I’m not happy when I drive down to the Valley. I’d prefer rolling back to my place with a talent to make some last-minute phone calls, before taking the girl for a test drive. But here I am, heading to church instead.
My phone overpowers “Wait and Bleed” on the speakers. “What’s up.”
“Stefano here. We just parked on the backside of the St. Tatiana.”
I’ve done this too many times to count, and it easily gets messy. There's a fifty-fifty chance you have to take someone down. Needless to say, my father’s crap doesn’t mesh well with my own business plan.
“All right. I’ll be there in five, but know that I’m not sticking around if this self-destructs.”
“Nothing’s gonna go wrong, Cucciolo. All you gotta do is keep an eye on Pater Altermatt and give us a heads-up if he’s breaching our trust.”
“I’m not Il Cucciolo. Don’t call me that.”
I park down the street and lumber up to the church; I have no urge to be associated with Johnny and Stefano—I’m not Il Lince’s henchman. When you’re building your own empire and you don’t need la famiglia, all you need is for la famiglia to stop needing you.
The front door is unlocked. I push at the wood, making it groan. Beyond, it’s sparsely lit, and at first glance, I see no one. Then, the silhouettes of three men walking quickly toward the back catch my attention.
I call Stefano. “They’re on their way downstairs. Three guys.”
“Okay. We’re already here.”
I click the phone off.
Something moves at the back of the altar. I hone in on it and walk up between the bench rows. Is it Pater Altermatt? No. He’s emerging from the sacristy.
He takes aim at the crypt, and I speed up; the priest knows of the meet, but Il Lince doesn’t want him to be in on the details. Then again, whoever’s at the back of the altar could be a bigger threat.
My father doesn’t trust Pater Altermatt, and his hunches are usually right. If the priest squealed, siccing the feds on Nascimbeni operations, it’d be destructive for everyone’s business.
I make my decision. “Father?”
The priest stills. When he swings to me, his features are in meek folds. “My son.” He bows out a little greeting and makes a cross in the air over me. I tuck my chin in illusory worship, the way I used to as a kid.
“I was about to close, but God’s house always has time for His lambs.”
Oh geez.
“How can I serve, young man?”
“Father, I have a few confessions to make.”
His eyes wander, going toward the corner where the Russians disappeared. Mine flick to the back of the altar and catch the shift of someone in the dark hallway.
“Yes. Yes, of course,” Pater Altermatt murmurs.
“Not that I’d want to impose if the good father was on his way home...” I trail off politely.
Might not’ve been a bad idea to get some of the crap I’ve done off my chest. It’d be quite the spa for the soul, I’m sure. As he waves me toward the confessional, the shadow behind the altar slinks out of view.
“It’s been a while since I confessed, and it’s making me nervous,” I say. “I need the restroom first.” Not waiting for his reply, I stalk toward the back of the church.
“Son, the bathroom is to the left, by the exit.”
The shift of a robe appears by the altar and flows into the back. I follow. Elusive, the slight figure moves out of view. I catch up with it just as it kneels, opening a cabinet. Small, white hands form around a large candelabra, pulling it out and pushing it forward on the floor.
“Excuse me.” My jaw clenches as I press my hand around the gun in my pocket.
She gasps and wobbles to her feet. A nun? The robe tells me she is, but when she turns to me, the delicate features of her face, the high cheekbones, the clear blue eyes, perfectly shaped and shining in the low light, are completely wrong for her calling.
“What are you doing here?” she whispers.
“I’m sorry. I was just looking for the bathroom.” I ransack her with my stare. “Who are you?”
Slowly, her gaze slides downward. Then, she begins to move her head, side to side, side to side. A coil of hair, the color of unpolished brass, snakes its way between her headpiece and the top of her robe. It’s different for someone like her, and goddamn if it isn’t fucking hot.
I let my attention rove over her shape. She tries to hide her perfect body under that tent, but she can’t, not from me.
