“You made one hell of a splash last night, Bruno” says Antonio. I’m not sitting in the back of any liquor store today. I’m in a proper office, standing in the middle of a room that’s packed with shelves of thick books. The consigliere lives pretty well. I’ve heard he was a lawyer a while back, or maybe he still is.

We got the hell out of the house after I got that message, and I took Serena to Rafaela’s bar to lay low for the day. The guy who sent the message was one of ours. He must have assumed I’d go straight to one of our medics, because word of what happened at the junkyard spread fast.

It wasn’t long after I’d gotten Serena to safety that I’d been summoned here, to the consigliere’s own house.

This isn’t a grilling, though, not like last time. I’m not surrounded by other soldiers this time. There are only three people in this room, and all of them are way over my pay grade. Two of them are familiar faces: the consigliere and Diego, my capo. The third is a man even I’ve never met and only seen once.

Giacomo “Jackie” Pisano, the underboss. Where he goes, business is serious.

The consigliere is sitting in a leather armchair, but not behind the big desk in the room. Jackie is leaning on that, while Diego sulks by the window.

Jackie scrolls through his phone, his face hard to read. He’s a massive, meaty guy with thick, heavy features, and he always looks vaguely pissed-off. “Haven’t seen a body count like this in a while.”

“Neither have the Cleaners,” I say, and Jackie’s small eyes look me up and down, appraising me. I don’t let it faze me. “Have we heard from Mike?”

“Mike’s fine,” Jackie says, putting his phone down. “Got himself patched up with one of our guys. We’ve already had a word with him.”

“So you know how things went down,” I say.

“We know,” says Jackie, crossing his arms and pacing around the room, “that things were going fine until Lorenzo Abruzzi pulled up with a truck full of fuckers packin’ military-grade weapons. We know our intel was bad, and the guy who gave you that tip is being dealt with right now. We know that you told Mike to get the fuck out of there, and we know he assumed you’d be hauling ass too, like any reasonable goddamn person would.” Jackie stops to turn and look at the bandages visible on me. “But judging by the way you look and the fact that the Cleaners are out for blood, I’m guessing that didn’t happen.”

I clench my teeth for a moment before I force myself to relax and speak. “Lorenzo knew I was going to be there. He was after me. It was business between the two of us. He killed Paul and Tony, I wasn’t about to let him get away with that. So I hunted his men down, and I almost killed him, too. But he fled. He’s a coward.”

“Mike told me what he saw,” Jackie says. “He saw the guns those maniacs got a hold of. How the fuck are you alive?”

There’s a pause between us as we hold each other’s gaze. “My uncle,” I say after a moment, “he taught me, when I was young. Taught me how to defend myself. He was in the army.” That’s a lie. Uncle Carlo was part of a Special Forces unit. I don’t want to tell them too much detail, though, or they’ll have me doing hits for them with Diego. I gesture to my body with a nonchalant expression. “The rest? Good genes, I guess. Luck?”

Jackie’s ugly mug twists into a smile, and he chuckles. “You’re a stupid son of a bitch, you know that?”

“I’m alive, aren’t I?”

Jackie stops chuckling, but he holds his smile for a moment before it fades. “You weren’t the only target last night.”

My brow knits. “What?”

Jackie scrolls through his phone to pull up a few messages. “That dive bar we run, Pete’s? They got hit hard right before last call.”

“Fuck,” I breathe, running my hand over my face and clenching my fist. Bad enough that I couldn’t keep a hold on the situation with Lorenzo, but another place too? “What happened?”

“Driveby,” Jackie explains, and he holds out his phone to me. It’s a picture of the bar in question, an old place I’ve gone to before. The front is riddled with bullets, all the windows are shot out, and I recognize bloodstains on the walls. “Pete made it out with a bullet in his side, but he’ll pull through. The bar’s done for, though.”

