Page 36 of Burn this City

“That’s not supposed to happen.”

The doc glanced back at Barsanti as if to check he was still breathing. “Now I don’t even want to know who he is, but that was one for the family album. Metaphorically, not actually. Of course.”

“Good job bringing him back.” Sal patted the doc’s shoulder. He tried to imagine what it would take to override one’s own survival instinct and failed. People could be driven to extreme places where they might jump out of a high-up window to escape a raging fire, but this was a totally different caliber. All the other instances where Barsanti had resisted paled into nothing, could have just been driven by pride. This though … “I guess we can give him a little rest and then put him in there again, just more carefully.”

“Not a great idea. He’s not out of the woods. He’s aspirated water, so there’s a chance the difficulties he’s having with his breathing will get worse. Secondary drowning is no joke.”

“What do you mean?”

“If this was a different situation, I’d send him for observation at the hospital, but with things being as they are, at the very least I wouldn’t let him anywhere near water. And keep an eye on him. Respiratory distress can get nasty very quickly. Drowning victims definitely need twenty-four hours to recover, forty-eight hours is better.” The doc shrugged with an “at least that’s the rules” expression.

“And in the meantime? Hook him up to a car battery?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it. That was a close call.”

Okay, so Sal had fucked up, but it wasn’t irrecoverable. Fine. They didn’t really have that much time, but they’d lose more if they had to go with an alternative plan. Barsanti was still the decisive factor, and Sal wasn’t going to accept that Andrea’s consigliere had bested him.

Not permanently, not from a position of such weakness. Watching Barsanti cough and suffer there on the floor, Sal wanted to punch something, somebody, and the adrenaline from earlier began to turn into acid in his veins.

Belatedly, he noticed Barsanti’s hands were free, but even so, the consigliere posed as much of a threat as a half-drowned kitten. He couldn’t tell whether those were tears running from the man’s closed eyes or just water, but if they were tears, they might be from purely physical misery. Barsanti didn’t even attempt to wipe them away.

Both the doc and Enzo looked at Sal expectantly.

Sal took another one of those blue-grey towels from the shelf, where they were stacked as tidily as for a photo shoot, unfolded it and placed it on Barsanti’s hands. The man didn’t respond, too trapped in what Sal assumed was either exhaustion or distress, or maybe both.

Sal could still feel the echo of Barsanti fighting him with the desperation and single-minded focus of a landed fish, and only now had a good idea of the man’s raw physical strength.

He’d wrestled others for fun and for sport, was a pretty competent grappler, when it came to that, but there was a metallic tang to Barsanti’s battle against him. He must have been sweating adrenaline, and maybe Sal felt a little guilty about how part of him had almost enjoyed this—not the fear, not the agony of drowning, not the coughing, definitely not. He wasn’t a sadist—blood and cruelty left him pretty cold.

The part he had enjoyed was feeling Barsanti’s power, the tension in his muscles, and the terrible intimacy of near-death. The water hadn’t exactly been warm, so the heat from the man’s struggling body had felt good against his own, and taking off his shirt had been a mistake, because he’d felt it more keenly, unfiltered. In fact, he’d been glad for the doc’s presence, which kept him on task, kept his timing on track, and also that the doc had stepped in when Barsanti’s act of desperation hadn’t just changed the game—it had flipped the table on which the game was played.

He walked over to the liquor cabinet in the living room, which held only a few but expensive bottles, mostly old whiskey. Sal didn’t have the palate for it, so he simply chose the bottle that had the least, reasoning that it might be a favorite, and added two fingers of the golden liquid to two heavy tumblers. Not the time to go easy. He tossed the whiskey back in one gulp, and appreciated the sharp, mellowing burn all the way to his stomach. And another sense memory of Barsanti bucking underneath him.Fuck.

He poured himself another finger of the whiskey and chased right after the first one. He should eat something more solid than coffee, whiskey and a waffle, but his hunger came from something else and he knew it.

“It’s not because he’s pretty?”

Shit, if Enzo asked him that question again right now, his answer wouldn’t be so glib. Worse, it’d lack conviction. Though it wasn’t because Barsanti waspretty. In this town and within driving distance, he could have any number of pretty faces, all ranges, all types, all genders. Most came for free, the others were within his budget. Pretty didn’t cover it. Pretty was skin-deep. Pretty didn’t mean a damn thing.

He’d known the game had changed when Beth had spilled Jack Barsanti’s secrets to him in an attempt to help his “boyfriend” understand him better. What he hadn’t anticipated was that it added another layer to his growing respect for the man.

“Meh. Straight guy rubbing one out. Not exactly thrilling stuff.”

Except Barsanti wasn’t straight, and was proving to be far more thrilling than Sal could have predicted. Maybe she shouldn’t, but he took Beth’s word for it. If Jack were straight, his restraint around her was impressive; she was hot in a vulnerable, sweet way that absolutely wasn’t Sal’s type, but he could see Barsanti with his cultured tastes developing some kind of Pygmalion fantasy around her.

Whatever Barsanti’s orientation was, he was apparently looking for a bride due to “family” pressure. So, had he committed some kind of indiscretion? Anything that made someone among the Lo Cascio think the consigliere wasn’t up to requirements? Was someone trying to blackmail or backstab him, and he sought to head this off at the earliest opportunity? It had to be something like that.

So, Jack, they’ll crucify you for what you’re sticking your dick into but you’re still willing to die for those fuckers?

He drew his shoulders up in a deep sigh, drank the last few drops that had gathered in the glass, then put it down in the kitchen on the way back to the bathroom, where Barsanti was now lying stretched out on his back, clutching the towel Sal had given him. The doc seemed to be finishing up an inspection of his wrists, and then stashed the stethoscope he’d used to check Barsanti’s lungs earlier.

“Anything, doc?”

“No damage to the wrists.” The doc stood and stepped aside. “Smart to tie him behind his back. Doesn’t seem like you pulled them too tight.”

That had been more of a habit. Catia was no longer there to rip into him, but she’d taught him proper restraint safety, and that recreational skill came in handy in his line of work.

What would she have made of Barsanti? Everything aside, if she hadn’t died, and if Barsanti weren’t who he was, would she have focused on Barsanti and fully analyzed and then repaired him like so many of her gallery of broken toys? “I know my restraints.”

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