Page 21

Chapter 21

SALVATORE

His uncle? My blood boils. I already wanted to welcome this asshole home from prison with a bullet between the eyes, but knowing he’s Dante’s own family, his flesh and blood… now I think I want to make it hurt.

Dante thrusts the folder at me with a twist of a sad smile on his lips and then slips out onto the balcony with Luca. I stare at it in my hands for a minute. I asked Sparrow to dig this up, but I’m not sure I can handle what’s inside without losing my fucking shit. Just knowing he brought it to Dante instead of me is all the proof I need that whatever is in there, it’s worse than I thought. I’m already seeing red, and I haven’t even cracked it open yet.

I loosen my tie and shrug off my jacket, then I toss the folder onto the coffee table and head into the kitchen to pour myself a drink. Something tells me I’m going to need it. I open the liquor cabinet and unscrew the cap on an expensive bottle of scotch, waving it under my nose before I grab a glass and pour a generous amount. The patio door opens again, and I hear Luca’s muffled voice telling Dante he’ll see him tomorrow, then the beep of the security system as Dante re-arms it behind him.

I take a sip from my glass, focusing on the smooth burn as it slides over my tongue and down my throat. Physical things, controllable things, that’s what I need to focus on before I dive into the horrors in those court records. With the bottle in one hand and my glass in the other, I head back into the living room. Dante stands behind the couch, looking at the folder on the table like it’s a rattlesnake coiled to strike. The stiff set of his shoulders and the uneven rhythm of his breaths are more effective in snapping me out of my bullshit than a whole bottle of scotch could be.

“Come here, Angel.” I wrap my arm around him, careful of his shoulder, and pull him with me to the front of the couch and onto my lap.

It takes a little shuffling, but I manage to set the bottle down and pick the folder back up while Dante helps himself to a sip from my glass. He shifts around until he’s comfortable and then slumps against me and rests his head on my shoulder. This time it’s a hell of a lot easier to flip the folder open and face what’s inside. If he could live through it, then I can read about it. And once I know everything, I can fix it all for him. Maybe I can’t erase what happened, but I can erase the people who did it, and I can make sure no one ever hurts him again.

There are two separate police reports and court documents to go along with each one. I ease into it with the first report, filed against Dante by Don for aggravated assault. Don’s account is that Dante came to his house in the middle of the night, and when he answered the door, Dante attacked him, allegedly unprovoked. The photographs and medical report that accompany the complaint given to the police show a middle-aged man who’s been beaten black and blue, missing multiple teeth, his nose shattered and his jaw dislocated, among a laundry list of other injuries. Flipping through them fills me with deep satisfaction. I think I fell in love with Dante the minute I laid eyes on him, and this reminds me why. Every bruise, every broken bone tells the story of his strength. I don’t have to read another word to know Don deserved every blow my vengeful Angel rained down on him. For Dante’s part, he doesn’t deny any of it. There’s a brief written confession and a guilty plea in court. He was sentenced to five years in prison and was released early due to overcrowding.

I nuzzle his forehead and press a kiss there, then take another fortifying sip of my drink and flip to the second case. I tighten my arm around Dante and steady my breathing as I start to read the complaint filed by him this time, against his uncle. It’s a detailed account of a decade of sexual abuse that goes on for pages, listing specific dates and describing escalating acts that turn my stomach. His weight on my lap as I flip the pages with shaking hands is the only thing keeping me from jumping up and upending the goddamn coffee table. His steady breathing is the only thing holding me back from going to the kitchen to find a box of matches, setting this whole file on fire, then finding Don and doing the same to him. The swollen, bloody face and shattered jaw aren’t nearly enough punishment for what he did. As long as he’s breathing, I won’t rest.

“You said he never touched you,” I growl through clenched teeth, crumpling the edges of the pages in my fist. “Was that the lie?”

Dante shakes his head. “That was the truth.” He taps the court transcript that’s now on top of the pile. “That’s the lie.”

I want to believe him, but the details, the dates, Dante’s attack on Don, it all points to the same thing. Why would he lie about such vile fucking things? Even his own guilty plea makes the rest of it feel true. I can’t wrap my head around it. Clearly the allegations weren’t a lie to get himself out of trouble, so what were they?

