[English] Spin

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I spun around to find the source of the voice.

Michael stood behind me in costume: Dirty jeans. Grey T-shirt. A filthy apron and hair net. “We got a place from ReVal for the wrap party on Saturday. Some corporate loft they haven’t staged yet.”

“Wow. Nice work. Are we starting filming?”

“Nah, they’re still getting the lights up.”

I stepped deeper into the parking lot. “That getup really works for you.”

Anything would work for him. He was a celebrity waiting to happen.

“Like it?” He pointed to a particularly egregious brown smear. “I had this chocolate streak put on just so people would think it was ****.”

“Bold.”

“That’s my middle name. Speaking of—well, no, not speaking of. This is actually a major non sequitur.”

We walked through the lot, ignored in the busy hustle of the camera crew testing every corner for the right light, adjusting scrims and lamps.

“I like a good non sequitur as much as the next person.”

He stopped and turned toward me. “I heard we lost our post funding.”

“You know Hollywood gossip is cheap.”

“My agent told me.”

“And agent gossip is the cheapest. Seriously, Michael, consider the source. Pilot season’s happening when you’ll be doing scene pickups for Katrina. He can’t like that.”

“You’re not denying it.”

“You assume I know in the first place.”

“Still not denying it. You’re an artist at that, you know.” His smile seemed genuine, but it could have been acting. “Now, Ms. Ip? Not such an artist.”

He took out a pack of cigarettes and poked one out. I was reminded of Antonio Spinelli’s fluid motions, his clacking lighter, the smoke framing his face. Michael was less intense. My observations could have been colored by my ***ual indifference. Sometimes, between two people who shared so little heat, a cigarette was just a cigarette.

“I’m glad you brought it up with Katrina first,” I said. “She needs to know if something like this is going around town.”

“I’ve done some of my best work in the past couple of weeks. Pilot season’s not my future. This movie is.”

“I’m glad you—”

“I do feel that way. Let me finish. If this film gets shelved, I’m shelved. I’m home in Park Forest, Illinois, working in the pizza shop on Blackhawk Way. I have no money to put up, but I would, and she knows that.”

“Stop.” When he tried to blow through me again, I held up my hand. “She won’t take money from me.”

“I know.”

“You think you know a little too much.”

“We haven’t even scratched the surface.” He took a scrap of paper from his apron pocket just as Ricky, the new AD, called talent to the set. “This guy funds low-budget, non-union gigs that run out of money.”

I looked at the paper, though I suspected I knew the name already. Scott Mabat, Hollywood loan shark and part-time p**n ography producer. “This guy’s a career-killer.”

“He made Thomas Brandy who he is.”

“A statistical anomaly. The rest couldn’t pay him back and wound up in a ***ch.”

He stepped back toward set, where I also belonged. “I believe in this picture.”

With that, he spun around and trotted inside, leaving behind the implication that I didn’t. As I followed, I counted the days I had left to get Katrina her money.

***

When the set broke, I hopped over to the Spanish house in the hills. The gate was locked, and the driveway was empty. I got out and listened. No banging or hammering. No sledgehammer demolition on an ill-placed wall. Nothing but the screech of crickets.

I got back in the car. Where to, Contessa?

It had been four days. Was the trail getting cold, or was I just getting really crappy at this? I still had no idea where he lived. The car place was probably closed for the day. Where else had I seen him? Frontage. The offices of WDE. A Catholic Charities fundraiser. Katrina’s set downtown, where he’d brought dinner and wine.

Zia.

I tapped my phone a few times and came up with a restaurant in Rancho Palos Verdes. A thirty-minute drive if the freeways had cleared from the spate of violence that had something or nothing at all to do with Antonio.

twenty-six.

ia’s didn’t look authentic. It looked like what authentic was supposed to look like. If you went to Italy, you’d expect every café and restaurant to have a supply of red checked tablecloths, containers of parmesan, and baskets of bread with saucers of butter. Considering the quality of the neighborhood and the sophistication of the residents, the cheesy décor was bound to be a turnoff.

I parked in the little lot and went around to the front, where two tables sat on the sidewalk. At one sat two men in their sixties, hunched over a game of dominoes. The one farthest, with the white moustache and huge belly, glanced at me, nodded, and rolled the dice. The other, in a fedora and open-necked shirt, didn’t acknowledge me. A sense of apprehension came over me. I was stepping into Antonio’s territory. Wasn’t that exactly what he didn’t want?

