Made (28 page)

"It's not that," he interjected. "I trust you."

"Then what?" Her eyes widened when it seemed to strike her what he meant. "
Oh
."

"Yeah."

He expected shock. He expected terror. But he certainly didn't expect her to laugh.

"
That's
what's bothering you? The thought of having a baby?"

He flinched at her words, recoiling as if she'd struck him with a fist. The laughter died instantly, Celia's shock surfacing. "It really bothers you. Like,
really
bothers you."

He attempted to turn away, but she grabbed his arm.

"Corrado, relax, it's okay. I'm not going to get pregnant."

"You can't know that."

"I can," she said. "I'm on the pill."

His anxiety eased as disbelief set in. "You're taking
birth control
?"

"Yeah."

"You're Catholic, Celia."

"So are you."

"Your father would never approve of that."

She scoffed. "Like that man can talk with as much as
he
sins."

Corrado could only stare at her. He wasn't the perfect Catholic by any means. He sinned more than most others and never asked for forgiveness. He believed in God, of course, but he often wondered if God believed in him. It surprised him, though, that Celia would so blatantly ignore her beliefs for something so seedy.

He shouldn't have been surprised, given she had no qualms with premarital sex.

"Look, I'm no idiot," she said. "Better safe than sorry, right?"

He hesitated. "Right."

"And it's my body, right?"

No hesitation this time. "Right."

"Then no problem, right?"

"Right," he said. "No problem."

She linked their fingers once more and yanked on his arm. "Come on, I'm going to miss curfew."

They walked again, silence nearly taking over, but Celia's playful giggle kept him in the moment.

"What's so funny?" he asked.

"Just thinking about, well, you know." She blushed, nudging him with her arm. "There's
no
way you're a virgin."

"I am." He paused. "Or I was."

"Then how did you learn to do all that?" she whispered. "You made my toes curl."

"Uh, I don't know." He laughed awkwardly. "Just because I hadn't done it didn't mean I hadn't thought about it."
And thought about it... and thought about it some more
.

"I knew you'd be a natural, but wow."

"You knew I'd be a natural?"

"Like I said—you're always attentive to your surroundings," she said. "Makes sense that you'd be the same way with a woman."

Raising her hand in his, he pressed a soft kiss on the back of it. "Only with you,
Bellissima
."

Corrado led Celia straight to her front door, letting go of her hand when they stepped on to the porch. He started to speak when the door swung open. Antonio stood there, a grim expression marring his face as he blocked the doorway. "You're late."

Corrado looked at his watch: eight minutes past midnight.

Celia rolled her eyes. "Give me a break. It's only a few minutes."

"A few? More like fifteen."

Corrado refrained from correcting the man, knowing it wouldn't make a difference. Even one minute late was equivalent to a lifetime.

"What are you going to do, ground me?"

Antonio stared at her for a moment before his eyes shifted to Corrado. The answer lay in his expression. He wouldn't ground her, but he had every intention of punishing
him
.

A slight sinister smile twisted the Boss's lips. "You seem to have lost your tie, Corrado."

Corrado glanced down at his disheveled appearance and wished he had spent more time tidying himself. "It got a bit suffocating."

"I bet it did." Antonio's eyes studied him. "Your socks seem to be missing, too."

"Yeah, my feet were, uh..." He eyed his ankles. "...
suffocating
."

"Well then," Antonio said. "I'm just glad you kept on the rest of your clothes."

"Daddy!" Celia hissed. "Can you
not
?"

"I haven't done anything."

"Can you give us some privacy?" she asked. "Please?"

It seemed even the Boss of
La Cosa Nostra
wasn't immune to the charms of Celia DeMarco. With the bat of her eyelashes, she could bring any man to his knees.

"Yeah, sure," he conceded, his eyes still focused on Corrado. "I'll be seeing
you
tomorrow."

"Yes, sir."

Antonio went back inside, and Corrado let out a sharp exhale. "Suffocating," he grumbled, feeling like an idiot. "He's going to suffocate
me
for that."

Smiling, Celia leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed him. She pulled back, pressing her hand flat against his chest. His heart thumped erratically against her palm.

"You're wrong about yourself," she said seriously. "You said you were heartless, but that's not true. I can feel it, Corrado. It's in there. And as long as it's beating, I know it's there, working overtime, and you'll
never
convince me otherwise."

After one last kiss, she stepped away, wrapping his jacket tightly around her. "I'm keeping the coat."

"Okay."

"I'm going to wear it to bed."

"Okay."

"With nothing on underneath it."

Winking, she slipped inside, leaving him on the porch with that mental image ringing through his head.

