Page 35 of Deal with the Devil
I rip it off my face and toss it on the ground along with the pair of brass knuckles. Both hit the ground at the same time, the knuckles with a tinny sound.
I don’t know what to say or what to think anymore.
Except this feels like some fucked up experiment. Some joke being pulled on me that I’m not in on.
There’s an abrupt knock on the door and it flies open only half a second later. Maurizio strides inside holding a phone.
“Don Vito pretende di parlarti. Non accetterà un no come risposta.”
I swallow against the tightness in my throat, then snatch the phone out of Maurizio’s hands. “Don Vito, sono qui. Mi scuso per non averti chiamato ultimamente.”
“È una novità per te evitarmi? Ti comporti come un re.”
“So chi è il capo della famiglia. Non ho sempre fatto come mi hai chiesto? Non sto forse portando grandezza all’impero Bellucci?”
“Sì, ma tu porti il peso della maschera,” he wheezes. “È pesante e pochi uomini possono sopportarla. Ho sentito cose su di te.”
“I can handle it!” I snarl at him in sudden English. “Who else if not me, huh? Your nephew? Let’s not forget what a fucking failure he was!”
“Rafael—”
“NO!” I bark over him. “It’s time you show me some fucking respect. I’m the best you have, and you and everybody else in this damn family knows it. I’ve got millions flowing in, more than this family’s ever seen, thanks to my operation. You are a bumbling, old, senile fool in failing health far past your prime, so out of touch you don’t know what the hell is going on. So here’swhat’s going to happen: you’re going to stay the fuck out of my way. Or I’ll show you just how fast the hand that feeds you starts slicing throats.”
Don Vito meets my violent threat with lengthy silence. He gives me no other reaction than his wheezing breaths.
I know better than to think he’s surprised by the outburst.
It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve exploded like this. He’s known about my temper for as long as he’s known me.
“Hai finito?” he asks finally. “Oppure vorresti urlare ancora un po’?”
My teeth grind against each other as I clutch the cellphone to my ear and start pacing the cell. “Mi hai chiamato. Cosa vuoi, se non dirmi che non ce la faccio più?”
“Lei sta creando problemi e tu ti lasci accecare. E ti chiedi perché preferisco lui.”
“Why do you always speak in fucking riddles?” I snap again.
“Questo è un lavoro per lui. Non per te.”
Don Vito hangs up on me even more abruptly than he has in the past. I release a roar loud enough to reverberate through the room as I throw the phone at the wall and smash it into pieces.
It feels like nothing more than another blink of an eye amd I’m in my bathroom, fresh off a shower, wiping steam from the mirror and staring at the dark gaze of the man that looks back at me.
He has my face. He has every sharp, large, Sicilian feature of mine.
But yet there’s something…differentabout him.
His eyes are too black, too hollow. His lips twitch without permission, stretching into a menacing half-grin that feels like a taunt.
I lean closer, tension cording through me. My hand bunches into a fist. The urge rises inside me to smash it against the glass, just so I could wipe that grin off his fucking face.
But he only grins wider. He outright mocks me,daringme to do it.
It takes a deep level of restraint to resist. I back away from the mirror and then stalk out of the bathroom, expecting to enter my bedroom. Instead I’m walking into the hotel suite at the Echelon. The present falls away from me, splintering off for a moment from the past.
I’m planted back into that night, where Portia had disappeared. The room’s dark, the lights off, as her retreating form starts for the door on the other side.
It’s late. It can’t be any earlier than two, three in the morning. What the fuck is she doing slipping out of the room like this?
