Seventeen
Logan
I have to keep my head down, until I can find a way to get Piper out of there, ‘cause Vanni’s got her on a tight rein now. He doesn’t want her out of his sight, she’s confined to the compound. He’s not letting her go back to the condo in Venice, he isn’t allowing her any kind of freedom. It’s gonna take some time before he builds up enough trust in her to allow her to go anywhere without him knowing, and that’s only gonna make things more difficult for us. I don’t want to hang around here for too long, I don’t want Vanni finding out I haven’t left, although, Reba has. I don’t know where she’s gone, she doesn’t want me to know, she can’t deal with the fact I just can’t go back there. I can’t. When I told Piper that I meant it. I’m looking forward now, to a different future. I just have to make sure that future exists, we have to be careful, but I’ll fight for that woman now. I’ll fucking fight for her…
Piper
He pushes inside me, takes me gently, his thrusts slow and measured and it’s confusing, because this isn’t the Vanni I knew before…. before Logan? I close my eyes and imagine it’s Logan inside me, pretend it’s him I can feel, but his touch, it’s so different to Vanni’s.
I wrap my legs around my husband’s waist, rocking my hips back so he falls deeper into me, and I stretch my arms up above my head as his mouth covers my nipple, his tongue flicking over it and I moan quietly. We’ve never had sex like this before, it was always a little rough, a lot twisted, that was the way he liked it; the way we’d both wanted it. This is different, and it’s unsettling, why’s he changed so much? He’s still the same arrogant, self-assured man in front of his brothers, but with me he’s different. Is he trying to prove something?
A knock at the door interrupts us, and that’s when I see the old Vanni reappear as he lifts his head and turns it toward the door.
“What?”
“Frankie’s here, Van.”
“I’m fucking busy, Bullet. Tell him to wait.”
“You’re telling my father to wait?” I almost laugh at that, I can’t help it. Nobody ever told Frankie Cabbetto to wait, not if they valued their balls.
“I’ve got my dick inside his little girl, Piper. You want me to tell him to come on in?”
I’m more settled when he’s like this, the Vanni I married. The Vanni I love? I think I already know the answer to that one.
“Five minutes, Bullet. Get him a drink, the club girl of his choice, anything to keep him happy. And get away from the fucking door.”
He waits a second, then he turns his attention back to me, and this time his thrusts are a little faster, a little harder, he’s back as that man he was before, and I’m much more comfortable with that. A changed Vanni would be so much harder to walk away from. He’s still offering me safety, just a very warped and twisted kind. And with my father in town I now have twice the safety I need, all the security I could wish for, no-one is gonna hurt me here. Yet, I don’t want that safety anymore. I want to take a risk with a man I’m falling in love with. I want Logan Sandero.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Vanni yells as he comes in a barrage of heavy spasms, shooting his toxin into me with a force so strong it knocks me back into the mattress. He slips his hands under my ass, rocks my hips back even further, and I cry out loud as he pulls his cock out of me and replaces it with his fingers. He’s touching me so deep inside it’s crazy! But it feels so good, and for a few minutes I actually forget about everything Logan and I are planning, I just focus on Vanni as he finger-fucks me to a climax that shakes my body to its very core, causing me to cry out again, the sound echoing off the walls until my cries dwindle down to nothing more than a low groan.
He pulls his fingers out of me, sliding a hand onto the small of my back as he pushes me up, and I straddle him.
“That was good,” I whisper, because he needs to hear these things. He needs me to be the good wife, the perfect old lady. Before I leave him.
“Good?” He raises an eyebrow and throws me that smile and the wave of guilt I feel is real. The fear that shoots through me, that’s real, too. But I need to suck it up and pretend, for a little while longer.
“OK… it was amazing!”
“Better, baby girl. Better.”
He kisses me, and I close my eyes and I remember a time when I really thought I loved this man. And the strange thing is, I don’t hate him, I don’t. I’m not even scared of him, not really. I don’t think I’m scared of anything now, not even the prospect of running away with a man Vanni would’ve killed, if it hadn’t been for my father. Keep him alive for my sake, that’s what he told Vanni. And then he probably threatened to bring his club down if he didn’t do as he asked, that’s the way my father works, so I guess I have to thank him for something.
“I should probably go see what your daddy wants.”
He lets go of me and I climb off him, pulling my shirt back on as I watch him get dressed.
“You sure you’re OK, working with my dad?”
He looks at me, his mouth twisting up into a smirk. “I got twice the power, darlin’. Twice the fucking power.”
