24.

TWENTY-FOUR

Dominic

I said I can do this, and I will, but fuck, fuck, fuck, I hate it. I don’t know if having Rocco with me makes it better or worse. It’s necessary in either case. I have to make the right impression, so he’s driving me and he’ll come in with me.

I see his eyes in the rearview mirror, but there’s nothing for him to look at. I haven’t moved since I got in the car.

I want to text Rafael, but I have to stay focused. I have to stay in character.

He’s at my place right now, and he will remain there until this shit is over. I didn’t tell him that, but he probably figured it out based on how much I made him pack. Clothes. Toiletries. His laptop for any work he needs to do.

After I show my face at the pizzeria, I’ll likely be under surveillance. I won’t be able to go back to Lush. Which means Rafael needs to be at my place—because I need him under my control.

Because I don’t trust him completely.

Because I still can’t shake the fear of having seen that gun at his head.

Because I can’t stand the thought of being apart from him.

Something shifted between us today. Shifted into place.

My head is kind of fucked up about it. But my gut? My … heart? I’ve never been so sure of anything.

He’s mine. Forever.

I wanted to tie him to the bed while I’m gone. I would feel so much better right now if I knew, with that kind of certainty, precisely where he is.

It’s hard to trust him.

He’s so wild.

I love that about him, but it scares me too. As much as I need control of him, I’ll never have it, not fully. He’s not actually submissive.

I wonder suddenly if he’ll ever want to top me. Would I let him?

Fuck, I don’t want to think about that right now.

When Rocco stops the car, I close the door on my thoughts. I get out and walk along the grimy sidewalk to the old pizzeria. The painted logo on the pizzeria door is faded. I’ll look out of place in this dive, and I’m meant to.

I resist the urge to look for Noah. He scoped out the neighborhood while I was with Rafael. He’s here somewhere, watching, ready to act if shit hits the fan.

Rocco opens the door for me. I walk in, assailed by the smells of bread and pepperoni.

Rocco goes to the bar and orders a beer while a young waitress leads me to a booth. The other diners are wearing jeans and sweatshirts. I’m wearing my three-piece suit that I intended for the office, even though I never got there today.

As I settle into the vinyl booth, the waitress hands me a laminated menu. She’s surely not part of this? She looks about nineteen.

“Something to drink?” she asks, giving me a nervous smile. Maybe it’s my clothes. Maybe it’s my scowl.

“Just water.”

She leaves, returning a minute later with a plastic cup brimming with crushed ice and water.

“Know what you want?”

Shit, here we go.

“These are all really big servings,” I say. “I don’t suppose you have a kid’s menu?” My stomach churns as I smile and say, “I have a … small appetite.”

She alerts. “A kid’s menu?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll, um, go ask.”

“Thanks.”

She makes a beeline for the kitchen. I almost wonder if I’m about to get to nailed by an undercover cop or something, but a few minutes later, an older woman comes stumping out of the kitchen, cane thumping across the dull wood floor.

In her shapeless dress and dingy apron, with her gray hair in a high bun, she looks like the quintessential Italian nonna, but then she says, “We don’t have a kid’s menu, but we’re thinking of starting one.”

A dark, ugly feeling moves through me, a mixture of anger and disgust and something I can’t quite identify.

I keep my face still, but it isn’t easy. I told Noah I’ve been lying all my life, and I have. I learned to hide my thoughts and emotions around my father. I had to. But I realize as I fight the urge to scream at this woman that in the past two months, with my father dead, I’ve gotten out of practice.

The old woman goes on, “If you leave your number when you pay, we’ll add you to our interested party list. We’ll contact you with a coupon code if we start a kid’s menu.”

I imagine myself slitting her throat. It would be so easy. She could be dead in seconds. She’s so short I don’t think I’d even have to get out of the booth. I could just snatch the knife from my pocket, flick open the blade, and whip it across her throat.

I see it in my mind, how her eyes would widen as the red line appeared in her saggy flesh. I picture her body falling on this table, blood gushing across the surface.

Instead I say, “Thanks. I will.”

Somehow, I order a pizza. Somehow, I make myself wait for it to be delivered. I’m sure they’re studying me via their cameras. Maybe even the Collector himself is studying me.

The Collector.

The man who sold Rafael to the Island.

Except for his time on the Island, I don’t know a lot about Rafael’s past. I know a few facts, though not from him. The kind of things that people in my circles know. And yeah, I might’ve asked a few questions over the years.

I know his father was bringing cocaine in from Puerto Rico. I know he set up business in the wrong places, stepped on the wrong toes. He got himself and his wife killed by one of the big crime families. It was an ugly killing from what I heard, done as an example for others who might think about encroaching on Italian territory.

What I don’t know is where Rafael was in all of that. I don’t know what happened between that moment and Rafael ending up on the Island. It’s not hard to guess that those events are connected.

Rafael is a little younger than I am. With his parents dead and his father’s entire organization taken out, he would’ve had no protection from opportunists like the Collector.

When my pepperoni pizza comes out, I can’t make myself eat any of it. I ask for the check. I pay. I leave my number.

And somehow I get out of there without shooting or stabbing anyone.

Rocco glances at me on the way to the car, but he doesn’t say anything. As I settle in the back seat, I get out my phone and send a text to Noah. It’s just a thumbs up, as agreed, but something about the little yellow symbol almost makes me throw my phone.

I put it back in my pocket.

Rocco says something to me, but I can’t hear it over the screaming in my head.