“So, two places in one night and more bodies than the city’s seen in a long time. Do we know who they’ve got on the take?” I ask. We have our own cops on our payroll, but if they’re turning a blind eye to this much…

“Our boys in blue suddenly don’t know a thing,” Diego speaks up ruefully. “I don’t know who they’ve got to, but it’s someone who can pull some major strings.”

“This has become a war,” the consigliere says calmly. “They’re making moves fast and hard, and if we don’t act now, they’ll have their heels dug into our territory even deeper. That’s why I’m promoting you, Bruno.”

That hits me like a bolt of lightning. I stare at him, and I realize both Jackie and Diego are eyeing me expectantly. So this is why I got dragged out here.

“A promotion?”

“That’s right,” says Jackie, making no show of pomp or circumstance. “What happened last night would have gotten all four of you killed under most circumstances. Nobody could have been ready for that. But you and Mike got out of there because you can think on your feet, and god knows how many bullets it takes to put your ass down.”

“That’s the kind of initiative we need calling shots on the frontlines,” the consigliere says, finally turning to look up at me. “Bruno, I’m putting you in charge of the block the de Laurentis girl’s shop is on.”

Serena’s block.

“So what, you’re using her as a front line now?” I say, and the look Diego shoots me tells me I’m out of line, but I don’t care. I’m sick of her getting endangered, dragged back into this life.

And I admit that the guilt in my gut is wearing me down. If I’d just avoided her…

I shake the thought away. No, I didn’t bring this heat down on her. Lorenzo was shaking down her shop before I ever got there, and there’s no way Bathing Beauty could’ve paid the protection fees. Besides, her father was the one that put the target on her back. I was just the one that made Lorenzo take it more personally.

But Serena would’ve been in danger, with or without me. At least now, I’ll have the power and authority to keep her safe. And once I kill Lorenzo…

“No,” the consigliere says, putting out a hand, shaking me from my thoughts. He must have anticipated my reaction. “This is a sign of trust, Bruno. I’m giving you more control over something that’s very close to the heart all this violence.”

“In other words, it’s you that Lorenzo’s got a beef with,” says Jackie. “And you’re one of us. If he wants a war, it’s you he’ll come after first. We’re giving you the means to defend yourself.”

“So we let them come to me,” I say, and the men nod in agreement.

“I’ll send you a list of the men who’ll be under your command,” says Jackie. “They’ll be headed your way ASAP, because the Cleaners aren’t gonna wait around long before they try to strike again.”

“Good,” I say. Not because I’m proud of the responsibility—I don’t forget for a second that these mobsters are only interested in covering their own asses through me. “There are two alleys that run through that block that’ll be to our advantage, and there’s an office building on the opposite corner that will be useful for keeping an eye on the area. I’ll give the men the rundown personally.”

“You’ve got promise, Bruno,” says Jackie, nodding at me. “That’s good. Show your men you’re in control, and don’t let ‘em see weakness.”

I crack a smile. “How could they see something that isn’t there?’

* * *

Hours later, I’m back out to the only place I care to be—with Serena.

We’re in Belmont, another little Italian corner of the Bronx. It’s a nice little place, perfect for a peaceful moment away from everything else that’s been going on.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Serena says as we walk down the sidewalk, glancing up and down at my body. I’ve got a slight limp, but with each step I get better at hiding it.

“Don’t worry about me,” I say, “you’ll know when I’m feeling it. This is nothing.”

“I can’t not worry about you,” she says with a smile, and I squeeze her hand.

She’s wearing a sundress and a wide-brimmed hat today, and compared to me in my rough leather jacket and t-shirt, I feel like the bodyguard to some celebrity. I might as well be. Every time I glance over at Serena, it’s like looking at someone out of a movie or a fairy tale.

Colorful streamers are strung up between buildings over the street, and the red brick buildings look warm in the afternoon sun as we stroll down the sidewalk. Serena keeps smiling, and I have a hard time tearing my eyes off her. She catches me once or twice and blushes, and the third time, she bumps her hip into mine and says “Quit it!” as we laugh.

