His hair is wet and his body clean, little droplets of water clinging to his skin where he washed, lit up by the golden light filtering into the bedroom from the open bathroom door. He glances at me as if to check if I’m sleeping before he drops the towel and turns to the dresser. He has a scar on his side, above his hip, and if I had to guess, I’d say it’s less than a year old. It looks like another bullet wound, though he didn’t correct me when I said today was his first. It makes me wonder because I thought he was new to the Life. I watch the curve of his ass, how nicely muscled his butt is, the strong, lean muscles of his thighs. When he turns away from the dresser, I can just see the shape of his cock hanging down, and it makes fireworks explode inside my belly.
I had that inside my mouth. Warmth shimmers through my lower belly, and my mouth puckers with saliva just looking at the shape of it. Even when it’s not hard, I can see he’s big. And not just big, but nice looking, all smooth and straight and well-groomed. I wish the light was on, that I could see more. I know I shouldn’t, that I’m spying, but it makes my heart race in a familiar, exciting way. It’s all I can do not to let out a sigh of disappointment when he pulls on a pair of sweats, wincing when he drags them up over his injured thigh.
A minute later, he sinks onto the edge of the bed and strokes my hair back with his good hand. “Eliza?” he whispers. “You awake?”
I don’t move, don’t answer. I let my lids relax closed so he won’t see a glint between my lashes. My heart is beating so loud in my ears I think he’ll hear it, that he’ll know I’m awake, that I was watching, that butterflies are swarming in my belly and warmth coiling beneath it. I want to scream in frustration. I want him, but I hate him. I hate that I want him. I hate that I want him to want me. And more than that, to respect me, admire me, and praise me. I want his approval. Even though he took over and fucked my face earlier, humiliated me at the end by making me lick the cum off him, it still turned me on. That’s how fucked up I am.
And beyond all that, I hate that I can’t just ask for what I want. I can’t tell him how hot it makes me when he tells me what to do, when he forces me to do it. If I told him, he’d stop. So I have to just keep poking him, pissing him off and making him hate me more, just to get what I want. Which isn’t freedom or for him to leave me alone. It’s for him to prove he cares, to prove I’m worth something. He said I was worthless, but if I was, he wouldn’t keep trying. He wouldn’t keep coming back to me because he can’t help himself any more than I can help myself from responding to it, craving it.
He stands beside the bed a long moment, watching me pretend to sleep. Then he leans down and presses his lips gently to my forehead. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m so fucking sorry about everything.”
I can’t tell him that I don’t want him to be sorry, that I don’t want him to stop. I don’t even want him to feel bad about the way he treats me. I want more. But I can’t ask for it, at least not with words. I’m only learning what I need as he gives it, and maybe, if I’m lucky, he’ll learn, too. Without me having to tell him, to ask for what I want, to spill my fucked up past with its ugly secrets, he’ll learn to be a good husband—and make me a good wife.
sixteen
King
“I haven’t found a couple of them,” Little Al says. “They haven’t released their names because the cops haven’t talked to their families, but we’ve got some inside intel, and three of them were on the news. They’re from the Bronx, and they obviously weren’t our men, which means they’re Anthony’s.”
“Why would they attack us right after they made a marriage pact?” I ask. “It doesn’t make sense.”
He shrugs. “Had to be a setup. They were trying to get Al. You’re lucky you got out alive. Both of you.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Is he looking into the other guys?”
“No point, really. They’re from Anthony’s territory.”
“I might look into it,” I say. “There’s gotta be a reason.”
“I know a guy over there,” he says. “I’ll ask around. But Al thinks it’s them, so there’s really no point.”
“Thanks.” I’m at a disadvantage in every fucking thing because I didn’t grow up here. I don’t know anyone outside Manhattan unless they’re related to me. But at least my family has connections—we’ve got a barber, a cop, and a lawyer on my dad’s side. Of course, we’ve got the whole Valenti family on my ma’s side, including Little Al, who’s a distant cousin to me.
We do our rounds, collecting money, breaking fingers, and report back to Uncle Al just before I head home. I hate that I have to ask my own doorman if anyone is at my place, but I don’t want to wind up with a bullet in my brain, either. I thought Eliza and I made a sort of peace last night, but today blew that all to hell. Now that I’ve confirmed that the attack was most likely the Pomponios, I don’t know what I’ll walk into at home. It would be nice if I could trust my own wife to be on my side, but it’s not like I’ve given her a reason to want me around. I guess I should be glad she doesn’t cook, so I don’t have to wonder if my food is poisoned every night.
When I ask if anyone’s been up today, the doorman nods. “The usual.”
I stew all the way up to the apartment. After last night, I thought we might make progress. I thought I’d figured out a bit of what Eliza needs, and that maybe she was accepting it as well. She didn’t fight it when I was forceful with her. She asked me not to hurt her before, so I didn’t, but I didn’t let her get her way this time. She was dripping wet for it, and afterwards, she rewarded me by using her expertise to patch up my bullet wounds.
Maybe she just brought Bianca over after lunch today. She’s definitely one of the usuals.
I turn the key in the lock and push the door open, only to be hit with a wave of nauseating chemical smell. When I step into the living room, I’m greeted with the usual, extravagant mayhem. Eliza is lounging sideways over a chair, he dress riding so high up I can see half her ass. A dozen other girls and a couple guys sit around on pillows or the couch, wine glasses next to most of them. They’ve set up what looks like a salon in our living room.
Nail polish bottles, cotton balls, and bottles of remover sit all over the coffee table. A bottle of remover lays toppled on the hardwood in a pool of liquid. Blue nail polish is smeared over the surface of the coffee table, a few drops running slowly down the stainless-steel leg. Lotions, glues, and a dozen other products are strewn around the room—the little foam things girls use to separate their toes, lava stones, packages of fake nails, something that looks like colored sand, salt scrubs, essential oils, and things I can’t begin to identify.
Music thuds through the room as I stand there thinking I can’t win. It never ends. This girl is going to push me over the edge. After spending the day looking over my shoulder, not knowing if someone is after me and if they’ll make another attempt on my life, not knowing if I’ll be able to respond quickly enough with a thigh that hurts like the devil himself is lancing it every time I move and a bandage on my shoulder, I come home to this shit. The same as every other fucking day.
She promises to do better, to hire a maid, to contribute, only to go back to her hedonistic extravagance the next day like it never happened. Every time we take a step forward, it’s erased the very next day when she steps back into her chosen world, the one where she’s a pampered princess who gives zero fucks about anyone but herself.
Why can’t she go to one of their houses?
Of course, that wouldn’t work. She’s doing this shit on purpose. She wants me to know what she’s up to. She’s proving a point—that I can’t tell her what to do. That she will do whatever the fuck she pleases. She won’t keep her word, and she wants me to know it. She wants me to think she’s a terrible wife so I won’t expect her to fulfil the role the way anyone else would. She wants me to be afraid of what she’ll do, what sway she has with her father, what power she wields in our marriage.
Well, fuck that.
When she’s in my house, I’ll tell her what to do, and she’ll fucking do it. I won’t sleep with one eye open the rest of my life because I can’t trust my wife not to murder me, won’t order every dinner out so she won’t poison me. This shit has gone on way too fucking long, and I’m done.
I stride over and yank the plug from the wall, and the music comes to a thudding halt.