A wood bar stretched over one side of the restaurant, and the rest of the floor was taken up by small round tables and booths decorated with gingham and little oil and vinegar carts. A mural of Mount Vesuvius took up all available wall space.

Half of the four booths had little “reserved” tags on them, and at the other two sat clusters of men. One of them, a short guy with a brown shirt and goatee, stood between the two tables, speaking Italian as if he was regaling them with a story. He checked me out when I entered then went back to waving his arms and making everyone laugh.

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“Can I help you?”

I turned and saw Zia, doughy fingers clasped in front of her.

“Hi,” I said. “How are you?”

She pointed at me. “I recognize you.”

“Yeah. I remember you.”

Her expression went from warm *****spicious, as if she saw right through me. “You’re here to eat?”

The jocularity of the booths went dead. Some signal must have been given, because I felt their eyes on me.

“No.”

“Something else?”

Best to just get to it. “I’m looking for Antonio.”

“He’s not here.”

“I…” What did I want to say? This was my last ***ch effort, wasn’t it? After this, I had nowhere else to look. “I mean him no harm. I’m here on my own.”

She smiled. In that smile, I didn’t see delight or kindness, but an emotion I’d inspired many times before. Pity.

I stood up straight. “I’m going to find him now or later, Zia. So, best now.”

A man’s voice came from behind me. “You want me to walk her out?”

I turned and saw the potbellied dominoes player. But I didn’t move or offer to leave.

“It’s woman stuff,” Zia said, waving as if my appearance was just an inconvenience, not something heavy. She indicated the doors to the kitchen. “Come.”

My phone vibrated in my pocket. I knew I needed to get back to the set. I would have to go in the kitchen, tell Antonio what I wanted and that I wasn’t taking no for an answer, then hustle back. Zia walked me through the tiny commercial kitchen, past stock pots simmering on the stove and a man in a white baseball cap scrubbing a pan. I thought she was taking me to Antonio, but she opened a door to the parking lot.

“Zia,” I said, “I don’t understand.”

“He’s not here.”

“Can I leave him a message?” I asked as I walked into the parking lot.

“If you think I’ll deliver it.”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

She looked into the bright sun then back into the kitchen. “I have to go.”

She tried to close the door, but I held it open. “Why?” I demanded. “Just tell me why. Is it a trust thing? You all think I’m running back to my ex with details?”

Zia took the doorknob so firmly that I knew I didn’t have the strength to hold her back if she decided to close it for once and for all.

“Please,” I said, taking my hand off the door, “I mean no harm. I swear.”

“I believe you,” she said. “What you mean, I know. But meaning harm and doing it? Not always the same.”

“Is he okay?”

“Is he okay? Si. Until I kill him. Until I shake him out with my hands.” She opened them and hooked her sausage fingers, shiny with years in the kitchen. “Quel figlio di buona donna asks me to cater a movie set. Doesn’t tell me he’s seducing you.” She moved her hand up and down, tracing the vertical line of my body as if I was a monument to every girl he shouldn’t be with. “Stronzo. That’s what he is.”

Her insults were affectionate, but she was very angry. I could pretend I didn’t know what about me was so offensive, but I knew damn well it was my relationships, my culture, everything I was.

“Can you just tell him I was here?”

She shook her head as if I was an idiot. “No. If you chase him into our world, we will chase you out.” She closed the door.

***

I thought of every worst-case scenario on the way to the set. Antonio was dead, in trouble, shipped back to Naples. He was responsible for the violence that had taken over the news channels, or he was the as-yet-undiscovered victim of it.

And I had nowhere else to look. I had no proof that anything was anything, and if I chased him, his world would chase me out.

On set that night, as I pondered the worst, I wasn’t much more optimistic about Katrina. By the wide radius she kept around me, I could tell she sensed my discomfort. I kept my eyes on who was where, what buttons were unbuttoned, where arms and legs were placed, what lines dropped. It was the last day in the café. They were tearing it down. Nothing could be missed.

Then it broke like a fever. Katrina practically whispered “cut,” and everyone cheered. It was over. We packed up for the umpteenth time, put everything back in the trucks. The affairs that had started during shooting would either amount to something or not. The friendships would be tested. If the movie would get to theaters depended on the next few weeks, and no one but me, Katrina, Michael, and the deepest Hollywood insiders knew how unlikely that was.

I got in the car, thinking I’d just take a midnight drive up Alameda and crawl into bed. I texted Antonio, even though it felt more and more like screaming down an empty alley.