“Sister Tatiana. Or soon, I will be, once my novice period is over.”
Her lips are dark, bursting with blood against alabaster skin that’s out of place in sunny California. What a waste with such a beautiful being in this place.
She forgets herself and licks her lip. She shouldn’t have. I’ve dated beauty before. Fucked beauty. Hired beauty in so many capacities of my jobs. But this here is straight-up perfection of the kind that won’t let you sleep at night if you can’t own it.
“The bathroom.” She lifts that small perfect hand again, unfurling and pointing toward the exit. “It’s on your way out. Do you see the sign?”
I nod, not taking my eyes off her while Pater Altermatt closes in on us.
“There you are. Tatiana, if you don’t mind locking the back door?”
“Of course, Pater.”
I follow him down from the sacristy. I can’t help swinging for a last eyeful of the apparition of a woman behind me. Her pale face seems to shine under the dim light, a stark contrast to her dark clothing.
Tatiana’s gaze is mild, fearful, even. But it’s on me now, instead of meekly on the floor. I blow my cheeks up and let out a puff of air, forcing myself to return to business. All seems under control downstairs if I’m to judge by the lack of gunshots. There’s nothing out of the ordinary going on at my level either.
“Do you always have nuns here?” I ask the priest conversationally.
“Actually, I don’t. She was sent to me by the higher-ups a few weeks ago.” Pater Altermatt breaks his priestly performance by pointing upward. “They’ve blessed me with additional assistance.” He doesn’t look entirely happy about this.
“Because of an increase in churchgoers?” I ask.
He starts on a chuckle but wipes it off his mouth with his hand. “Not quite, no. As you can see, St. Tatiana is a small church, and our following hasn’t changed much over the last decade. But my new assistant is a wonderful girl. A great help, really.”
We stop in front of the restroom. “Here we are. I’ll be at the confessional when you’re ready.”
“Thank you, Father.”
I stay long enough to see the Russians leave with dark coats and hooded eyes through the main door. Johnny and Stefano follow a minute later. They don’t acknowledge me but walk close enough for Stefano to bump into my shoulder and mutter, “See you for dinner Sunday.”
I grunt my response.
Hands in my pockets, I saunter toward the door after them. Pater Altermatt is still in shock after my honesty in the confessional. Mainly, I focused on group sex and forced orgasms. It was an experimental phase in my late teens, but he doesn’t need to know that.
“Son, I hope to see you back at the St. Tatiana soon. God’s forgiveness is infinite,” he murmurs.
“You can count on it.” It might not be for another confession, but I’ll be back.
The copper-orange tint of my Flying Spur gleams from a block away. Good thing I’m not Il Lince’s errand boy very often anymore, or I’d have to go for a less flashy car. Relieved, I sink into the driver’s seat, jack the stereo to high on “Psychosocial.” The song’s damn near perfect and just what I need.
It’s midnight. Pater Altermatt sure had a long day. So did the beautiful Tatiana. Like a teenager, I loop by the church on my way home. I laugh to myself, because it’s obvious what I’m doing; it’s the novice I’m looking for.
The bass thunders through me.
A slight figure moves down the sidewalk in the opposite direction. It’s a woman. A petite one. Not a nun, though, because she’s wearing what looks like hot pants.
Curious, I follow. A backpack is hooked over her shoulders. Bright pink jogging shoes tap the asphalt while she speeds forward, but what catches my attention is the long hair gathered in a ponytail.
She hits a streetlight just as I’m at her side, and I take in the brass color of the long coil escaping her ponytail. It frames her face on one side.
I slow the Flying Spur to a crawl, knowing full well she’s going to be spooked. There’s no one else around, and I’m a stranger who’s stalking her in his car. This is the kind of perverted prick I can be. I haven’t decided if I’m going to offer her a ride or just scare her so she remembers for the future: don’t fucking walk alone in the dark at night.
I hum my window open, driving at her jogging pace.
