“Now go,” Gio said, “and make sure you keep your cell phone on and charged. Whenever I summon you, day or night, you'd better come running. And you'd better be ready to do what I say. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Master,” Carla responded in a small voice.
Gio leaned over, unlocked the front door, and opened it for her. She stared at it for a few seconds, then slowly stepped out as though she were in a trance, heading toward her car.
He watched her for a moment, then closed the door behind her.
Gio felt a clammy chill ripple over his upper body, and he realized that his silk shirt was soaked with perspiration from all the activity upstairs. He pulled off his tie, tossed it onto his couch, and stripped off his shirt, making a mental note to take it to the dry cleaner tomorrow. Then he walked back up to the second floor, took off the rest of his clothes, and stepped into the shower in the master bathroom, turning the water temperature up as high as he could without scalding himself.
As he stood under the pulsing jets of water and soaped himself up, he wished he'd been born into a different family. Yes, the wealth and privilege he came from had certainly furnished his Special Room and his hedonistic lifestyle, but at what cost? He still had to keep most of his nighttime activities a secret in order to maintain the respect of the other mafiosi.
Growing up, Gio had often sneered at average guys, with their piddling incomes and shitty day jobs. But tonight he felt like they had more freedom than he ever would. These days, who cared if a plumber or a stock broker was into paddles and riding crops? They could do their work, make their money, and then make plenty of time to do whatever they wanted to after hours without anyone giving a fuck.
Gio was stuck being a Mancini 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, always on call in service of the family.
No, not just any Mancini. Worse. The son of the Mancini. The sole heir to the whole crooked fucking mess, with so many eyes and expectations on him that he sometimes felt like he was buried under ten tons of concrete, like some of the bodies he'd helped dispose of.
But what if his new FBI pet could help him get away from all that?
The thought flashed through Gio's mind suddenly, taking him by surprise. Carla had started this whole thing by infiltrating the Mancinis to collect enough evidence to bring the whole family down. Now that he and Carla were bound to each other through the threat of mutually-assured destruction, perhaps both of them could end up getting what they wanted.
It was a risk, certainly. If anyone found out, Gio would be killed—even his relationship to Mario wouldn't save him. Still, he was already taking that chance just by hiding Carla's true identity from the other Mancinis, wasn't he? And Gio had heard of plenty of made guys who'd turned state's evidence and disappeared into the Witness Protection program. If Gio played it smart, he could escape from his violent legacy and concentrate all of his free time on training lovely new subs...
Except he realized he didn't particularly want new subs. What he really wanted was Carla. She was unlike any slave he'd ever had before, and he wanted to keep her, to explore her delicious submission in a thousand different contexts and locales.
And once both he and Carla were free of the Mancinis, he'd have no power over her anymore. She could erase her topless photo from his phone, or kick him out of Witness Protection and let every mafia family in America descend on him like hungry piranhas.
The daydream suddenly seemed silly, and it quickly deflated in his mind. He knew he couldn't possibly betray his own father like that. He'd been raised to believe that blood was everything and that anyone who was disloyal to his family would burn in hell forever.
Plus, as much as he hated Mario, he knew that he owed everything he had in life to his father. In his heart, Gio still had trouble believing that he'd ever amount to anything without Mario.
As he got out of the shower and dried himself off, Gio let go of the tantalizing fantasy of freedom, and instead focused on the best ways to enjoy his newfound control over Carla while he still could.
He'd let her off easy, and he'd respected the safe word. This time.
The next time might be an entirely different matter.
Chapter 17
Carla
Carla stood in front of her bathroom mirror, using a makeup wipe to remove her smudged eyeliner. As she did, she tried to sort out her wildly-conflicting emotions following her visit to Gio. It didn’t help that her ass was still stinging, and she knew she wouldn't be able to sit down easily for quite some time.
The residual fear from before their encounter still flapped madly in her chest like a trapped bat. She'd been sure that the safe words he assigned her would be ignored in favor of Gio's cruel pleasures. She'd been almost as certain that he'd torture and maim her, and that “playing” with him would end with her death.