I Should be With Her… But I’m Thinking of Him

Nick

After hours of tossing and turning, I finally drifted off. My dream was tense, fucking hot at first, with rocking hips and straining limbs, pinning Christian to the bed, completely in my power… Just to fuck him, long and slow. He’s moaning my name this time, looking right in my eyes. He knows me. He sees me.

But then everyone sees. They shoot that fucking demon in the forehead, as I should have, and they drag me naked to the altar. We were fucking in a church, and the priests are glaring on with disciplinary rods in hand, just like the first time I--

I start awake, cursing at the wreak of cold sweat staining the sheets tangled around my legs. I’m not just damp from sweat. My thighs are soaked in cum. I fucking jizzed inside my boxers, just thinking of his--

Stop thinking about him.

I head back into the shower without a word of explanation spoken to my mother sipping tea on the couch. She thinks I’ve just had a nightmare no doubt, petrified by my violent acts, like I’m still some little kid. I have a lot of nightmares. She and Carmy have tried to talk to me about it, but I cannot handle their concern. At least I can trust she never gossips about me, not even to her friends. She’d never spread the word that her son’s a fucking coward. She worked real hard to quiet the much more deadly rumors years ago, after I was found out by Sicillio, sent to that camp for ‘atonement’, conversion…

I blast the cold water until the prickling pain of those driving needles of pressure has completely numbed me. I get out, towel off, and I know I don’t have time to swing by the church and speak with my priest.

I do not want to be anywhere near that church.

I check my watch, curse at the time, and dig frantically through my closet in search of a nice suit. They’re all pretty high end, classy, but I need something completely clean and pressed. Something I haven’t worn on the job and gotten stained with blood or demonic ichor.

My mother drifts over to help, as I stumble out of that bedroom still struggling to knot my tie. I do this every fucking day. I don’t know why my brain’s short circuiting on how to do it now. Ma steps up, and I drop the flailing ends of pin-striped silk with zero protest, letting her take over.

“Alessia seems like a nice girl.”

“Yeah,” I mutter, raking a hand through my hair to try to even out the gel.

“It’s a good match, but Nico,” She puts a hand to my cheek. “you don’t have to do this if you don’t want.”

“She’s hot. What else is there?” I deflect, and my mother frowns, eyes sparking dangerously. “Kidding, ma. I’m kidding. ’Course I’m gonna be respectful, and… You don’t gotta worry.” She’s never going to have to worry about anything, not ever again. I will make sure she is always taken care of, her and Carmy.

“I am not worried about that. I know I raised a respectful,” She kisses my cheek. “intelligent, and proper young man.”

And da raised a messed up animal, an instinctive executioner and a natural with a baseball bat. The boss likes that part of me though. It’s part of the reason I’m getting this golden ticket of status, a public date with the princess herself.

“But you hardly know this girl, so there is no need to rush,” ma concludes, and I plaster on a supportive, lying smile.

Like there is any going against what the leader of the Family wants. He was real polite and deferential when asking ma’s opinion on this setup last week, but he pulled me aside in private right after that most cordial discussion and gave strict, almost threatening instructions on exactly how I’m meant to handle things at this fancy-ass soiree. This is Alessia’s day, and I had better ensure it’s a good one. I need to prove myself to her, and I need to prove myself a man. You gotta earn a father’s blessing, especially from the big man himself.

That’s why I took lead in this most recent job the boss charged me with. I played rat killer instead of Louie, my teacher and the leader of our gang, because that was my own ‘graduation’ to become a true enforcer. Louie tagged along just to watch and see how I stepped up. I’m guessing I passed that sick test with flying colors based on his praises at the bar, saying my old man himself couldn’t have done any better...

Lou will have stopped by that mansion in uptown last night, gave a full report about us tracking down the rats and me dealing with their loose-lipped patriarch. My minders would have been even more impressed had I brought them the ashes of a vampire right afterward. I should have taken them with me to that abandoned, cursed hotel. I should have never--

No point thinking of it now.

I find the keys to the Cadi shoved inside our freezer for some reason after a joint five minutes of searching alongside ma. She’s been doing that more and more lately, losing her marbles a little and forgetting where to put stuff. I wonder if it’s the liquor, or maybe it’s the stress… I hate to think of that. I really hate to make her worry.