“Hey, gorgeous.” I don’t use her name on purpose. Guess that decides what I want to do—scare her shitless so she’ll learn once and for all. She’s too beautiful to be taken advantage of by a lesser man than me.
In situations like this, you get one of three reactions: a) the woman acts like she can’t see you and keeps doing her thing, thinking you’ll leave; b) she panics and tries to escape; or c) —
No. That’s it. No one does what Tatiana’s doing right now. She stops. Turns toward me. Then, she steps in close to the car window, pierces me with her stare, and says, “What kind of asshole move is this?”
I’m so surprised I can’t even speak. Instead, I stop the car and just sit there like an idiot.
“Cat got your tongue? Got nothing better to do than waste gas, or are you planning to ‘make a move?’” she asks, tone so full of contempt I blink.
I clear my throat. “I was actually about to offer you a ride—”
“And what ride are we talking about here? In your car, or...?”
“Okay, you don’t talk like a nun,” I say.
She swallows, eyes widening. Wait, is she cursing under her breath?
“Tatiana, right? Sister Tatiana?”
She draws in a breath. “You’re the guy from the church.”
“I am. I’m not sure your Mother Superior or what-have-you would be happy with you running around after midnight with your little tushy showing in those short-short shorts.”
Tatiana lifts her hands in front of her, and I steel myself for anything from a smack in the face to a verbal outpouring. What I don’t expect is her delicate hands steepling in prayer while she murmurs, “Please, please don’t say anything to Pater Altermatt. He doesn’t want me at the St. Tatiana in the first place, and he could embellish this and get me thrown out. I need this program.”
I shake my head quickly enough for any loose screws to fall back into place. It can’t be working, because those absolutely incredible eyes are still on me, begging. Begging so hard I get hard and instantly picture her beneath me in bed. Oh, hell, that’s how she’d look under me. “Please, Isaias. Harder. More!”
“Let me drive you home.”
“Nope. I don’t know you.”
“Yeah? Don’t you think that if I’d wanted to hurt you, I’d have plucked you off the sidewalk already? Where do you live?”
She huffs a laugh. “Oh my god, this is so classic. Seriously? The last thing I need is for some stranger to know where I live.”
I arch an eyebrow. “You do live with some sisterhood, right?”
“Of course. But no, I’m not telling you which one.”
“Because... you can see me, now, breaking into the old corridors of your stone monastery, ripping my way through every old broad in there until I find your chamber?”
She lets out a snort.
“By god, is she laughing?” I ask no one in my passenger seat.
“Shut up. Just go home, stranger.”
“My name is Isaias di Nascimbeni.”
“Go home, Isaias di Whateverbeni. I’m fine. I’ve got pepper spray, and all I need is for you to keep your yapper shut and not rat me out to the priest.”
It’s my turn to snort. Whoa, I don’t remember having been addressed with such scorn since I was in middle school. I had a rough few months there until Il Lince got me backup by transferring la famiglia’s other sons into my private school. We were on a roll after that.
“You’re fucking beautiful,” I tell her, “and you have a mouth on you too.”
“Ha, unlike you, I don’t curse.”
I lower my voice until it hits a silky depth that’s had females come on command before. “I believe it’s only a matter of working you up enough.”
She rolls her eyes. Actually fucking rolls her eyes at Isaias di Nascimbeni, ruler of business empires and son of the biggest don in California. She did not just do that.
“Okay, that’s enough. Look, you’re too gorgeous to be in this part of town alone. I’m driving you home whether you want it or not. If you’re not getting in the car on your own, I’m coming out there and I’m handcuffing you to my backseat.”
“Are you a cop?” is her reaction to that threat. I expected at least a trace of wariness on those exquisite features, but she just looks hopeful. At the police part?
I make a show of unbuckling my seatbelt. “No, I carry handcuffs for entirely different reasons than the law. And although roleplay isn’t my thing, I have no problem being the policeman as long as you’re my prisoner.”