I smile slightly, and the second he leaves the room I let out a heavy sigh, dropping my head to my knees. I’m exhausted, both physically and mentally. Vanni’s demands for sex are constant, meaning my pretense as the doting wife has to remain intact, and it’s only at these times, when he leaves to hold church or have meetings with my father that I feel like I can breathe.
Another tap at the door causes my eyes to spring back open. “Who is it?”
“Della.”
I pause for a second, unsure as to whether I can be bothered with her shit today. Not that there’s been much of it lately, even Della seems a different person now.
“Come in.”
I watch as Bullet’s old lady enters the room. “You OK?”
“Do you care?”
She leans back against the sideboard and flips a cigarette into her mouth, offering the packet to me. “I know we’ve had our differences, Piper, but things have changed now. We need to pull together, all of us. So I’m sorry, for pushing you out. For making you feel unwelcome, I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Is that you talking, or Bullet?” I get up off the bed and pull on my jeans and boots, running my fingers through my hair.
“It’s me. I promise.”
I turn to look at her. “OK. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt… Oh, hang on.” The corner of my mouth edges up into a knowing half-smile. “You’re suddenly being polite the second my gangster daddy appears on the scene? Bit convenient, don’t you think?”
“Piper, I swear, I’m not bullshitting you here. Things have changed…”
“Yeah. This club’s now mafia-run.”
“I don’t mean that – well, I do, partly, but we really do need to stick together now. All of us.”
What she’s saying is true, we do, need to stick together. We need to be that family she claims we all are, here in this club. Yet, I’m planning to walk away and cause another wave of shit to descend. Do I care? I don’t know. I guess a part of me feels guilty ‘cause there are people here who don’t deserve any more crap, and Della’s one of them. Just ‘cause she gave me shit doesn’t mean she’s a bad person, I don’t think she is. I just think she likes to get her own way, and when someone stops that from happening, she bears grudges. We’ve all got our faults.
“Yeah. I guess we do.”
“So, can we start again?”
I smile at her. I’m all for burying the hatchet, I’ve got bigger things to worry about. “Sure. We can start again.”
She returns my smile, and she’s about to say something when Bullet appears in the doorway, a confused look on his face when he spots us together.
“You two OK?” he asks, looking from me to Della.
“We’re fine. Do you want something?”
“Yeah. Your dad wants to see you.”
“I thought he was talking to Vanni?”
“He was. Vanni’s gone out now, though. Got a meeting with Richie down the precinct.”
“OK…” I look at Della, who just shrugs and takes a long draw on her cigarette. “Right, well, I’ll see you guys later.”
I head off down the corridor toward the chapel, where I find my father sitting at the head of the table. He looks up as I close the door behind me.
“Your mother and I want you to come over for dinner, tonight. Just you. Vanni’s going to be busy anyway, and he’s fine with you coming alone.”
Only because I’m going to my father’s Bel Air mansion, any other place and he’d be sending me out with bodyguards. I can’t even go to the grocery store without an entourage. Which makes me wonder how the hell me and Logan are going to get away, but I can’t think about that yet. It’s going to take time. Time we don’t really have, but there’s no other option, we’ve just got to be patient. We can’t rush this, it’s too dangerous.
“OK. Any particular reason why?”
“Can’t parents have their only daughter over for dinner without her thinking there’s an ulterior motive?”
I say nothing to that, but he knows what I’m thinking.
“There’s no ulterior motive, Piper. Your mother likes having you around, and I think it would be nice, to have a family dinner, just the three of us. Like the old days, huh?”
The days before he wanted me dead, that’s what I want to say, but I think better of it. The last thing I should be doing is antagonizing him. I need him to think everything’s fine just as much as I need Vanni to believe it. Only then can I really start to believe that Logan and I have a chance.
Yeah… that’d be nice.”
“Good. Around eight. I’ll send a car to pick you up.” He puts down his pen and turns in his chair, steepling his fingers across his stomach as his eyes meet mine. “You got anything planned for the rest of the day?”
“Thought I might go get my hair done, do a bit of shopping… Oh, hang on, I can’t. I forgot, my husband’s keeping me prisoner.”
My father’s eyes crinkle up at the corners slightly, his mouth forming the smallest of smiles. “Vanni’s only doing what he needs to do, to make sure you don’t stray again. He needs to build that trust back up, Piper. Trust you destroyed when you slept with another man. One of his club brothers. And I assumed you knew the etiquette of these places.”
“I do.”
“Yet, you still slept with Logan Sandero.”
“And it’s over now.”
He looks at me, his eyes staring right into mine. And then he turns back to face the table, picks up his pen and gets back to work, silently dismissing me.
“Eight 0’clock, Piper.”
He’s issued his orders, and I have no choice but to obey. For now…