Page 14 of Roque

CHAPTER FIVE

CHLOE SITS FOR A MINUTE when she finishes.

“Are you scared of me? Think less of me?”

She bites her lip. “No. I think more. You saved her. You knew if you didn’t, they would’ve killed her.”

“Don’t give me so much credit. I craved the power. …and I did kill her. I felt her heart stop beating in my hands and her lungs exhale fighting to find air. When she fell limp in my arms, I rushed her into the back of the limo and pressed my mouth to hers trying to breathe back the life into her that I had just took.”

“See? You keep deluding yourself into thinking you’re the villain, when you really wanted to do the right thing.”

“I’ve never done the right thing. We’re barely into the story.”

“Well, it is kinda gross how you lost your V card to a hooker.”

“Men don’t have V- cards. But you better still have yours,” I warn. “For at least ten more years.”

“Ten?” She squeaks.

“If not more. I’ll cut anyone who tries to get near you, Chloe.”

She swallows hard. “I know. But you don’t need to worry. Sex terrifies me.”

“That’s just because some old fuck tried to take it from you. Did I mention I’m sending you to an all-girls boarding school?”

She rolls her eyes. “What happened next? When did you become this big, bad, mafia king?”

“Are you sure you want to keep going? I’ve never told anyone my complete life story…”

She rests her chin in her hands, “I’ve never heard anything more fascinating. Well, you could’ve left out the sex part. But it’s not like it shocked me much. I saw my first dick when I was six. My birth mom sobered up for a bit just so she could use me to get food stamps and state checks which of course she spent getting high. Anyway, she made extra on the side by giving blowies for twenty bucks. Some nights she had a line.”

“I’ll hunt her down and kill her myself.”

“She already took care of that. My social worker informed me she overdosed a few years ago.”

I shake my head at how she’s so young, but yet so old. Nothing fazes Chloe but things can still frighten her.

“You need to understand. I don’t want you to be afraid of sex, I just don’t want you to have any for a long, long, time. Wait for a man who knows how to make it good.”

“Gross. Are you, Roque Salvatore, seriously turning this into some kind of sex-pep talk? On with the story of your ill-fated love. Wait! Where is she now? Did she marry someone else? Is that why you’re so broody? Pacing the penthouse floors all night?”

“As if I’d ever let another man put a band of gold around her finger.”

“Well? What’s the deal? Why don’t you have the girl?”

“Something got in our way?”

“Something? Someone? Or your big, fat, stupid, ego?”

A wry smile ghosts my lips, “A bit of both. Fine back to my life story… I left Palermo. There was nothing for me there anymore. Despite the easy smiles made over cigars and bourbon, the other families moved in. It was an easy takeover. The remaining syndicates broke up Palermo into three pieces, each of them taking what they wanted. Only the Don of the Castellione’s tried to intercede and leave me a small piece of my own empire, but in the end even he rolled. But he did do me one solid. He secured my family’s assets and set it aside. Or so I had thought. Little did I know it came with strings… but we’ll get to that later. The house was closed, bank accounts secured, and he had me escorted personally to Constantine Castellione.

The man was a mafioso legend.

In Italy he was synonymous to the American’s Capone. The man is eviler than ten demons walking through hell and I handpicked him to make me one. Only I wanted to walk the earth. I wanted to die an old man. And that wasn’t going to be easy, not when destiny still called me to do more than just dick around in Italy. I always had bigger plans for the future of the Salvatore’s. America.”

I turn the page of my own journals and start reading how I felt. My past comes hurtling at me like a runaway car.

“It was only me in the back of the limo. So, there was no one to see my white knuckles or lump forming in my throat.

Despite my bravado, I knew I wasn’t half as evil as I needed to be. I was a baby villain wearing Pampers compared to what I must become. Constantine was the only person alive who could do it. No matter what he commanded I must obey. If I didn’t. I might as well give up and let the hit that was put on me come to pass. I’d never age. Never grow up, never live.”

“That’s so heavy. Life in the mob. You were my age?”

“Yes. I was fifteen when I entered Constantine’s house and by the time I left him at sixteen, I felt I’d ages six thousand years instead of one.” I pick up my drink and continue reading my own words describing the personal hell I had placed myself in…

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