I let out a slow breath and fling the folder away. Papers flutter haphazardly to the floor around our feet, and I toss back the rest of my scotch, guzzling it down in a few quick gulps before wiping the back of my hand across my mouth. Images of what he described to the police dance in my mind, making my head spin and my pulse thunder in my ears. I rear back my hand and throw my empty glass at the wall, taking satisfaction in the sound of it shattering, of the glass raining down on the wood floor and the last few drops of scotch staining my white wall with brown streaks that trickle down garishly.

The small act of destruction doesn’t feel like nearly enough. After what I just read, I want to tear the entire goddamn world apart with my bare hands. I slide my hand underneath his shirt to ground myself with the feeling of his warm skin. I drag in another shuddering breath and Dante cups my cheek with his good hand, brushing the pad of his thumb against the grain of my stubble.

“Shh,” he murmurs, leaning in slowly. “I’m okay.” His words are barely a whisper, but they’re the only thing that could possibly get through the drumbeat of my pulse in my ears.

He bumps his nose against mine and tilts his chin just a fraction of an inch, wordlessly begging for a kiss. I’ve never denied my Angioletto anything, and this is something I need even more than he does. A few seconds to remember that the only thing that’s real is what’s right in front of us, not the ghosts of the past.

I didn’t notice him crying, but as soon as our lips touch, I can taste the salt of his tears. I growl softly against his mouth and tease my tongue along the seam of his lips, lapping up every one of his tears that reach them. And when that’s not enough, I break the kiss and lick them straight off of his cheeks.

“You’re such a fucking weirdo, Sal,” he says around a laugh and then a sniffle.

“It’s weird to be obsessed with my husband?” I say, kissing away the last few stray tears. A dazed look flickers through his eyes and his breath hitches. Dante gives a quick shake of his head. I don’t know if he’s answering my question or clearing his thoughts, but when he doesn’t say anything else, I tug him back into place, resting against me, and I kiss the side of his throat. “Explain this to me, Angioletto, before I drive to the prison and kill that fucker right now.”

“All the stuff I told the police is true, just not about me.” He takes a deep breath. “That summer, my cousin Luis came to me one night crying so hard he could barely breathe. He was seventeen and I was almost twenty, but I always felt protective of him. There was just something, I don’t know, small and vulnerable about him, I guess. When I finally got him calmed down enough to tell me what was wrong…” Dante shakes his head, and a dark cloud descends over his expression.

I rub soothing circles on his back and wait for him to go on, but I’ve already put the pieces together now. I understand what happened and it all makes complete sense. It’s exactly the Dante I know, to stand between someone who can’t fight for themselves and a monster, swinging blindly without any regard for his own safety.

He clears his throat and goes on. “You read the report, so you know what he did. Luis told me all of it and I held him while he cried through it. He said Don promised it was the last time, but he said it every time and Luis stopped believing it. He just wanted it to stop. I told him he should report it, I even offered to go with him to the police station. I put on my shoes and practically dragged him to my car, but he turned into a sobbing mess again. He said he couldn’t do it, he didn’t want to do it, he couldn’t tell anyone else what he’d told me, let alone a room full of cops or a courtroom full of people. Then, he made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone what happened to him either.”

“Some promises are better broken, Angioletto,” I point out.

“I know, I just… You didn’t see him. He’d already been hurt so much, he was so broken and humiliated, I couldn’t do that to him. So, after I convinced him to at least spend the rest of the summer at my apartment instead of going home, I told him I’d go get his stuff and I made up a bed for him on my couch.” There’s a faraway look in Dante’s eyes, like he’s reliving that night, seeing the shadows of it right in front of him. “I felt like I was on autopilot driving to his house, I wasn’t thinking about anything, but I could feel myself getting angrier and angrier, replaying all of the disgusting, fucked up shit Luis told me. And by the time Don opened the door, I just… snapped. I’d never laid a hand on anyone before that, other than the regular roughhousing shit kids do. But it was like I was possessed, I just fucking jumped on him and started beating the ever-living fuck out of him. I wish I’d just killed him then.”

“If you had, you’d still be locked up now. It’s better this way. He’s not going to get away with any of this, Angel. You know that, right?”

Dante nods.

“Anyway, you know the rest.” He gestures at the papers scattered around the floor, half-crumpled and in disarray. “I didn’t try to fight it when he brought charges against me, but I couldn’t let him get away with what he did to Luis either, so I just said that all of it happened to me. I wasn’t sure they’d even put him away on my word alone, but the cops found pictures too. I guess he’d been saving them over the years. He was stupid enough to think that as long as Luis’s face wasn’t in them, he’d be safe. So, I just said those were of me too, and they couldn’t really prove they weren’t. He got a pathetic ten-year sentence, and here we are.”

