“I came about someone else,” I say as he slides two fingers into me. My mouth opens involuntarily. Nothing comes out but an ahh of bliss.
“Did you?” He removes his fingers and takes out his cock.
I look over my shoulder at it. It’s as hard as promised. Long as a club, already diamond tipped.
“Her name was Rosemarie Palmeri. Where is—”
“Stay still while I fuck you.” He pushes my face into the plexiglass and puts his head at my entrance. “I stop for a Skylark.”
That’s my word. Skylark. Saying that will make him stop. Maybe Palmeri will understand I’m being given an emergency brake, but the fact is, he’ll ignore anything that doesn’t have to do with his daughter.
I have to resist to be convincing. That’s how I’ll gain the power to free us.
“No…” I can tell I don’t mean it. “Don’t!”
Our eyes meet in the glass’s reflection. I nod slowly. He thrusts into me, closing his eyes for a split second. For that moment, he’s relieved. He’s powerful and free enough to be vulnerable and captive. But then he opens his eyes, takes my hips, and drives deep.
“You’re my fucking property. In here. Out there. I can do whatever I want to you.”
“Get off me!” I make a half-hearted attempt to shake him off, but he only holds me tighter, fucking me as though he’ll never be able to do it again.
“Your lying little cunt is so fucking tight.”
“Please just tell me if she’s alive.”
“Stay still and take it like I taught you.”
“Rosemarie Pa—” He pounds me so hard I lose the rest of the name.
“I own you. They can kill me. This body is still mine.”
“You’re hurting me!” I cry it as if it’s true.
He pulls me back by the hair and looks me in the eye. “What car did you drive here, you fucking slut?”
A Skylark. A 1970 Buick Skylark. But I’m not even close to answering that question correctly, because this is the only way.
“Is she alive?” I ask defiantly.
He slaps my ass so hard it echoes with the throb of the blood in my veins.
“What do you say?” He slaps me again. “When I give you what you need, what do you say?”
“Thank you.”
He slaps me on the other side. It burns, but not as hot as where he’s inside me.
“This feels so fucking good.”
“No. It doesn’t.” I flail, twisting and punching behind me, but he holds me still.
“Didn’t ask your opinion. Stay still and take my cock.”
“No!” I cry when I want to say yes. “I’m just trying to help you.”
“Didn’t ask for that either.”
“It hurts.” I try not to coo or groan.
“Doesn’t it, though.” He’s cruel and careless, going deeper with each thrust. “Show me how a Colonia bitch takes it.” With that, he buries himself to the root, gripping the flesh of my hips tightly enough to rhythmically force me into him and away as if I’m the one doing the fucking.
“Where is she?” I ask as I lose control of my thoughts.
“When I fuck you like this, you remember why you even exist.”
All I do is grunt in answer. I am built for him to grab. I am clay, molded into the shape of his hands. I am his wetness. My insides are molded to fit his cock.
“Show them how you come.” He slaps my ass again. “Show them who you belong to.”
The orgasm has the speed of a slap in the face and the power of a freight train. It’s my toes, my scalp, and everything in between. I pulse around his dick as if my body is trying to swallow it.
“Good,” he murmurs, breaking character. “Good girl.”
He lets go of my hips and bends at the waist, putting his hands on top of mine, pushing so deep I can feel him empty into me. With his lips at my shoulder, his breaths come in the rhythm of his pleasure.
With the curtain of desire whipped away, the question I came with floods in like sunlight.
“Is it her? Is it my mother?”
“Yes.”
But his finger taps on the back of mine.
668437
In silence, I picture the back of my hand as a keypad, and he taps it again.
668437
NOT HER
I choke out a sob of relief. There has to be more to it, but this is enough. I believe him. I shouldn’t. He has too many reasons to lie to me, but he’s telling the truth.
“Lissey,” he whispers. It sounds like a simple hiss, but it’s a name I remember. Connor’s sister. The one who was stolen and shipped here in a container ship. She died, or was killed, and buried in a dress my mother made.
When Dario pulls out of me. I almost fall, but he holds me up and tugs my underwear back into place. I stand, turn, straighten myself.
He looks up at the camera. “Rosemarie’s alive. That’s all I’m telling you, doc.”
He turns back to me. I have so much to tell him that I don’t have time to tap onto an imaginary keyboard. I love him. And choofing off. And Oria in the trunk of Sergio’s car. And I love him.
But I don’t have enough time for any of it before the door opens.
It’s Massimo.
“You buried one of ours. You just signed your death warrant, Lucari.”
CHAPTER 18
SARAH
“No questions,” Massimo says. “No excuses.”
“Watching your sister while she’s alone with her husband is weird.”
He stops, turns on me with his finger raised. “I didn’t watch. I came in to stop him from hurting you.”
“He wasn’t.”
“I don’t want to talk about it. This isn’t going to work. None of it.”
“You can’t kill him. He’s my husband.”
“Not if I annul you. I can do it, Sarah. I have to.”
He’s right and I know it. My consent isn’t required.
He doesn’t say another word to me on the way up to the church. I have to gather my skirts and rush after him with Dario dripping down my leg. He hands me off to Nelson and stalks off with a dark cloud over his head.
I retreat to the bathroom to clean up, trying to calm myself. Sitting on the toilet, I turn the scene over in my head, but I can’t organize it.
Death warrant?
Because Rosemarie’s alive? Or because he didn’t say where she was?
Or for fucking me? Or the violence of it?
What have I done?
How long do I have to fix whatever this is?
Will they tell me before they kill him?
I flush. A loud scraping and rumble comes from the street below. The frosted window is cracked a few inches for ventilation. The sun is casting the sky in new blue and the traffic is heavier. The cold air hits my face as I scan the street and find the source of the noise.
A sanitation truck with a payload of brooms and solvents is parked by the frilly post. A man pushes a scraper on the end of a pole and shaves off the flyers. They peel down like dead skin.
A man turns the corner with a swagger and a sling I recognize.
Connor.
While his usual pole is occupied, he waits against the wall. The hot pink gallery opening flyer and the white note I taped over it are lost in the scraped fold of tape and paper layers.