For Adriano (6 page)

CHAPTER 6

Adriano

I race down the circular driveway of the Syndicate’s headquarters, braking at the front entrance. The rumble of the engine ceases, and I head inside the house.

For the last nine months, I’ve spent as little time as possible here. Memories of Cam and me puzzle and depress my mind as I hike up the stairs to the second floor and turn left toward the office.

James spots me approaching him. “Adriano,” he greets from behind his desk, typing away on his laptop.

Henry’s seated across from James, and I take the vacant chair next to him.

“Any updates?” I look from James to Henry.

James points to Henry to speak up.

“She’s either living off cash or has left the country. She’s moving completely under the radar. Maybe someone’s helping her, or she has another identity?” Henry suggests.

“No.” I lean forward and rest my elbows on my thighs. “She doesn’t have those kinds of connections.”

“Are you sure?” James’s tone of voice is impatient, reflecting my state of mind.

“I’m not positive. She was secretive about her past, but I knew her well enough to know that she lived an isolated life without any friends.”

“So we have nothing!” James concludes and rears back in his chair.

“I just don’t know where to search anymore, James,” Henry defends.

I rub my unshaven jaw. I need some food to settle my nerves. Cam would always take care of me, having ordered take-out when I arrived at the house late at night.

I’m not too proud to admit I’m somewhat of a mama’s boy; used to being taken care of. My parents were poor, but I didn’t lack anything except material goods. Both my parents were born in Italy and moved to the U.S. in the early eighties when my mother was diagnosed with lupus while she was pregnant with me. It’s a chronic autoimmune disease that mostly affects women of child-bearing age. Symptoms my mother experienced were skin rash, weight loss, fatigue, and she’s still frequently feverish. Treatment in the U.S. was more successful at bringing the symptoms under control, so they decided to move to Chicago. Lupus isn’t hereditary in ninety-five percent of the cases, and I was born healthy, followed by two siblings, my twenty-five year old brother, Carmine, and nineteen year old sister, Mary.

Unfortunately, lupus is a lifelong disease, and there’s no cure. My mother has a serious form, but it often goes into remission and remains quiet for months. She’d have seizures and psychosis, not being able to work. She’d scream out in pain because her organs were being attacked. My father got laid off from his job, and it weighed heavily on his conscience that he couldn’t help my mom if we didn’t have money. His love for her is never-ending, and he’s always stood proudly by my mom.

Even though she was sick often, she’d always make time for her children. We had date nights where she and I would do something together outside the house. When money was too scarce, she’d still find ways to do something special with me, like a picnic in the park.

But as a teenager, I started to understand that our lack of money was posing a big problem. We didn’t have health care, and hospital bills kept piling up, so I got a job in the Loop – we lived in public housing just outside that area – at a bakery owned by Alessa Calderone, James’s wife.

At that bakery, I met Luca. And at that bakery, I met James, who recruited us for the Chicago Syndicate. James was the underboss back then, and he paid me royally as a prospect, also providing tuition for business college. He also made me a killer. I was bound into silence by being required to commit murder –
omérta
, the code of silence and secrecy every member must pledge before becoming an official member of the Chicago Syndicate that states you can’t ever go to law enforcement without facing murder charges yourself.

I’m not a good man. I never claimed to be. I’m a man who took the opportunity to take care of his sick mother and provide for his family, even if it would alter his life forever. James made me a ruthless businessman; a man who trusts no one.

My family doesn’t know I’m a Mafia member. Carmine, who recently graduated law school, has his suspicions, but my parents believe their son owns a thriving software business and makes his money from that alone, which is partly the truth. And that women are my pleasure, which is true.

Over the years, women became my diversion, and my attraction to the female sex has been somewhat insatiable, I confess. Joking around became a coping mechanism because I’m confronted with enough murder and sickness.

I’ve supported my parents, brother, and sister since I was seventeen. I will support them until their last breath. My parents, Mary, and Carmine all live in my building – Carmine in a separate apartment on the thirtieth floor, and Mary, who’s in a graduate degree program in Modern and Contemporary Art History at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago near our skyscraper, still lives with my parents. Carmine and I visit them every Friday whenever we can. With all the odd hours I work and eat, it’s comforting to enjoy a home-cooked meal once a week. And my mother makes a delicious, authentic baked
ziti
.

Only on several occasions did I cancel on my parents; to be with Cam. The first Friday I decided not to have dinner with them was the night Cam finally yielded to my persistent seduction.

*

One year and eleven months ago

I step on the gas, swerving lanes rapidly in the obscurity of the night.

Blood surges south when a flash of earlier today comes to mind. Cam in an angelic sleeveless dress. Her shuddering legs when I made her come. Focusing on the road is problematic when all I want is to throw Cam on a bed and savor every part of her body. Revel in her. Inside her.

Three months of chasing Cam has only heightened my thirst for her. Her rebuffs in denial of our chemistry are entertaining, and I enjoy teasing her. I linger around to be with her, and she knows it.

But while for the first few weeks, I really did just see her as a sensual conquest, somewhere along the line, the game has changed. She’s become my friend. My first female friend. We have dinner, go to the movies, and try to see one another daily. This is all new for me, and I don’t even notice other women when she’s with me. I do still flirt just to rouse her, and it works – every time.

Her beauty is irresistible. Her voice is spellbinding. Her kindness and the way she takes care of me by always having food for me is endearing, and sometimes I feel like Cam’s unlocked a part of me that was exclusively held in reserve for her. But I temper that down because it could also be the result of my denied yearning for her. And whatever happens, nothing more can come of us. I’ll never bring an innocent citizen into the Syndicate world, especially not someone I consider a friend like her.