“What happened to your cousin?”

“He was pissed that I told his secrets, even though I pretended they were mine. My whole family turned on me. They said I was a liar, that I was just trying to cause problems, that obviously I was the crazy, unhinged, violent one if I could do all that to Don and still have the nerve to accuse him of touching me.”

I tighten my arms around him and press my face into the crook of his neck.

“I’m so sorry. You did the right thing, even if none of them could see it.”

He nods again. “I know.” His words are steel, unemotional and firm.

“I wish things were different back then, Angioletto, but you’re a Moretti now, and we take care of family. Always.”

DANTE

Salvatore’s words hit places deep inside me. They reverberate and release another torrent of all of those chaotic, confusing feelings that have been chasing me for days no matter how hard I try to outrun them.

I never regretted what I did because I knew it was the right thing. Through five years behind bars and dozens of returned letters that my own parents refused to even open, I knew that if I could go back in time and take any of it back, I wouldn’t. No one else was going to protect Luis, not even Luis himself, so I did what I had to. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

Overnight I went from an idealistic teenager looking at the world through rose colored glasses to a jaded convict who saw things the way they really are. People do ugly, disgusting things and others sweep it under the rug because it’s easier to disown their own son than it is to believe the world could be such a nasty place. Or maybe on some level they already knew what was happening and the fact that I did something about it made it too hard to face themselves, so they just… didn’t.

But that’s not Salvatore.

No matter how hard I’ve tried over the years, he refuses to become one of the dark things. Sure, he kills people, he makes money in illegal ways, and his morals are calibrated to a different scale, but that’s only because he sees the world the way it is, the same way I do. I’ve taunted him in front of Lorenzo and the others, drugged him, held him at gunpoint, and demanded he marry me so I could feel safe, and even then, I acted like he was the one trying to force me into things I didn’t want. But here he is, with his thumb drawing little circles on the back of my neck to calm me down, looking at me like… like that … like I’m something special and precious. Like these warm, vulnerable, terrifying feelings building inside my chest might be okay.

“When we were at that diner on our way to Los Vespar, you didn’t mean sex, did you? You said the marriage had to be real and I thought you meant that you’d only do it if I let you fuck me. But that’s not what you meant, was it?”

He lets out a huff of laughter and kisses the top of my head, his breath ruffling my hair. “No, Angioletto, it’s not. Not that it hasn’t been an enjoyable benefit.”

I tilt my head, and he keeps peppering kisses down the side of my face. My heart beats even faster now than it did while I was telling him the truth about what happened. I swallow around a lump in my throat and try to breathe around the too-big feeling in my chest, shifting on his lap so I can see him better. I straddle his legs and bring my hand to his face again, resting it there and searching his eyes for any sign that he’s lying, that this is some kind of trick I’ll only feel stupid and betrayed over later. But he’s still just looking at me like I’m more than a stripper with an anger problem and a bad habit of breaking bones.

“You…” I lick my lips and measure my words. A little voice in the back of my head whispers that I could be wrong, that even if I’m right it doesn’t mean he won’t hurt me anyway. But then a louder voice drowns them out, the echo of Salvatore’s voice ringing in my ears like a shout.

“ Haven’t you figured it out yet, Angioletto? I would do anything for you. ”

I lean closer until I can feel his warm breath on my lips, and I rest my forehead against his.

“You love me,” I whisper, certainty flooding me as soon as the words leave my mouth.

He laughs again, sliding his hands up my back and under my shirt to pull me even closer until his lips are less than an inch from mine and I have no doubt he can feel the little tremors ricocheting through my body.

“I do, Angel. I really do.”

I’m not sure if I finally close that last sliver of space between us or if he does, but the words are still reverberating on his tongue when our mouths crash together. Forget oxygen or food, forget everything, all I need to survive is Salvatore’s tongue snaking around mine, his hands on me like he owns me, and breathless moans caught between our lips.

“Fuck me,” I gasp. “Fill me up, take me apart, make me scream your name until my throat is raw and my voice is hoarse. Please, Sir, please, please, please .”

The animal sound that rumbles past his lips just before he pulls me in for another deep, tongue-heavy kiss raises goose bumps all over my heated skin and makes my cock swell and pulse with need.

