout. If he couldn’t stop Silvio, and who could, really? He could at least make sure Silvio would walk away from the kill. Didn’t he owe him at least that much, after letting him walk away?

“Let’s go home.”

As if they ever could.

“How are you finding the city?”

It’s full of fat people and shops I’ve never seen before, and whenever
I think “meat,” I think flies and Djibouti and carcasses butchered on
cardboard out in the street. Too many white faces here, too.

“Fast.” Franco held a glass in his hand, the red wine earthy and deep, different from the wine they served Legionnaires. Probably a hell of a lot more expensive, given the furnishings in the room and Marino’s casual elegance.

Despite having been battered, Marino was fiendishly attractive— wholesome and masculine, like all the darkness snapping at Silvio’s and Franco’s own heels didn’t exist. A “normal” person, despite the money and power and the fact he was very clearly a wiseguy. Easy to understand what Silvio saw in him—not innocence, exactly, but a fresh, untarnished strength.

“Whereabouts in Europe are you from?”

Too many possible answers. “I started in Marseilles, France.

That’s where I was when I was released.” Marino’s eyes narrowed in speculation, and Franco hurried to add: “Not prison.”

“No, you’re too tanned for that.” Marino smiled a disarming, entirely pleasant smile that would normally have triggered some kind of defense mechanism. Bullshit smileyness and happiness wasn’t worth shit, but Marino somehow slipped through his defenses.

“Military,” Franco added gruffly and turned away. Still felt Marino’s pale eyes on him, and stood to walk over to the windows looking out over the garden, glass still in hand, sipping the wine.

“French Foreign Legion,” Silvio assisted. “He’s a shooter.”

Franco pressed his lips together. Only a matter of time that Silvio told his boss—told Marino that Franco could be useful to a wiseguy.

Cosa Nostra. He didn’t want to get involved. “I was stationed in Djibouti with the 13th Demi for a while.”

“That explains the tan,” Marino said, not missing a beat over the mention of the dwarf state at the Horn of Africa. “And what are your plans now?”

Franco pulled his shoulders up, rolled them, and then his neck, concentrating on the complex structure of muscles and tendons and bones. Short of the brain, no part of the human body seemed as needlessly complex as the neck. If he concentrated on his body—the unstoppable rhythm of breath and pulse and blink and the subtle shift of all the muscles he needed for those small activities, maybe the rat trapped inside his skull might calm the fuck down and do nothing. Fall asleep. Die. How good would it be to be just creature.

He dropped his shoulders. “I will eventually have to decide whether I’ll reenlist or get a proper job.”

Come on, do it. Offer me a job as a killer.

“Can’t be easy,” Marino said.

Franco blinked and turned, facing that oddest of all things: A mafia boss not pushing his advantage. A man’s man who didn’t dominate, didn’t brag, simply offered . . . empathy? He glanced to Silvio, who watched them both with a hungry expression. “I’m getting used to it.” Choices.
The idea to speak my mind.
To speak at al .

“Well, feel free to hang around, Franco. Silvio’s friends and family are my, well, friends.” Marino poured Silvio more wine, then lifted the bottle to offer Franco a top-up. Slowly, Franco closed the distance and extended his wineglass, half-expecting a trap.

But nothing. No attempt to touch him or drive him into a corner.

Marino placed two fingers under the bottom of the wineglass to steady it for the pouring—the gesture not unlike that of a man lifting a woman’s chin to kiss her. Franco’s mouth was suddenly dry, and why was that affecting him so? Marino focused on the glass, pouring deliberately, but flashed him a quick glance, waiting for his cue. Franco cleared his throat. “Thanks.”

Marino lifted the bottle while turning it, not spilling a drop of wine on the expensive carpet. He put the bottle back on the table and lifted his own glass again.

Silvio watched them both, and Franco knew without a shadow of doubt that his brother was reading him. “Silvio says you might be able to get us two Bushmasters. And a clean car we can ditch.”

Marino nodded. “Any particular specifications?”

“A small van or SUV would do it, especially if we can rip out some seats and drill a few holes in the back.”

“Will you shoot from there?”

“Yes.” Franco took a long, steadying breath, not unlike readying himself to shoot.

“No, I’ll do it.” Silvio leaned closer. “It’s my idea, I’ll kill the bastard.”

Franco shook his head. “I would only let you out killing somebody protected by pros after weeks of training. I’m not risking your life, Silvio.”

“Bullshit. I can do the shooting just as well as you.”

“It’s not your usual weapon. You can’t make any mistakes with this, and I’ve done it a lot more than you.”

“I won’t make any mistakes,” Silvio snapped.

Franco glanced at Marino, who sipped his wine and seemed undisturbed, as though they were quarrelling about a soccer game.

He sighed. “I’ll pull the trigger. You’ll have to identify my target, act as the spotter, keep my back clear, drive the car.”

“Fuck this!” Silvio hissed and shot to his feet. “I’m not pul ing you into this. I’m not!”

I’m already deep in it, and I’ll be damned if I know how that
happened.
“You’re my brother. I’m already part of it.” He glanced at Marino, whose lips quirked with a soft smile that nevertheless lacked malice or triumph.

“I’ll get the weapons and car, Franco.” Marino put his wineglass down and offered Franco his hand. Franco took it and was surprised when the man held it with both of his, covering his hand completely.

An oddly protective, paternal gesture—only, of course, that his father would never have done anything like this. Their eyes met for that long moment, and something like an electric current closed between eyes and hands and everything else. Franco forced himself to stand his ground, forced himself to acknowledge his response, but didn’t allow it to cloud his emotions.