After a moment, she looks over at me with those warm eyes glittering in the sun. “It feels weird to have a breather with everything that’s going on.”

“Weird?”

“Nice-weird,” she says, and I take a hold of her hand as we turn into a fresh produce store.

It’s a quiet little place with a few fans lazily running overhead, and there’s that familiar scent all produce stores seem to have. A few flies are buzzing around the place, and the floors are just plain brown concrete. It’s nothing fancy, but we’re not looking for anything fancy today. Just a little time together.

“This is probably the most Italian place in the neighborhood,” I say, looking around the place with raised eyebrows.

“Oh yeah?”

“All it’s missing is a few people smoking outside,” I say with a smile, and she giggles as we start to look around at some of the assorted stuff.

“You know, you don’t talk about it very much, come to think of it.”

“Italy?”

She nods her head as we pick out a couple of apples to eat on the way out. I pay for the food and look pensively up at the little Italian flag hanging from the window of one of the shops. “No, I guess I don’t. It’s a complicated place, where I’m from.”

“Where is it?”

“Taranto,” I say, a faint smile crossing my face. Taranto brings up a lot of mixed feelings. It’s a far cry from the picture of Italy most Americans think about.

“That sounds familiar,” she says thoughtfully.

“Probably because it sounds like Toronto,” I say playfully, and she slaps me on the shoulder. “Don’t laugh, that’s where most people thought I was from when I first got here.”

“Seriously, though.”

“Seriously, okay,” I say, looking up at the sky, trying to think of the best way to describe my hometown as I can. We’re soon strolling through a park in the Bronx, but my memories take me back nearly ten years.

“It’s in the far south. If you think of Italy like a boot, it’s on the heel, facing the gulf. The land is very sunny. It’s like the whole place is bathed in gold sometimes, and we don’t get winters as harsh as the rest of the country up north. Taranto itself is very old. It was a Greek settlement, a long time ago.”

“Woah,” Serena says, raising her eyebrows. “The house I grew up in was built in the forties, and I thought that was old.”

“All the buildings are sun-baked, for the most part. Imagine if you turned gold into stone, they’d look kind of like that. Only not as pristine. There’s a lot of black soot on everything because of the factory nearby.”

“Sounds romantic,” she says with playful sarcasm.

“It’s an acquired taste,” I say with a chuckle. “The old town looks a something like the Little Italy up in Manhattan. Lots of clustered apartments, clothes lines strung up over narrow alleyways that motorini—er, scooters—zip down, big churches here and there...and the old military fort looms over everything on the water. Something about the palm trees and shining sea puts you at peace, though. It’s hard to describe if you haven’t seen it.”

Serena is quiet for a moment before saying, “And you’re from the old town?”

“No,” I say, tossing the cores of our now-eaten apples into a trash can as our shoes click on the paved walkways. “My family lives a little ways out of the city. In the country. It looks like…” I frown, trying to draw a comparison. “Have you ever seen those old Western movies?”

Serena blinks, then bursts out laughing. “Wait, what?”

“No, seriously,” I say. “They filmed some of those down in southern Italy. It’s like a desert, but...more trees,” I say, realizing I’ve never been to an American desert to compare to. I shake my head, laughing at myself. “My dad used to take me on drives around some of the villages in the area. They’re really beautiful. They use a lot of smooth white stone that never goes dark like the ones in Taranto do. And some of them are up on mountains where you can see for miles in any direction.”

“Wow,” she says softly.

“When I was...very small,” I say, holding my hand down to my knee to show how tall I was, “my dad would carry me on his shoulders and point out some of the other villages from this park up on a mountain ridge. Then we’d go get gelato from the little shops close by, and he’d tell me about the places he went when he was growing up.”

I feel Serena’s steady gaze on me, and the look on her face reminds me that I’m starting to get a little misty-eyed. I blink it away, and shake my head. “That was a long time ago, though.”

