MELODY
“Honey, I’m back. The storm is really picking up,” he said as he closed the door behind him and hung up his jacket.
“Honey?”
His wet shoes squeaked upon the floorboards as he came farther into the house. I heard him reach into the drawer and pull out what was most likely the revolver my father had gifted him years ago.
When he finally came around the corner he saw her, slumped over the couch. “Violet!” He rushed toward her.
“She didn’t suffer,” I said to him, and his head snapped up to me as I drank the wine. “In fact, we had a perfectly nice chat. I brought the wine, of course, Uncle Vinnie. A 1961 Barolo Riserva. You told Fedel you loved it, did you not?”
Reaching over for the bottle on the coffee table, I poured him some in the empty glass I had left out for him before refilling my own.
“It truly is magnificent. You can tell they put effort into every one of the grapes. My father took me to his vineyard home in Tuscany; it was beautiful. The rolling hills, the smell…I loved it, far more than I loved Bosa. The town was so boring, but my father told me he could never escape the place he was from. The people there were the most loyal and true he’d ever met. I believed him too; after all, he had friends like you, Uncle Vinnie. You swore never to betray my family and yet here I sit, across from your dead wife, drinking wine, talking about Tuscany and my father, when all I want to do is put a bullet in your skull.” I savored the taste of the wine on my lips.
“I never betrayed the Giovanni's…Emilio is—”
“Don’t you dare!” I hissed, my grip on the glass tightening. “You point to some mutt on the street and think he compares to me? That he is better than me because what, he has a penis? You know nothing about him or what he believes or if he even gives a damn at all. My father chose me, and you disrespected that choice.”
He stood taller, stepping away from his wife and facing me directly. “If you are going to kill me, do it now. I’m sure you’ve taken the bullets out of this anyway.”
He threw the revolver my feet. Reaching down, I grabbed it and held it back up, handing it to him.
“I’m not going to kill you, Uncle Vinnie—”
“Well, you’re a damn fool if you think I’m going to tell you anything.”
I fucking hated it when people interrupted me; it drove me in-fucking-sane! Taking a deep breath once again, I held the gun up at him.
He took the gun and I told him, “You are going to kill yourself.”
“Why would I do that?”
I shrugged. “Because you know you aren’t getting out alive either way, so why bother? At least, you can say you left on your own choice.”
He paused for a moment, holding the gun to himself. “You are evil.”
“Says the man who killed dozens of men alongside my father,” I replied, and before I could blink, he turned the gun to me, but another gun went off first, the bullets striking his chest.
BANG.
BANG. BANG.
Three shots total, and he fell down as I sipped more wine and Liam stepped up right behind me. Holding the glass up to him, he handed me the gun so he could take a drink.
“I don’t see what all the fuss is about,” he said, even though he had finished the glass off. “In fact, I think it could be stronger.”
“You have a horrible taste for wine.” I took the glass back. “The last of that was completely wasted on you.”
“However will you live?” he replied, rolling his eyes at me when I moved over to Uncle Vinnie. His body convulsed on the ground, blood pooling in his mouth as he stared up at me.
“It didn’t have to be this way…you all made me do this,” I whispered, Liam already waiting by the door. The main street of what I liked to call New Italy was eerily silent. In rows across the street, all the houses looked exactly the same. Inside I could see families in living rooms, watching television, others in their kitchens or upstairs in their bedrooms. I had built this community for them, my money, my sacrifice…I had taken a rundown cul-de-sac and built a new urban neighborhood.
What I give, I can take away.
“Melody,” Liam stated when the car pulled up.
I nodded and he dialed as Lucian held open the door for me. When the door shut, Liam hung up and we pulled out. As we passed by, I couldn’t help but look over the homes whose red flags weren’t up on their mailboxes…the people against me.
“They have an hour,” Liam told me, adjusting his suit vest and leaning back.
Carbon monoxide: tasteless, colorless, odorless, and highly toxic…each breath they took was killing them slowly.
“Are you all right?”
I looked over at him, eyebrow raised. “And why wouldn’t I be? It was my plan wasn’t it?”
“No, your plan was to blow them up…you’re a pyromaniac.” He smirked.
I felt my eyes narrow at that. It sounded like I was the one who was more likely to blow shit up when I had actually learned that from him. “Coming from the man whose first choice is always to ‘light these motherfuckers up’…funny. Let’s just say it was a team effort.”
“Let’s not fight over credit, it’s beneath us—”
“Beneath you maybe, but I’m a greedy wife; it’s one of my many sins.” I couldn’t help the grin spreading across my lips. He leaned over, lifted my chin up, and held it in front of him.
His lips hovered over mine. “I’m very acquainted with your sins, wife, they are what make you uniquely qualified to be mine.”
