Capitolo Sette

At five fifteen, I am at the door, waiting for Laney to return from work.

When I see her, she stops, leans over a trashcan, and vomits. I grab the small waste basket next to me and hurry toward her.

“Are you all right, signorina?”

She nods as she wipes her mouth, and then I help her walk into the building where she throws up three more times.

I pull a chair up to her. “Sit, signorina.”

Laney dry heaves into the can for what seems like forever. Then, when she tries to stand, she does it unsteadily.

“Signorina, sit.”

“I am so sorry about this. I’ll clean up the trashcan, I promise. I didn’t mean—”

Then I hear Valentina say, “Oh, my God, Laney, are you pregnant?”

I want to tell her how wrong she is for going against her brother’s wishes. Instead, I watch as she grabs the other trach can and puts it in front of Laney, just in time. Then I watch as she pulls her hair back from her face. And then I listen in shock as she soothes her.

“It’s all right. Everything will be fine.”

It’s the sweetest I have ever seen her.

Then she says, “This is exactly what he needs,” and I am back to wanting to lock her in a fucking dungeon.

“I’m not pregnant.” Laney is shocked.

“You may be, though.” Valentina smiles at her. “I’m—”

“Valentina,” Laney finishes on a sigh.

“In the flesh.”

Laney looks up at me with questions in her eyes. I have no idea what to say to her. I’m sure she’s upset, and she’s sick to boot.

Valentina answers that unasked question. “My bodyguard. Our bodyguard. Franco, will you please do something with this can?”

“Of course, signorina.” I take the can outside shocked she said please, but realize it is because she has an audience.

When I return, they are inside the elevator. Valentina looks as happy as I have ever seen her, and Laney looks like a green deer in headlights.

“I won’t take no for an answer; it’s not in my blood.” Is the first thing I hear Valentina say to her before pulling the elevator door shut.

I want to yell at her, scold her, tell her to leave the poor woman alone. Tell her she should have honored her brother’s wishes.

But I can’t say a fucking thing. Not in front of Laney, anyway.

I pace in front of Laney’s apartment door until Valentina comes out. She jumps when she sees me.

“What are you doing?” she whisper-hisses.

“Your brother is going to be beyond upset with you, Valentina,” I snap.

“Oh, now it’s Valentina, not Signorina Segretti?” she huffs, walking past me and toward the elevator.

I follow her in. “When you fuck up like this, yes.”

She laughs. “How did I fuck up?”

“Loyalty. Your loyalty lies with Dominic. He asked you to stay away, and you didn’t.”

She smiles. “Dominic, huh?”

Holy shit, she’s not even arguing. I want her to fucking argue right now. Need her to.

“I’m being quite serious right fucking now.” I grab her wrist and turn her to face me. “Why do you do things like this? Why do you go against everything good in your life?”

Her smile is softer now as she looks up at me. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“I don’t do a fucking thing wrong, Valentina. I don’t …” I stop my rant when I realize how she’s looking at me. I have seen it many times before, but never when she was sober. “Are you drunk?”

She sighs and pulls her wrist away as she steps back. “Yes. Totally loaded.”

As the elevator stops on her floor, she steps out.

“When did you get that way?” I ask, pissed I missed something, something important. Valentina is much more uncontrollable when she’s drinking.

“I haven’t had a sip. Goodnight, Signore Protettore.”

When I get downstairs, my blood is boiling. I am so angry at her. Angry isn’t the word. Livid. I am livid.

After setting the alarms and deciding to put audio devices in Laney’s place when she goes to work in the morning, I take the hand-held walkie and head to my apartment to shower.

Naked under the water, I close my eyes and let the water fall over me. I see her. I see her as a child. Her as a spoiled, little bitch. Her in bed with two women. Her every fucking time she asked me to fuck her. And her while she’s been here. My cock twitches at the thought of a domestic Valentina, standing at the stove. Then that feeling fades when I think about her throwing out the food I had refused. Had she asked me again, I would have said yes. I harden again when I picture her taking care of another human being.

I grip my cock loosely then squeeze. Turning, I put my back to the wall and fucking see her all those times she asked me to fuck her. I squeeze my cock, angry at myself for thinking about her. Then I again think of her demanding I fuck her and pump harder, faster. I picture her with those women and can’t fucking help remembering the way they made a circle.

I fuck my hand, jerking it harshly now as I tighten my hold and close my eyes tighter. I am trying to picture them, the other two, but they are not fucking even there anymore. It’s her I see.

Her head rolled to her shoulder as I picture me eating her cunt, that bare, little pampered cunt as she cries out my name. I picture her telling me to be gentle as I thrust fully into her with my cock over and over again until she stops fucking telling me what to do.

I come when I think of her making me fucking dinner, not serving me shit she’s going to throw out. I come again when I picture her sucking my cock, taking it all and begging for my come. Then I come again when I picture her asleep in bed next to me so I don’t have to fucking sit up half the night, trying to listen to her breathing pattern, knowing it so fucking well, so I can fucking sleep until she wakes up and starts her shit all over again.

For a week, I watch Laney avoid Valentina, seeing sadness in those big brown eyes. I take a hell of a lot less pleasure in it, too.

Valentina wants to be her friend. She wants Laney to accept her, but Laney just can’t. Because, from what I have come to find out, Dominic was pushing the hell out of her, and she was scared to death of his promises, not trusting men. This is why he was giving her space. However, Valentina, whose intentions were actually pure this time, simply wanted to see him happy, and Laney, she seemed to be what was going to do that.

Love, or something like it.

On Friday, Valentina is in the lobby, waiting for Laney, I suppose. I’m surprised she hasn’t given up. Honestly, I’m a bit intrigued by the fact that this doesn’t seem to be a phase.