“Wow. That was just lame.” She shakes her head, and I feel a grin break out on my face. “I’m gonna head on home, now, all right? I need my sleep, and bickering with some full-of-himself shady dude isn’t how I’m going to get there.” She flutters her fingers at me. “Bye, now.”
I sit there, watching her walk off without a worry in her gorgeous head. She strides away like I couldn’t have kidnapped her and kept her as my sex slave for years to come. Is this the kind of fake security pepper spray creates in all women, or does she think she has a chance at defending herself? Doesn’t she know how tiny she is? I roll slowly behind her.
“Stop following me,” she says.
“Forget about it. I’ll be right here. How far?”
She huffs, throwing her hands up without looking at me. I’m pretty sure what she mutters are cusswords. God, she’s awesome. A nun, huh?
My chubby grows proportionally with her willful ways. I’m gonna need home service tonight if I’m to get sleep. Or hey, maybe I’ll go puberty-style and rub one out in the shower. That’s been a while.
She picks up a light jog, her backpack bouncing against her shoulders.
“What’s in the backpack, Sister Tatiana?”
In lieu of an answer, she growls quietly. Such a tigress. Sweet.
“Is it your robe? The nun outfit?”
“Yeah. Now, scurry off. I’m plugging in my earbuds.”
“Running with a backpack must get old. I’m going to make sure you get home safely either way, so you might as well hand it over to me.”
She offers a small side-glance. “Thanks, but I’m good.”
“All right then.”
We continue in silence, and it’s hilarious that I have no idea where we’re going. I know of no monasteries around here. This could go on for hours for all I know. What am I doing? I’m not the most patient man, but that stubborn little perky ass...
Pleased, I sigh.
“You getting off on this?” she asks after a few minutes. The nun does. No way she passes her nun exams, whatever those are, with all of her sexual innuendos. Her Mother Superior would’ve had a stroke by now.
“Oh sweetheart, let’s not go there.”
She stops abruptly, turning to me. “Well, it was nice talking to you, Mr. Bene. This is me.” She arches her eyes with fake joviality as her thumb hikes over her shoulder toward a bus stop.
A quick scan tells me it’d take her all the way to the city of Ventura. “You’re gonna wait for the bus now?” That’ll happen in her dreams.
“Yes, sir. You’re very observant. I bet you rock the business world with that kind of astuteness.” She nods slowly.
I literally laugh out loud, because—
“Wow. Okay. Would you like for me to wait until the bus appears, milady?”
“Sweet of you to ask, Mr. Benissimo, but it should be here any minute.”
I start shaking my head, calling her bluff, but goddamn if she isn’t right, and a large, square vehicle hobbles around the corner and presses air out of its brakes. The bus flashes its light at me to move.
“Well.” I crook one finger in a mini-wave. “It was a pleasure, bella. I’ll be seeing you around.”
“I don’t think so, but may God be with you.” The sarcasm in her voice is unmistakable. The almost crystal-clear ice of her irises sparks with disdain. “Oh, one more thing.”
“Sure, anything.”
The bus honks. I wave in acknowledgment.
“Find a new hobby.”
“Hobby?”
“Yeah. Stalking is out of style.” She juts her chin up in a last greeting.
I slap a hand over my heart, hard enough to make sound. Then, I scrunch my eyes shut in fake pain and let out an o-o-mph.
She’s fast, but she turns too slowly to hide her smile. Shit yeah, I amuse her.
The bus is on my ass, and I snail forward. Before I can think, I shout out the window in ways I would’ve done if I weren’t in my late twenties, if I weren’t jaded, and if I lived in the old country. “I’m in love! Fuck me, I’m in love with the beautiful, coldhearted Tatiana of the Valley. Lord have mercy.”
While the bus door poofs shut behind this new tack in my heart, she hoods her eyes at me in fake boredom. It’s tempered in my honor, but her smile is still there. That beautiful smile is the last thing I see.