Corrado's punishment swiftly came the next morning in the form of a phone call from the Boss. He had just gotten to sleep, too wound tightly to relax right away, when the phone started incessantly ringing.

"Moretti speaking," he muttered, groggily plopping down on the couch in the living room.

"Breakfast."

The Boss's voice woke him up. "Excuse me, sir?"

"I want breakfast."

He hesitated. "Do you want me to meet you?"

"No, I want you to
deliver
it to me."

And Corrado did just that an hour later, showing up at the DeMarco residence juggling half a dozen containers of food from as many different restaurants. Antonio had rattled off an extensive list, from pancakes at a popular nearby diner to scrambled tofu from an obscure place outside the city limits. It was enough food to feed more than one family, but Antonio was the only one awake when Corrado arrived.

"Took you long enough," Antonio said, showing him inside. Corrado set the containers on the kitchen counter and stood back, waiting to be dismissed. Antonio opened them all, surveying the contents, before hastily throwing every last one right in the trashcan. "I'm not hungry anymore."

Contrary to his words, Antonio picked up an apple and bit into it, noisily chewing. "Since you're awake, Corrado, I got some errands that need ran."

"Errands?"

"Yeah, you know... dry cleaning to pick up, mail to deliver, bills to pay. Menial things that even someone like you could handle. Got a problem with that?"

Someone like you
.
Corrado grimaced. "No, sir."

Antonio fetched a sprawling list from his office desk and handed it to Corrado. "Off you go."

Corrado was out until after midnight handling everything, having barely had time to sit down and take a break all day. He collapsed on his couch, utterly exhausted, but by the time he dozed off his phone rang again.

It happened the next day.
And the next day.
And every day after that for the next two weeks.
Antonio ran him ragged, treating him like he was dog shit on the bottom of his shoe—shit he wanted nothing more than to scrape away on the filthy sidewalk. Corrado blew through every penny he'd managed to save, always picking up the tab wherever he was sent, even being pushed so far as to having to pay the Boss's
goomah
's
rent.

The Boss… the man he respected more than anyone… had a mistress. That fact floored Corrado.

He only encountered Celia in passing during that time, sharing a few stray phone calls when she caught him at home. It tortured him, being forced to keep his distance after the intimate night they shared.

That was the point, Corrado realized.

Fifteen days of punishment for being fifteen minutes late.

Corrado still didn't tell him it was only eight.

Day fifteen finally came, and Corrado was awake and dressed by five in the morning. He'd no sooner sat down with the Sunday paper
when
his phone rang. "Moretti speaking."

"Good morning."

"Morning, sir."

"I'd like you to meet me at the church."

Before Corrado could even ask
when
, the line went dead.

Saint Mary's Catholic Church appeared deserted at that hour, even on a Sunday, the holiest day of the week. The Boss's car was already parked front and center when Corrado arrived, right in front of the large set of stairs leading to the wooden ornamental doors. Corrado parked his Mercedes behind the familiar
DeVille
and climbed out, taking a deep calming breath before heading inside.

The church was dim, only subtle lighting throughout the massive space, as the sun hadn't yet taken its rightful place in the sky. Corrado glanced around, trying to adjust his eyes, and spotted Antonio sitting in his usual spot in the front pew. Slowly, Corrado approached, his footsteps magnified in the silent building. Antonio didn't look at him, no visible acknowledgement as Corrado slid into the pew. His head remained bowed, his eyes closed, almost as if the man were fast asleep.

Out of respect, Corrado bowed his head as he waited.

It took a few minutes before Antonio even made a noise—a faintly audible sigh. Corrado peered over at the man, realizing he now stared straight ahead at the cross behind the pulpit.

"This is the only time I feel at peace," Antonio said. "Every day, my head is full of all these thoughts—who's doing what, who's doing who, where, when, how... I gotta worry about all these different people, all these different schemes, making sure everybody's happy so they don't go killing each other. But Sunday morning, when I step in here, I have nobody to worry about for a while but me."

"Do you come here every Sunday?"

Antonio shot him a look of admonishment. "Of course I do."

"I meant this early," he corrected himself. "Before services."

"That may be what you meant, but it isn't what you said. You should think about your words before you speak them."

"Yes, sir."

"And yes, I come here this early every Sunday... sometimes earlier, depends on how bad my week was. I like to sit and pray, you know... talk to God when there aren't so many others doing the same. Figure I have a better chance of him answering me that way."

"Has it worked?"

"Well... I'm not dead yet."

Corrado sat silently as he thought over that response. Was that what he prayed for? Survival?

"How long has this thing being going on between you and my daughter, Corrado?"