You cannot be late to a gathering at the Bertinelli’s though. That kind of disrespect will get the shit kicked out of you, so I speed like a demon. There’s no cops walking the beat here. They stay holed up in their stations, waiting for some big break arrest to actually incriminate our crew. They’ve done nothing but catch and release with even our street level members these past few years. Our most recent mayor keeps the prosecutors in line and off Bertinelli’s back. Some of the coppers don’t seem to mind sitting idle, getting fat and taking bribes.

Our guys do all the real work in this city, even disciplining petty crooks. They keep the kids from tagging the buildings and littering in the streets. They rough up pick-pockets and burglars stupid enough to touch those with protection, and they wouldn’t let no ordinary maniac go ripping down the shoulder of center street like this, endangering the public by weaving through traffic and running reds. I can see them lounging at the street corners as I rip past, straightening in outrage for only a second before they catch sight of the telltale sticker on my bumper and they wave me on my way with nothing but laughing disapproval.

I still shouldn’t be pushing it like this. I don’t normally go breaking rules of etiquette and drawing attention the way my old man did. We got a code of conduct to keep the Family safe, and if some kid happens to be crossing the street as I rip around the corner at over 100 miles an hour…

That death would be a hell of a lot worse than the one already eating up my conscience.

I ease off the gas a little, still blowing through stop signs, but minding the actual traffic lights. I get to the Bertinelli’s archaic, gated manor just minutes before dinner is served. “Derosso,” the guy at the gate opens up and motions his young valet over to take my keys and park me somewhere more suitable. “Boss is waiting. Office. Second floor.”

I nod, stepping out of the car, loosening my tie so I can fucking breathe a little better… I don’t know why I’m panicking, practically gasping for air… I can play it cool. I always manage that, somehow. I just gotta pretend I belong in this place. I don an air of relaxed uncaring as I saunter up the walkway toward that massive, ornate foyer.

I used to come here all the time as a kid. My ma would visit with the missus when she’d throw her garden parties, hauling me and my brother along because da wasn’t going to do shit to watch us if she ever left us at home.

I really hated coming here, because ma would always end the day crying, dabbing at her eyes in private where the other ladies, her ‘friends’ couldn’t see. Even at six years old, I always noticed. The boss’s wife was a bored, shallow monster who invited low-class, honest people like my ma to her gatherings of socialites just so she could play nasty tricks to shame and humiliate them.

I wanted to kill her for the way she dared condescend to my mother and talk about our family. My brother talked me into pranking her instead, planting a cherry bomb in her fancy ass cake when she was giving some speech about her ‘charity’ work for the less fortunate. It wasn’t dangerous, just hilarious, spattering her in frosting and making her screech. Even little Alessia laughed, but my brother and I were quickly exposed as the guilty party. Ma was all the more humiliated, da beat the shit out of us both, the minute we got home, and we were never invited back to this place. Not until I turned fifteen that is, when da dragged me to a late-night discussion with the boss about a job that needed doing…

Mrs. Bertinelli had already up and vanished from the picture at that point. It weren’t the work of no rival gang. Rumor is she was cheating. She disappeared that same year, and no one was allowed to question it.

I wonder what Alessia thinks truly happened to her mother. I’m sure her father offered some lie about her leaving. He’d never cop to the murder of his own wife, especially not to his little princess.

I haven’t spoken to this girl since we were nine. I’m just hoping she is nothing like the monsters who raised her. Seeing her now though, for the first time in a decade… She’s wearing an expensive, very lady-like dress, all pink and white, lot of frills and crepe, white silk gloves on her hands, and wide-brimmed, ribboned sunhat shadowing her face. She’s surrounded on all sides by sycophantic, suited gents and fakely smiling women, and all I can think… She looks a hell of a lot like her mother. But hell, I wouldn’t really care if she cheats on me.

I could catch her in our marriage bed with some other muscled meat-head… and I’d never even mention it to the boss. He probably wouldn’t be angry with his princess. He’d know I’d failed to keep her satisfied, or done something more direct to drive her away...

Like being caught in bed myself with another man: caught lying naked, pressed up against Christian, with my dick in his--

Stop.

I feel like my future’s already set in stone: all violence and turmoil and misery. I need to stop thinking about it.

I need to stop thinking of him.