There’s silence between us as we walk slowly, and finally she says, “Your dad sounds like a good guy.”

I nod.

“The place reminds me a little of what my dad used to describe,” she says, and she wraps her arms around my bicep to lean her head on me as we walk. “He was just a teenager when they left Sicily, but it sounds like they’re a lot alike.”

“Sicily and the mainland? They have everything and nothing in common,” I say. “But they’re both beautiful places. We ought to go sometime.”

“Just up and go to Italy?” she says, a slight laugh to her voice, but I smile at her perfectly sincere.

“Why not? I’ll make sure you get time off from work to close the shop for a few days.”

“Oh god, I could never!”

“When customers come in, I’ll ‘encourage’ them to make a few purchases,” I say, playing up my best menacing accent and cracking my knuckles. Serena giggles and slaps my chest in protest, but I surprise her by scooping her up off the ground and spinning in a circle with her, then planting a kiss on her lips as she throws her arms around my neck. It was painful in my condition, but worth it.

We look at each other for a long moment, smiling, and I know we’re both losing ourselves in the fantasy for a little bit.

“It’s starting to get dark,” I finally say, gently setting her down. “I ought to get you back.”

We make our way back toward the car and climb in, but once we’re driving, I can’t help but feel like something’s lacking from our little date. After a moment, I look over to Serena.

“Feel like going for a drive?”

“A drive?”

“I know someplace nice,” I say. “It’s too nice a night to waste inside.

A few minutes later, I turn off to head toward Orchard Beach, an idea forming in my mind. When Serena realizes where we’re headed, a confused smile plays across her lips. “Bruno, it’s like, eight at night!”

“I want to show you something,” I say simply, parking the car. “It’s on the far end of the beach, this way.”

As we approach the sand, Serena gasps at the sight, and immediately, I start looking around for danger, but then I hear her voice.

“Oh my god, Bruno, look at the water!”

My concern melts away as I look up at it. The full moon is low on the water, casting a carpet-like stream of white reflective light on the gentle waves. There’s not a cloud in the sky, and it couldn’t be more beautiful.

I feel Serena looking at me, and I turn to see the most pleading eyes I’ve ever seen. “Do you want to go for a walk on the beach?” I ask with an arched eyebrow and a wide smile.

“How’d you guess?” she says, laughing before she darts over to the sand, kicking off her shoes and picking them up. I shake my head as I catch up to her and do the same.

We make our way out onto the beach proper. We’re not the only ones out here tonight—I can see a few people further down here and there—but we’re the only ones in this area. No other sounds but our feet crunching in the sand and the gentle sounds of the waves kissing the shore.

Serena goes almost to where the icy waters touch, and I start leading her to where I have in mind. The beach is pretty flat and open, and we’re technically not supposed to be out here this late, but nothing’s going to bother us while I’m around.

Before long, we come up to a little outcropping of rocks, and I lead Serena around it. “What’s this?” she asks, and I crouch down to squint at the rock, looking it up and down. After a moment, I smile and point to something.

The words VOGLIO TORNARE are carved in a crude hand, a little weathered but still there. Serena blinks at it blankly.

“When I first got here, to America,” I say, “well, I told you about how I was kind of a shit. I ran away from home once, the first few weeks. I really didn’t want to be here. So I ran all the way out here to this beach and hid out for...I don’t know, a few hours.” I grin. “I was a rebel, but I got bored easy.”

Serena reaches out and brushes her hand over the words. “Did you write this?”

“It means ‘I want to go back,’” I explain, nodding. Serena is quiet for a few moments.

“It must have been hard, getting used to somewhere this new,” she says. I’m thoughtful for a moment, but then I reach up and pull her down with me, rolling onto the sand, and she yelps as I hug her close to me.

“I might have settled down if I’d had you to distract me sooner,” I whisper into her ear, and she wiggles in protest, giggling. Soon, though we find ourselves sitting up, Serena between my legs as we watch the bright, moonlit water.