“How can I deny you anything when you beg so nicely?” He nips at my chin. “Kneel facing the back of the couch,” he commands, with a little swat to my ass to get me moving.

I scramble to do what he says. I’ll be a mouthy, difficult brat again later because it’s fun and I know he likes it as much as I do, but this time, I just want to feel all of the promises he’s made that I haven’t listened to until now imprinted on my skin with every touch and kiss.

I kneel like he said, with my arms folded on the back of the couch, careful not to overextend my healing shoulder. He slides his hands under my shirt again, pushing it up, then drags a line of open-mouthed kisses down the length of my spine, leaving damp spots cooling on my skin and sparking electricity in my nerve endings by alternating sharp nips and greedy licks in an indiscernible pattern. My legs tremble and my cock aches as he works his way down without any hint of urgency.

“I’m glad we finally understand each other, Angioletto,” he murmurs, reaching around to trail his fingers along my belly as he kisses me. “I was starting to worry that I might have to tie you to my bed to keep you from running straight to the lawyer to file for a divorce once this whole thing is settled.” He reaches my nipples with his fingers while he dips his tongue into the little dimples at the base of my spine. “And make no mistake, I had no intention of ever letting you go.”

The shiver that runs through me has as much to do with the tease of his fingertips over my peaked, aching nipples as it does the comforting bondage of his promise. I’m his… and he’s mine. He’ll fight any monsters I need him to, and he’ll love all of the beautiful, terrifying, dark parts of me for the rest of our lives. And I’ll do the same for him. Always .

His featherlight touch on my nipples turns into a sharp tug that drags a moan from my throat and makes my cock drool.

“Please,” I gasp.

His chuckle is dark and teasing this time, and I’m fucking living for it. He tugs on my nipples again and the sharp ache goes straight to my cock. There’s a sweet kind of torture in giving all of myself to Salvatore. My heart, my soul, my body, my pleasure. It’s all his now, and if he decides to break me, all I’ll do is beg for more because I know he’ll never hurt me in ways I don’t want.

A constant stream of whimpers and whines fall from my lips, my hips jerking helplessly as he takes his time teasing and pinching my nipples. By the time he draws his hands down my belly again, my nipples feel puffy and oversensitive, rubbing against my rucked-up shirt. I’m wearing the shorts I bought at that tourist trap in the desert with nothing underneath. He hums in approval as he tugs them down around my thighs, a strand of precum clinging to them.

Without my shorts there’s no friction at all on my throbbing cock, but that doesn’t stop my hips from jerking in the vain hope of some relief. Salvatore nudges my legs apart, and my eyes roll back at the hot puff of his breath against my ass cheeks.

“Oh, please, Sir, lick me, get me all wet and soft with your tongue and then fuck me until I can’t even remember my own name. Please,” I pant, shoving my ass towards him shamelessly.

He palms my ass cheeks, parting them to let a gust of cool air hit my already twitching hole. The chill is quickly replaced with another one of his hot breaths, this time right over my sensitive pucker. I can feel the humidity of his mouth, his fingers bruisingly hard on my ass cheeks, the teasing scrape of his stubble against the sensitive skin of my crease.

“Tell me you love me.” The words are quiet, but the command in them thunders in my ears.

Of course I love him. I was falling in love with him long before I was ready to let myself see it. But the bratty part of me I’m finally ready to acknowledge is dying to know how he plans to torture the information out of me if I don’t answer him right away.

“Sal,” I whine, wiggling my ass.

He growls and notches the dry pad of his thumb against my rim.

“If you want my tongue, beautiful, just say the words.” He presses a little harder, making the sensitive skin of my hole burn with the friction of it.

“I want your tongue.” Even breathless and so horny I can hardly think, an impish laugh bursts from my lips.

Salvatore growls again. “Not those words.”

He pushes his thumb inside and I wail, clenching around the unlubed sting of the invasion while simultaneously arching my back in the hope of getting his thumb deeper. My cock bobs and dribbles, splattering droplets of precum all over the back cushion of the leather couch. He hooks his thumb on the bottom edge of my rim and tugs just a little, drawing another gasp from my throat. And then I hear the metallic clang of his belt buckle, the whirr of his zipper, the rustle of his clothes.

“If you think threatening to fuck me dry is a punishment and not an enticement, you don’t know me as well as I thought.” I clench around his thumb again.

