44

Joey
Sophie puts her hands on her hips, looking even hotter when she’s mad. Her long legs jut out of her short khaki skirt at an impudent angle. She tosses her thick, glossy brown hair, sending the layers fanning out over her shoulders in soft waves.
“But it is-it’s my car, and it’s my life. What favor are you going to demand in return?”
Ouch. Damn, that hurts. Can’t I just be helping to be a gentleman?
Fine. I’ll play her game. “Three dates.”
She blinks. “What?”
“I pay off your car, and you go on three dates with me.” I was going to say one date, but then I decided that wasn’t enough. Sophie’s going to take a little finessing, and I want to be sure I give myself enough time to win her over.
I throw her a challenging look.
I already decidedeven before she got frisky with me in the treatment roomI decided the moment I walked in today and saw how beautiful that gangly teenager turned out-Sophie Palazzo is mine.
She may not know it yet, but she will. Soon.
I know I have some barriers to overcome.
Judging from her tepid reception and long absence from family events, Sophie has a beef with the Family. No surprise-her mother, who was not Sicilian, always hated La Cosa Nostra. Sophie seemed almost afraid when I showed up, like she thought she had something to fear from me. And like any good Sicilian (or half Sicilian in her case), she covers her fear with piss and vinegar.
Which I fucking love. Sophie’s a spitfire, and one with a little complexity. The challenge of winning her holds a fuck-ton of appeal. There’s something about her that is both familiar and exotic. She grew up in the culture of the Family but rejected it. She, like her mom, seems to think she’s better than us. So despite the fact she’s working a service job and almost had her car repossessed, she gives off the vibe that she thinks she outclasses me.
Which is exactly what makes me determined to get her under my thumb.
Her mouth opens and shuts once without sound. “I don’t date clients.”
I tip my head toward the treatment room. “You just screw them?”
It’s a low blow. I wouldn’t have said it except the idea that she has done that with another guy suddenly turns me into a jealous beast. I want to hunt down every male client she’s ever touched and shove his balls up his ass.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen!” she protests, her face flushing.
I spread my hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I know. And I take partial responsibility. But I didn’t come here to bend you over that table and get my dick wet. I really came for my back. Which is worse now, thanks to your little cocktease in there.” I’m not actually such a pussy; I’m just pushing her buttons.
It seems to work because guilt flitters across her face. “Yeah, I noticed your muscles tensed back up. I’ll give you another massage, no charge.”
“No deal. I asked for three dates. Your car paid in full for three dates with me. Is that such a hardship?”
She exhales. “I’m sure you can buy sex from someone else for a lot cheaper than that.”
I inch closer, invading her personal space and loving when she doesn’t step back. I slide a hand over her hip. “Well, I didn’t say anything about sex, but I’m thrilled it’s on the table. You’re a hot fuck, Soph.” I watch another shade of pink bloom under her olive skin. “The bargain was just for the dates, though.”
“Three dates-no sex?” Her voice wavers. She looks at me under long lashes, her eyes pale green, the color of cash.
“The first one, tomorrow night.”
“That’s it? Three dates, and you’ll pay off my car.” She sounds like she doesn’t believe me.
“I swear on the life of my mother.”
She blinks. Her eyes are dilated like she’s turned on by the way I’m holding her up against my body. “Well.” She swallows. “Okay.”
My inner celebration is tempered by the fact that I hate how nervous she seems about it. As if she committed to dating a viper rather than a guy she just gave a happy ending to.
“Seven o’clock. I’ll pick you up. Text me your address.” I pull out a couple hundred dollar bills for the massage and hand them to her, pressing my cheek against hers for a kiss.
“Thank you,” she mumbles as I leave, strutting to my BMW like I just scored a date with the prom queen. Sophie Palazzo is all grown up. She was hot as a teenager, but now she’s the proverbial brick house.
If I’d known she turned out this hot, I would’ve come to claim her sooner.
My older brother Al calls me as I’m driving home.
“What’s up?”
“Meet me at Angelo’s,” Al orders, referring to the Italian coffee shop that’s been a Family haunt for the past forty years.
Fuck. “Be right there.”
I drive to Angelo’s and plop down across from Al at an outdoor patio table. Valentina, the old woman who runs the shop, brings over a double espresso without me asking. Like most of the old haunts in our neighborhood, the LaTorre’s own the place on paper, although Valentina and her husband still run it. This is one of the many businesses I launder our cash through.
“Thank you, Valentina.”
She sets a plate of cannoli in front of Al, who is there alone.
“What’s going on?” I ask when she’s out of earshot.
Al’s been my boss since about the day I was born. He’s my half-brother, fifteen years older, which makes him more of a parent than a sibling, and he’s always been the one who rode me the hardest-harder than our father, even.
Al made sure I beat the shit out of any neighborhood kid who stood up to me before I even started kindergarten. Al taught me the rules of the street. The rules of vengeance. The rules of crime. The rules of death and honor. Al was my capo when our father was still alive, had ordered my first hit, and sponsored me to be “made” when I was only seventeen.
“Stan Matranga bought a house here in Forest Hill.” Al inhales a cannoli in one bite.
The Matrangas are the other organization in Jersey, and the two families have been in a constant state of chess with each other for the past fifteen years. Strategizing about the game is, actually, one part of my job I enjoy. Al listens to me first, over Vito, his underboss, or Carlo, his protege from Sicily.
“Oh yeah? You paid a visit yet?”
“No, I’m sending you.”
Well, fuck.
This is not a part of the job I relish. I’m the money guy. I handle accounting. Wash the cash receipts, and try to make everything look legit. I don’t want to handle the actual threats on the street.
I’m not the enforcer.
I’m sure Al knows I hate this shit, yet he orders me into the fray anyway.
I keep my face blank and nod. I don’t know why he doesn’t send Carlo, who loves conflict. But, of course, Al’s grooming me to take over as don if something happens to him. I have to be his second-in-command. Not to mention the fact that Al’s life goal is to make sure I’m not a pussy, a suspicion he seems to have held ever since he noticed I preferred sharing my toys to fighting over them.
“All right. I’ll stop by and ask what the fuck he’s doing in our neighborhood.”
“Good. You want to bring back-up?”
I consider. I’ll be visiting as an emissary, which means it’s doubtful I’ll get whacked. I might get beat up, but knocking off the boss’s brother would start a war. Of course, moving into Forest Hill was a shot across the bow, so maybe they wanted war. “I’ll go alone.”
Al considers me. I hold steady under the gaze. Now that I accepted the job without flinching, I suspect Al’s worried about me. This is always the way with him-he throws me to the lions, and then he paces beside the pit until I come out safe and sound.
It’s one constant test after the next.
“Is that all?”
Al sits back and shrugs. “You in a rush?”
“Course not.”
He unwraps a cigar and lights it.
“I went to see Sophie Palazzo today.” I don’t know why I shared it with him. Small talk, I guess. Or because the taste of her is still on my tongue.
“Yeah? How is she?” I realize Al sent me to Sophie as a check-in. A message to her, perhaps that one never leaves La Famiglia.
Now that I see it in that light, her reactionher stiffness and almost resentment at seeing me again make sense. So does her torture on the table.
“She’s good. Happy to see me. Warm,” I lie. I don’t want Al up in Sophie’s business again. She doesn’t deserve that. I will do my part and make sure she’s not a threat, but I want her off Al’s watch list right now.
“Did it help? The massage, I mean?”
The muscles in my low back twinge as I shift in my seat, but I say, “Definitely.”
Because I would take ten herniated disks for another round with Sophie Palazzo. I’m that satisfied.
And that hungry for more…