I’ll make sure it doesn’t come to that. It’s never come to that before. Although I’ve also never had to go through so much trouble for just a kiss. I smile because any other woman I would’ve forgotten or told to fuck off. No woman is worth waiting three months for a damn kiss. But Cam was. That kiss was arousing in its contradiction: dirty because we both tasted my finger that had been inside her, and on the other side, sweet because of the taste of her tentative tongue. Now, she’s finally allowing me to touch her and allowing herself to luxuriate in my touch; that’s what I wanted.

Without bothering to park my car in the designated spot, I jump out at the front entrance and run up to the second floor.

I open the heavy double doors to the strip club and zero in on the bar to my left where the little vixen awaits. Her pull on me is undeniably strong.

The slow murmurs of the handful of soldiers and other women are drowned out when I focus on her. Then I spot silverware and a plate filled with steaming spaghetti
carbonara
.

She beckons to the plate and barstool. “For you. Sit and eat. I know you’re hungry.”

She’s absolutely dumbfounded me, and I just stare at her plump lips for a second. It’s that raspy voice coming from those gorgeous lips that has me adjusting my pants.

I sit and prop a foot on the footrest, sniffing the savory bacon. “You know me well.”

She’d always have food for me from that night on, another addition to our routine.

Her mouth curves up, and she wants to say more but holds it in and finishes tidying the bar while I take a bite of the creamy spaghetti and devour it within minutes. I
was
hungry.

I watch Cam work, and when she’s done, I nod toward the second private room – which is always reserved for Cam and me nowadays. Whenever I return to this house late at night and she’s waiting for me to drive her home, we sleep in the private room together. Just sleep, so far. I spoon her, but she’s never warmed my naked skin with her bare hands. I’m throbbing to experience more explicit physical contact. I’ve been jerking off while I picture eating her pussy until she knows only my name in her world. My fantasies have never been this numerous or this intense.

She instantly follows me across the room to find privacy away from the soldiers and girls hanging out on the sofa in the club.

In the dimly lit grey-white room, she immediately goes to the bed in the center. I lock the door and swivel around; she’s on the edge of the mattress.

Cam’s bright brown eyes track my movement as I stalk toward her, unbuttoning my shirt and pulling it loose. She tilts her head up as I stand in front of her, so I cup her cheek, and her hand rests on my stomach. Her tentative exploration of my abs fills me with a passion to have her. She finally wants this as badly as I do. I groan when she scrapes her nails up and down my chest. The anticipation that’s been building for weeks has detonated into a need to have her tonight. The waiting is over.

I take her wrist and tug her up, lowering my mouth just above hers. “I think I’ve waited long enough.”

Cam blows out a soft sigh and rests her palms on my chest. “We’ve both waited long enough.”

Her hands snake up my neck, into my hair, and I crash my lips to hers, pulling her into me with both arms wrapped around her middle. I touch my tongue to hers as sweet vanilla invades my nostrils. Ravenously, I capture what I’ve hunted for so long, and I grind my hardening cock against her, making her moan.

She moves her hands over my shoulders, letting my dress shirt flutter to the floor. Then her fingertips trace the tattoo on my left side by my ribs. “It’s beautiful.” Her hand slides over the black ink of the compass rose design. “A compass… The letters are different.”

I force her backward. “Those are the initials of my family members. Now, enough talking, Cam.”

I begin undoing her white dress, revealing her cleavage, and the dress falls down in a pool around her feet. I knead her breasts over her sexy, lace bra while trailing kisses along her collarbone. Hurriedly, I unhook the bra in one snap and bare her breasts.

I’ve fantasized about sucking her nipples so often, and that’s just what I do. Cam intertwines her hands into my hair, curving her breast into my mouth while I get rid of her panties.

I guide her onto the bed, and her olive skin glows on the grey satin sheets. My fingers curl around an ankle, and I crawl up her lithe, slender body that’s beneath me. Her short auburn hair fans across the pillow as she takes in every one of my features. I push her ankle up with me, spreading her legs and lie atop with my rock-hard cock at her bare pussy. Only my slacks prevent skin to skin contact. I’m going to take this so slow until she begs me to fuck her.

She strokes my entire upper body, and I shudder under her touch.

Her eyes reflect only me.

I tuck her hair behind her ear while still spreading her wide and rock against her.

“Oh god...” She bites her plump lower lip, and I lick the red mark, circling my hips against her.

She moans loudly when I release her ankle and slide my hands up her sides.

Taking it slow? Fuck that.

We become a frenzy of entangled limbs as we kiss passionately, and I graze my lips down her throat, playfully sinking my teeth into her nipples.

She giggles and tugs at my hair, but I continue and lick down her flat, smooth stomach toward her totally bare center.

“Show me your pussy, Cam.” I press my lips on the inside of her thigh, right next to where she wants me.

She groans in discontent and desire.

I swat her hip and bite her thigh. “Greedy! Now show me.” And she laughs, trying to push her legs together, but my hands shoot out to stop her.

I almost come in my pants like a randy twelve-year-old that’s seen his first porn movie when her pointer fingers spread open her folds. She’s already wet, and my view is magnificent. Her back bows in eagerness of my mouth on her. I relish how she surrounds me completely. After days and weeks of chasing, she’s finally letting me inside. And the chase has made this victory all the more gratifying.

“God, Cam, you’re so fucking hot.”

My phone beeps just as I’m about to feast on her, and she grumbles in frustration.

I kneel on the bed and get my phone from my pocket. When I bring my finger to my mouth to indicate for her to be quiet, her eyes widen in bewilderment that I’m stopping, and I answer the call, “Yes.”