He lets out another one of those rumbling chuckles. “Oh no, Angel. If you can’t either safeword or tell me what I already know is true, I’ll just get off myself to the pretty sight of your tight little hole around my thumb, and you can spend the night with blue balls.”

I whine and cant my hips again, managing to get his thumb to barely brush my prostate and tug at my rim a little more.

“Lick me first and then I’ll say it.”

His belt buckle rattles again, and he lets out a groan. Is he really jerking himself off?

“It’s not a negotiation.” The head of his cock bumps against the back of my thigh and I can feel the bunch of his foreskin as he strokes himself. “Last chance. Tell me what I want to hear.”

My cock spasms, threatening to get off just from the sound of Salvatore touching himself and the teasing pressure of his thumb inside me.

“Fuck, Salvatore. I love you. I loved you when I still thought you were like everyone else, I loved you when I raged at you and accused you of trying to have your way with me, and I fucking love you now.”

He groans louder and for a second I wonder if he just came with his hand on his own cock listening to my messy, imperfect declaration. But then his mouth is on me. He laps at my hole with his hot, wet tongue, thrusting his thumb deeper with his saliva easing the sting. He sucks and nibbles on my rim, then shoves his tongue inside me alongside his thumb, feasting on me, devouring me, making me sloppy with his spit running down to my balls.

“I love you,” I pant, rocking my hips to grind against his face. “I love you. I love you.”

He growls and moans, each sound vibrating against my rim and tightening around my balls. And then his tongue and his thumb are both gone, leaving me achingly empty, babbling pleas and broken whimpers until I feel the press of his cockhead where I need it most.

He reaches around me and wraps his hand around my shaft.

“Oh fuck,” I groan.

“Don’t you dare come before I’m inside of you,” he warns, stroking me with one hand while he plucks at my nipples again with the other, playing me like I’m his favorite instrument, one that can only pant and beg and cry his name with the right flick of his fingers or twist of his wrist.

My whole body quakes and I clench my teeth against the orgasm that draws closer and closer to the surface. A steady stream of precum gushes from my cock with every stroke now, and Salvatore loosens his grip, slides his hand up around my crown, and gathers the slick offering into his palm. And then his hand disappears altogether and I hear the distinct wet sound of his hand on his own cock.

I moan again and before I’ve even finished the sound, he presses forward to fill me.

“You’re mine, sweet Angel.” The hoarseness in his voice is at odds with the gentleness of his words as he digs his fingers into my hips and slams home in a single deep stroke. “Mine to protect, mine to love, mine to pleasure and tease and worship.” He punctuates each declaration with a jarring thrust.

I’m nothing but a deliriously blissful rag doll slumped over the back of the couch, held up by Salvatore’s hands on me and animated by the hard rhythm of his cock plunging deep inside me over and over again, dragging over my prostate with each thrust, grinding against my fluttering rim again and again.

“I won’t ever let you go.” He kisses the back of my neck the same way he did along my spine, hot and wet and claiming.

“Never,” I murmur in a daze. “Till death do us part.”

“That’s right, Angioletto.” He grunts with satisfaction and nudges my legs even wider with his knees so he can fuck me deeper. “Till death do us part. Now come on my cock like I know you’re desperate to.”

As if his permission is the only thing my body needed, a violent shudder racks me and my inner muscles clench tight around him, sending shockwaves of dizzying pleasure through me. I think I scream his name, but I’m too far gone to even know. I’m nothing but sparking nerve endings and putty in Salvatore’s hands, my cum painting the couch in thick white stripes as my release goes on and on, bolstered by his stroking hands and his cock still moving inside me.

When I’m sure there isn’t another drop of cum left in my balls, he groans, low and guttural, and his cock starts to pulse inside me. The hot flood of his release sets off another round of gasping, clawing pleasure as my cock spasms and jerks with nothing left to shoot. And then I slump forward, my lungs burning and my muscles nothing but jelly.

Salvatore holds me up until his cock slips out, and a gush of cum rushes down the backs of my thighs. The couch isn’t exactly made for people to lie down, but that doesn’t stop him from finding a way to arrange me on top of him, my softening cock against his, sweaty skin against sweaty skin, and my head on his shoulder.

There are things I still want to say to him, and I’m sure he still has questions of his own, but my eyelids get heavy, and the steady rhythm of his breaths quickly lulls me to sleep.