When I hear her on the phone, I just sit back and listen.

“Your friend threw up the other day,” she says in a bitchy tone.

As she listens to whatever Dominic says on the other end of the call, I see Laney walk in and almost get embarrassed for Valentina, but she sees her, too, and continues.

“I don’t know if she’s all right,” Valentina spits.

Laney walks past her, head down.

“She avoids me at all costs.”

I can’t help wanting to laugh at her passive-aggressive shit. All I ever get is aggressive.

“Of course she knows who I am.”

I watch as Laney hits the door to the elevator over and over again, no doubt wanting to disappear.

“What was I supposed to do, Dominic? Ignore the vomiting woman in the entry? She could very well be carrying my niece or nephew.”

Laney covers her mouth and spins around, looking at Valentina in shock.

“I hope she is, you stubborn ass. Then maybe you’ll call her.” She smirks as she holds her middle finger up at her phone.

I watch as Laney shakes her head, slightly amused.

“She hasn’t run for the hills … yet.”

She’s in full-on brat mode to her brother now, and it’s somewhat enchanting.

“You are a foolish man, Dominic. I can’t even talk to you. Goodbye.”

Laney steps into the elevator, shaking her head.

Valentina runs toward it. “Wait up! Are you going to call him?” she asks Laney, putting her hand on her hip, looking her up and down.

“No,” Laney whispers.

“Tell me why. He’s very handsome, strong, hardworking. I assume he treated you right in private situations.”

I almost laugh out loud as Laney palms her face while Valentina shuts the elevator door.

I listen to them as they enter Laney’s apartment, watching the screen of the walkie.

“He’s not interested?” Valentina gasps. “He’s more than interested. Look around. He did this for you. He—”

“I never asked for this. I am actively looking for another place—”

“Because he owns the building?” Valentina sounds shocked.

“That, and because he didn’t cash the check for the rent. I’m not …” Laney pauses. “I’m not going to be someone’s plaything. I’m independent. I’m working so I can make it on my own. I’m—”

“He’ll buy the next building, too,” Valentina says, and I hear a smile in her voice.

“That’s unfair. That’s so unfair. I am so damn sick of crying! I’m sick of all this. I just want to be left alone. He’s with Jules! I am trying to take this whole thing as just a thing, you know? And if I don’t feel bad enough about myself for sleeping with someone, and thinking I felt something for someone who … who—is with Jules! He certainly reminds me of what a whore I seem to be, buying my apartment building. I—”

I hear a phone ring, and she stops crying. It’s a cell, and not Valentina’s. Then I hear a slam and it stops ringing.

When it rings again, I hear Valentina say, “What do you want?” She pauses. “You’re with Jules DeLuca?” Jules is Benito’s wife. Valentina continues, “Well, you know I’m with Laney on this one, brother.” After that, I hear her say in a different voice, “I can’t believe I just did that,” and assume she must have hung up on her brother. That assumption proves true at what I hear next.

When the phone rings again, I hear Laney answer. “Hello?” Then Laney gasps, “Oh, my God, no! I’m not pregnant!”

I reach up and turn off the audio.

Jesus Christ, that poor man. Two women!

I almost laugh at myself because, for many years, two have been my preference. It dawns on me that I am one lucky son of a bitch that it was never two whose hearts got tangled up in it, just the sheets.

I expect to see the monitor blip with Valentina’s exit. When it doesn’t, I turn the audio back on.

I hear Valentina ask, “You love him?”

“Valentina, I have no idea what love is. I only know that the feelings I have for him are strong and not always pleasant.”

“He’s in love with you.”

Silence.

Jesus Christ, Valentina, I think as I now palm my face, embarrassed for all involved.

“No, he hasn’t said the words, but he does, Laney. I know he does.”

“Doesn’t matter. It would never work.”

“Because he’s in Italy and you are here?”

“That, and I don’t trust him. Trust is important.”

“Has he given you reason to mistrust him?”

“That’s it. He said all the right things and I believed him at that moment, but then … then—”

“Jules DeLuca is a self-serving bitch. Her husband is worse,” Valentina whispers. “I won’t pretend to know everything about my brother’s personal life. I won’t even try to figure it out. But I know who he is inside. I know he loves deeply and feels even deeper. And I know he is loyal. If not for him, I wouldn’t be here today.” She sounds softer, sweeter, and then she laughs. “Literally, I wouldn’t be right here.”

Valentina talks about the dark days, as she calls them, when she lost her parents, and then her grandfather. After her grandfather’s death, she found her grandmother crying and heard her say over and over again, “I gave it all up for you, my children, my heart, my everything.”

“She sounded so angry as she talked to Grandfather’s picture. Then Dominic found me and scurried me back to our wing of the house. He took the time to listen and tried to help me understand that she had not given her children away, and that it was her way of expressing a feeling.

“He was always explaining my feelings to me. He protected me, loved me, and raised me, until he couldn’t anymore. I was angry when he let them send me away to a private school. He said I would someday understand. I still don’t, but I know, if he felt it was in my best interest, then it was. He’s a good man and a great brother. I wish you could see that.”

“I do. I see all the wonderful things about him in vivid colors. But the other things, the clouds that loom over him, and the wall I have built for self-preservation, make it impossible. I want your brother to be happy.”

“Then make him happy,” she tells Laney. “At least call him. He’s going through so much right now. He needs someone. He doesn’t tell me anything because he thinks I’m weak.”

“You weak?” The adoration for Valentina in Laney’s voice is beautiful. “I have only spoken to you twice and I know better.”

“Then help me make him see that.”

I turn off the monitor again, knowing Valentina may be a pain in the ass to me, but for her brother, she’s truly loyal.