He didn’t kiss me, but he didn’t back away. The more he stared me down, the more I wanted him. Finally, his lips brushed up against mine.
“Say it,” he demanded, his free hand gripping my breast. I moaned into him as he began to trail kisses down my neck, pulling down the top of my blouse.
“Stop the car and get out!” I managed to say as I grabbed a fistful of his hair; Liam didn’t seem to give a fuck. I bit my finger, turning my head away from him as he kissed up and down my neck, grabbing a handful of my breast before taking my nipple into his mouth, the buttons of my shirt popping off.
“Liam…” I moaned when I heard the car doors open and close. Slowly I fell onto my back.
“You still haven’t said it.” He grinned above me, pulling off his tie. I laid there, my tits exposed, nipples hardening at the tension growing in the air. His green eyes bored holes into me, demanding I give into him…to beg him to fuck me.
Raising my hand, I reached up and placed my finger on his lips.
“You have to earn it, baby.” I traced his lips and he took my finger into his mouth, biting it softly.
“And how do I do that, Mrs. Callahan?” he questioned.
Smiling to myself, I spread my legs for him. “I’m sure you will figure it out.”
Like a lion, he hovered over me, his body directly over mine. Again he kissed me, his tongue brushing over mine over and over again…I was so distracted that when his hand slipped between my legs I jumped slightly, moaning into his mouth.
“As you wish,” he replied, going down on me.
“FUCK!” I hissed out, grabbing the seat beside me when he spread the lips of my pussy with his tongue. Fuck!
Shamelessly I rocked against his lips, grabbing my own breast, my heart racing, my mouth ajar as my eyes rolled back. He didn’t stop sliding his fingers into me…I couldn’t breathe, sweat forming on my face and rolling down my neck, past the valley of my breasts.
“Liam!” I moaned out when he licked my clit, my body trembling “Ahh…”
He drank all of me, rising back up, wiping the corner of his mouth with a wicked smirk on his lips. “That was fast, baby.”
“It’s the wine,” I lied, grabbing the tie around his neck to pull him to me.
“Or I could be that good,” he whispered before kissing me, and I shivered at the taste of myself on his tongue. I wanted more of him. My hands moved around his neck then he grabbed them with one hand.
Breaking away from me, he yanked me forward until I sat up. He took a deep breath, his nose flared, and I could feel myself getting excited, my mouth going dry.
“Do it.” I provoked him, and he squeezed my hands harder. “I know you want me, baby, …don’t hold back on me now—”
He cut me off, pulling me into his lap. I could feel his huge cock throbbing against my stomach as he pulled up my skirt, exposing my bare ass.
“You push me too much, Melody.” His voice was low as he grabbed a handful of my ass.
“Not enough apparently—AH!” My hands closed into fists as he smacked me so hard my mouth dropped open. “Again.”
SMACK!
Fuck me…
SMACK!
I could feel myself getting wetter as I stared at my own reflection in the dark window of the glass. I loved when he brought this out of me…
SMACK!
“Jesus baby…”
SMACK!
My ass was on fire and yet I couldn’t bring myself to stop him.
SMACK!
SMACK!
SMACK!
SMACK!
“Liam I can’t—”
SMACK!
I want him.
SMACK!
I fucking need him.
SMACK!
“FUCK! Please…fuck me!” Goddamn it! I gave in. Those three words were my undoing. He rolled over and I stared up at him, the pride in his face more than clear.
“Then let’s fuck, baby,” he replied. When I sat up, his cock was already standing tall and proud for me.
I didn’t wait, positioning my legs over his lap, feeling the tip of him rubbing against me, making me moan. His hands went to my waist, sinfully, slowly lowering me onto him. Reaching out to him, I unbuttoned his shirt until I could see his abs. Feeling him throb in me drove me crazy.
“There’s my girl,” he whispered, lifting my chin up—which was exactly how I’d gotten myself into this fucking position to begin with.
He watched me, lust coating his eyes as I lifted myself up then lowered back down on him. My breathing was heavy, my whole body hot.
“You’re enjoying this, you bastard…” He was putting in no effort at all, just getting off on me riding him.
“Only a madman wouldn’t,” he replied, kissing the scar on my chest.
“Says the Mad Hatter?”
He didn’t reply, instead, he grabbed a fistful of my hair and lifted my neck up. Before he could speak, I kissed him, and when I did, he slid to the edge of the seat, his grip on me tightening.
He thrust forward so hard I had to wrap my arm around him, my other hand pressed up against the ceiling. He fucked me without mercy, the whole car shaking along with us, and it still wasn’t enough for him. He flipped me back onto my back and buried himself deeper into me, our skin slapping together, the sweat on him dropping onto me as he grunted. I bloody loved it…every fuck, every moan, his tight grip on my thigh; everything was my personal heaven.
