see him again. He’d barely been out of Chicago a day when I was antsy to talk to him, hear his voice.
I’m grateful he always answers when I call, something I’ve done every night. Not once has he sounded bothered by my call. A text comes through; it’s Luca asking if I’m still up.
We had parted after dinner, his girl moaning about the show he promised to take her to. I hadn’t wanted to be a third wheel, so I said I would retire early for the flight tomorrow. I respond to the text, telling him I am, that I’m out on the balcony.
Only minutes later, I hear him come into the suite he’d put me in. He’s in the penthouse of the hotel. It’s a nice place, run well. His people are happy and it’s clear he’s respected. He sits down across from me, a drink in his hand.
For a while, we simply sit. It’s nice and cool out here.
“I don’t mind when you call me,” he says quietly, his eyes on his drink.
“Good.” I sip to cover my smile. “Because I hadn’t planned on stopping.”
“Vegas is my home.”
An ache goes through me. I hadn’t been able to stop from voicing the suggestion he move to Chicago. He could take over my business. Dominic was more than fine with it. Now that he was underboss and would one day become Don, mine and his territory could become more cumbersome in all he would have to handle. Considering he was adamant he would father no children, one day the territory that had been Sabatini for over a hundred years would become someone else’s. I can’t lie and say it didn’t bother me.
“I understand. It would be a huge come down from this.” I motion around us to the city. “In the end, I want you to be where you are happiest. If you came to Chicago and you were miserable...” I shake my head. “I won’t ask that of you.”
“You couldn’t be more different from Mom if you tried. I tried not to hate her growing up. But in the last few weeks, the hate has grown more every day. She was there but not. Leaving me to my nanny, then resenting Marisa for being a mother in a way she wouldn’t be. It was like she couldn’t figure out what the hell she wanted to be. Then that bullshit suicide attempt when I was ten.” The growl is low in his throat as he remembers.
Fuck, I hate her for having done this to him.
Shaking his head, “Even as she lay down dying from the cancer five years ago. She couldn’t tell me about you. It was the last kindness she could have given me. Al and I didn’t have a relationship except business. I knew something wasn’t right about our relationship. Her weakness, her inability to just fucking be there...I’m glad she’s gone now.”
His bitterness causes a pang of guilt. I don’t want that for him, to resent his mother. “To say you would die for your children, for anyone. It’s bullshit. Dying, yeah, it’s scary. But it’s easy. There is nothing easier than letting go and slipping away. The living every day, getting up and making it from one minute, one hour to the next, that is love. I’m not going to say I wasn’t pissed.”
I run a hand over the back of my neck. “That if your mother wasn’t alive, I wouldn’t have wanted to kill her for keeping you from me. She did what she thought was right at the time. Understanding the mind of a woman,” I laugh bitterly. “I don’t think anyone will truly understand the way a woman thinks. Lay it down, that bitterness. I don’t want it eating at you.”
He’s quiet for a long time. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“You going to lay the bitterness down for your woman? It’s been five years, and still I feel it coming from you. I recognize it clearly from those years after Jackie.” He finishes the last of his drink.
Damn, he is my kid. “I’m trying. Maybe it will be easier if I ever get my hands on her again.”
“Hm, something tells me you will. Be careful you don’t hurt the both of you with that bitterness.”
15
Tony
She’s beautiful, with natural tits on her that make my cock hard. Her name is Amy, and she’s younger than I would have gone for in the past. I’m guessing mid-twenties. She came onto me and sat in my lap, teasing me about looking for a little girl. I told her I was willing to spank her ass if that’s what she wanted. It was what she deserved for sitting in the laps of strange men.
“You aren’t a strange man. I know who you are, Tony Sabatini. I’m a bad, bad girl. I’ll show you how bad,” she whispers in my ear. “I live in the building across the street.”
Cock hard, I follow her across the street. As she undresses, I want her. Yet when she pushes my jacket off, and her hands run over my chest, her hands are too small, too rough, with long fake nails I’ve never liked. Squeezing my eyes closed, I try to push the thought away. Christy isn’t fucking coming back. After five fucking years, I haven’t found her. I need to give up. My chest twists at the idea of giving up—a Sabatini doesn’t give up.
I catch her wrists in one hand. “I’m sorry, baby girl, not tonight.”
She groans. “I could make it so good, Tony.”
“I don’t doubt you could,” I assure her.
Leaving her, I head straight to Dominic’s club. I’m not giving up. If Valdez is as good as Dominic says he is, maybe he’s good enough to find Christy when the other men have failed.
At home with the number, I don’t know why I just stare at my phone. Dominic said I needed to be prepared for Valdez to find her. After all this time, right this minute, I’m not. If I allow myself to settle on the thought of her for too long rage fires hot and scalding inside.