“Think it’s dangerous out here?” Serena asks, leaning her head back against my shoulder. Wisps of her hair flutter as I breathe in and out.

“Could be,” I say, reaching to my pocket, “I’ve never had to worry about that kind of thing.” I pull out a switchblade, opening it and letting it gleam in the moonlight as Serena looks down at it.

“Are you kidding? Giant, musclebound Italian guy with a knife?” she teases, but I squeeze her to me, chuckling as I plant a kiss on her neck. She squirms away from it with a smile, and I pepper her neck with kisses until she starts turning her neck up and scooting her butt into my crotch, her playful giggling melting away to short breaths.

“Why, are you afraid of something?” I ask, lowering my voice, and I bring my knife up to her collarbone. She hold still as I let the blade glide across her skin, and it gives her goosebumps.

“...Maybe I like a little danger,” she says, and I feel her shiver wonderfully against my hardening manhood. I smile, and my throat rumbles as I bring the blade up to her chin and whisper into her ear.

“Little lady like you should be careful, coming out so far with a dangerous man.”

Even in the moonlight, I can see her cheeks start to flush with color. Her eyes flash to the rest of the beach. “We’re pretty exposed out here,” she breathes.

“I don’t care,” I growl, my hand reaching up to her breast and squeezing it. She suppresses a yelp, and she bites her lip. “I don’t care if someone sees, I want to take you, Serena.”

“God, I want you, Bruno,” she whimpers. She gives the shore one last worried look, but the same energy within her I’ve always known she has overtakes her. “Are you sure it’s safe?”

“Trust me,” I say, and I slip my jacket off to lay on the sand before I pull her onto it carefully. Her chest is rising and falling, hair spilling over her shoulders as she looks up at me and the knife, terrified yet full of need.

I take my shirt off and toss it aside, letting my whole torso gleam in the moonlight, and her eyes devour me. She reaches up to run her hands over my muscled body, and I put the knife in my teeth to rip her shirt up over her arms. Her bra comes the next moment, and I feast my eyes on her exposed body.

I take her wrists in my hand and hold them up over her head, planting a knee on either side of her as I draw the blade slowly across my tongue.

“Be still,” I caution her, slowly bringing the cool metal down to her torso. Her breathing is quick, but she nods softly and relaxes a bit at my deep, reassuring voice. “No sudden movements. I need all your trust, Serena.”

“I want this,” she says, red cheeks beautiful under stray locks of hair. “I want you, Bruno.”

I bring the knife down to her left breast and trace a circle around her nipple. She draws in breath at its cool touch, but I’m careful not to make more than the faintest contact. I’ve practiced this on myself before trying it with anyone, much less my Serena.

The blade slides around her breast, and I bring it to the other, playing dangerously close to her areola. My hand brings the knife to the nape of her neck, where I draw it across slowly, so slowly, wetting my lips as I watch its progress.

I pause to look up into her eyes, and they’re wide with excitement, and she’s breathing through her mouth. I smile and look back to the knife to bring it up to her chin, then to her lip, where I let it linger for a moment before gently using it to nudge her mouth open.

When that’s done, I close the blade and toss it aside. The next moment, I attack her mouth. Our lips lock, and my bulge is growing rock-hard.

Our tongues explore each other’s mouths, and my hands slide down to her hips, squeezing them greedily, possessively.

We don’t even talk. The heady drive of our lust is too strong for that tonight. I bring my mouth down to her nipple where I’d had the knife just a few moments ago, and my teeth do what the knife was too shy to do. I hear her gasp as my tongue washes over it, and meanwhile, I use my hands to start working her pants down. I have no patience tonight. I’m going to claim her, hard and fast.

As soon as her pants are down, I put my fingers to my mouth to wet them, but when I put those fingers to her lower lips, I find her already soaking-wet.

“That’s my girl,” I groan between kisses. I let my teeth graze her nipples one last time before I undo my own pants and let my shaft out, eager to meet her needy pussy.