“LIAM!” I cried out, my back arching up to him.
He took my hands and held them above my head as he sped up. I wasn’t sure what he was thinking, but the look on his face when he came…it was for my eyes only.
He didn’t say anything, just relaxed on top of me as I wrapped my arms around him.
“You’re one hell of screw, Mr. Callahan.”
“It’s a gift.”
This smug bastard. “That is your cue to tell me how amazing I am, husband.”
He lifted his head, staring at me lazily then mumbling, “You were all right.”
“You…” Before my hand could smack him, he grabbed it and kissed it. Shifting, he pulled out of me before sitting up.
“Now that I’ve eaten and worked out”—he winked at me—“we can get rid of the annoyance plaguing this city. I’m tired of this, Melody, he needs to be—” He paused when my cell phone rang. Sitting up, I reached for it on the floor.
“What is it?” I answered, trying to see if there was any way to save my shirt.
“Ma’am, it’s Frankie…”
“Who the fuck—”
“Fedel brought me.”
Sighing, I shifted the phone to my other ear. “How do you have this number?”
“Fedel had it and he thought if anything happened to him I should have it too, but he told me never to use it unless it was important…well important to you, not to me…he said he didn’t even care if I was dying—”
“WHAT IS IT!” I yelled. Jesus Christ. He had the attention span of a mouse.
“Uh…some information Fedel was looking for just came through…we—he was looking into Emilio and his mother, she’s currently here in Chicago at some hospital care facility, she has Huntington's disease. The pictures look pretty bad, the lady is going to need a miracle.”
“As my father used to say, aiutati che Dio ti aiuta,” I said into the phone as Liam stared in confusion, carefully retying his tie. “God helps those who help themselves. Everyone else is just weak.”
LIAM
The fact that I had to personally drag myself to the hospital just to meet this son of a bitch’s mother, at 8 AM, when I had family of my own to deal with, was the bane of my existence at that moment. He had hid her right in plain sight, no more than five miles from the mayor’s office.
The clinic was in a small building. When the glass doors slid open and I walked in, the only thing I could smell was disinfectant and old people.
“Can I help you?” A short, pudgy, balding man asked, tucking a pen behind his ear.
“I’m looking for Gabrielle Becerra.” I gave the fake name Emilio had used.
“Who are you?”
He wasn’t serious.
“Liam Callahan. Gabrielle Becerra is Emilio, the mayor’s mother, and my wife, the governor, and I wanted to say hello.” I lifted the flowers in my hand for him to see.
The man frowned, shaking his head. “I’m sorry ,man, she passed this morning…I didn’t think Emilio told anyone about her. Just tragic, just when he’s moving up in the world he goes and loses her…wait, ain’t your wife his sister?”
Define sister. If you meant the woman currently polishing a pistol she picked out exclusively for her brother then sure, sister was the right word.
“Hello?”
“I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
He leaned closer over the counter. “Since you all are family, you should know this. Emilio…he’s a little bit off. He’s done everything for his mother; with her gone, he must be real broken up. Tell the governor to, I don’t know, reach out or somethin’. It might help him ease up knowing he’s not alone. The poor man is just one short step from a breakdown if you ask me.”
For some reason my mouth went dry and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Slowly my mind put together everything Emilio had done since he’d come to town. He hadn’t wanted Melody to die straight away because he wanted to torture her, by making the city unstable again, going after our children, promising the Italians protection—but he didn’t follow through. The night before we’d figured he didn’t think we would strike back at the Italians so soon or at the very least without being sure of who the traitors were…Melody had even suggested he couldn’t have enough men following him to protect them all…but what if he never meant to protect them? Maybe pushed them to turn away from Melody because he knew she would get vengeance.
But why kill the people that support you? The moment I thought it was the same moment the answer came to me. He didn’t want their fucking support; he wanted to destroy them.
“Orlando,” I whispered to myself.
“What?” the pig asked me.
I was about to turn away but asked, “Did Emilio ever talk about his father?”
The man flinched; I didn’t even think he realized he’d done it.
“What is it?”
“Nothing, just ease up on the father talk when you’re around him. He’s a good guy, but whatever his father did really effed him up.”
I nodded, leaving the flowers as I walked away, and reached into my jacket for my phone. That was it. He wasn’t trying to destroy Melody. The fucker was trying to get back at Orlando for whatever reason…and he had been planning this for a long fucking time.
He had created the drug Blphine to get in with the Chinese. He had used the Chinese to lift his profile and become mayor. To even be deemed fit to be mayor, he was already a lawyer. Once he’d become mayor, he’d used that platform to announce he was a Giovanni, knowing full well he’d get everyone’s attention. Bit by bit he was stepping closer and closer, all for the sake of destroying the two things Orlando had taken pride in: his people and his daughter.