Owned: A Mafia Menage Romance(67)

My mouth is salty, filled to the brim as my body is awash with a hot, pheromone-sodden sweat. I can barely breathe and for a moment I feel like I'm drowning, but I'm not drowning.

I rise back to the surface like something that was submerged and finally breaks through into the sunlight, and it's glorious. Absolutely glorious.





CHAPTER 19


ROMAN

I push open the door to the cigar shop and Marie's little friend, Gianna, looks up at me, startled. At first her eyes are hopeful but then she changes. I guess she realizes it is me, and I certainly wonder if maybe she was expecting someone else? Perhaps Alek?

That's a funny thought. I almost want to laugh.

But since I'm in a good mood, I go ahead and smile at her. She flinches at first but then she smiles back. It almost looks real. Close enough anyway.

I don't even care. Somehow things just don't bother me like they used to. What do I care if some Italian teenager likes me or not? I don't care. Not one bit.

“Stosh told me to ask you if you could wait for just a minute?” she says in her scared little mouse voice. For a moment, I want to say no, just to see what she will do. She looks like the sort of person I could actually frightened to death. Literally, to death.

“Of course, devushka,” I say to her, still smiling. Why not?

“Oh, Roman!” Don Lauro calls in a big voice. He comes out from the long hallway pushing his hand through his short, thinning hair. “Is everything all right? Is Marie all right?”

“Of course she's all right,” I say with less respect than I probably should. He is her father after all, and entitled to his concern, but why wouldn't she be all right? “She's just fine. She's at home I think.”

“You think? You don't know?” Don Lauro frets. Look at him. He looks like a junkie, twitching for a fix. Was he that addicted to surveilling his own daughter all this time? I feel sorry for him.

“She's home,” I say and I hope that's the end of it. “Alek is there with her,” I add to reassure him.

“Good, good,” he mumbles and then finds something that he needs to do behind the counter. He's never made mention of all the cameras that Alek extracted from the house. I suppose it's possible that he simply stopped watching the recordings, but I find that unlikely. That means he knows that I know that he had cameras everywhere. Creepy fucker.

I'm glad that he knows that I know, too.

“So you're waiting for Stosh, then?” he says, making conversation. Why do people need to make conversation? There is nothing that we need to say here. Can’t we all just have some peace and quiet?

But I nod anyway. He knows why I'm here.

“And how are you liking the house? Her mother loved that house, did she tell you? Just loved it. Just picked out every single piece of furniture, every scrap of wallpaper. Her mother had a beautiful eye, did she tell you that?”

I stop. Something is wrong here.

“It's a beautiful house,” I say to keep him talking.

He nods, jamming his pudgy fingers against his cheeks. From the wobble there, I can tell he's almost overcome with emotion. Italians. These guys.

“I was so happy to see that Marie left everything just the way it was. She could have changed anything, but she left it just the way her mama had it.”

He nods, his thoughts far away.

“How long did you live in that house, Don Lauro?” I ask slowly.

He smiles and frowns the same time, tipping his chin up to stare at the ceiling. “… Maybe twenty years? No. Twenty-eight years. Oh my God, has it really gone that fast? Twenty years since I lost my bride…”

My mind starts to click and I wish Alek was here to hear all this. “I'm so sorry for your loss, Don Lauro,” I say stiffly.

He waves his fingers in the air as though pushing away a bad memory.

“My queen, her mama was my queen. I can only hope that you will love her half as well.”

“I will, I promise,” I say in a low voice. “She's my princess, you know. I can't tell you how grateful I am that you allowed us to wed.”

The Don looks up at me with a start. A smile creeps across his cheeks and I see his jaw is red and damp. Gianna has her fingers pressed to her lips and her eyes gleam.

I've pleased them, I can tell. I pleased myself too. I didn't mean to say it out loud like that, but I can't deny it. She reaches into me. She touches me.

“Marvelous!” he says in a hoarse whisper, choked with emotion.

Nodding, I need to know more so I stand in front of him. I can hear down the hallway that voices are raised, sounding as though Stosh’s meeting is almost complete.

“So the house…” I continue quickly. “That's your family house? Is that correct?”

“Yes, yes. I just told you. When she graduated highschool I got the place around the corner, the bungalow. Gave her the house as a present.”