—I know I’m harassing you and I don’t care. If everything’s okay just text me anything back. A f**k you would be sufficient—

I waited ten minutes, watching the last of the PAs pack up. I was distracted by the silence of my phone. Tired of waiting for something that wasn’t going to happen, I left.

twenty-seven.

ur final shoot had been in the West Valley, a straight shot down the 101. The freeway was relatively empty, and I went into auto pilot, listening to the news that the shootings and violence were unrelated, random. A southside gang shooting had hit the wrong man. A shooting during a robbery attempt. A beating in Griffith Park.

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“The lady doth protest too much,” I mumbled.

A Lexus cut me off as I was complaining to myself. I slammed the brakes, screeching and swerving as adrenaline dumped into my bloodstream. The Club slid out from under the passenger seat.

“****!”

The Lexus picked up speed, and I did too. I was filled with a blinding hot anger. The Lexus swerved around, and I saw the man in driver seat. Young. Goatee. Flashing me his middle finger. He sped ahead, and I had no choice whatsoever.

I chased the car. I had no idea what I would do when I caught it, but I would catch it. It sped up even as it pulled off without a blinker. I rode his ass in my little blue car. Twenty-four, then twelve inches away at eighty. I was insane, not thinking like Theresa.

He didn’t know who was in my car. I could have been a gangbanger, and he ran. Oh, if I caught him, what would I do… Choke. Kill. I couldn’t imagine it any more than I could control it.

We landed on Mulholland, the most dangerous, twisted street to speed down, but we did. He would get an ass full of vintage BMW if he slammed to a stop, and I didn’t know how to care. The Lexus turned so fast I almost missed it. We stopped on a private street with only our headlights illuminating the trees on either side of the road.

A bloated bag of unreleased rage, I grabbed the Club from the floor and got out of the car. “What the f**k is wrong with you?” I yelled from deep in my diaphragm.

His driver side door opened. I didn’t have time to hope there was only one of them. I swung the Club at the nearest taillight.

Smash.

That felt good. I went for the brake light.

“What the f**k?” shouted Goatee.

As the light smashed, I recognized him from Zia’s. He’d been in a booth. I went at him with the Club, and he stepped back.

“Lady, you’re f**king crazy.”

He reached into his jacket just as the street flooded with light. Cars. I felt caught in the act and rescued at the same time. Goatee got his hand out of his jacket. He had a gun in it, but instead of shooting me, he shot at the cars pulling up behind me. A ping and a clunk. Another shot, and Goatee spun, screaming and clutching his bloody hand. His gun had been shot out of it.

Three car doors slammed behind me. I couldn’t see the three men due to the backlighting, but I recognized the shape of a Maserati.

“Bruno, you dumb ****.” It was Paulie.

When I felt strong hands on me, pulling on the Club, I knew it was Antonio. I felt like falling apart, but I didn’t, even when I saw his dark eyes, their joy and charm gone. He had the face of a mafia capo.

I yanked the weapon away from Antonio and stepped forward, nailing the side of the Lexus on the foreswing. I aimed for Bruno’s screaming head on the backswing. He ducked, and I swung again.

Everything happened at once. I was pulled back. Bruno’s screaming stopped. Doors slammed. Road dirt sprayed my face. Antonio shouted in Italian, and Paulie shouted back in English. A few f**ks were the only words I understood.

I was in the passenger side of my car, and the car was moving. Fast. Antonio was driving. I held the Club up, and he grabbed it from me while driving with his other hand.

“You’re f**king crazy, you know that?” he said.

He hit the gas, slipping the seat back to accommodate his height. In front of us, the Lexus took off, and Antonio chased it.

“Where were you?”

“Put your seatbelt on.” He threw the Club into the back seat. “What did you think you were doing?”

“Breaking things!” Why was I screaming while I was obeying? “Not like it’s your business, but I was going to crack his head open.”

“Do you know who that was?”

Our car swung around a corner. Behind us, the Maserati followed, with Paulie at the wheel, I assumed.

“Bruno Uvoli,” he said. “Cazzo! He’s a made man. He’d sell his sister for a dollar. And you’re like a f**king beacon, asking about me everywhere. What the f**k, Theresa? I’m trying to protect you, and you step in it. Deliberately.”

“Answer a text next time.”

We blasted into the Valley on the Lexus’s tail, onto flat, wide boulevards and poorly lit side streets.

“Hold on.” With one hand, he held me to the seat while he followed the car under a viaduct and out into a twisty service road, clipping the concrete wall in a shower of sparks. We were going seventy-five, and though I thought I should care about what my car would look like at the end of this, I didn’t.

“I want you,” I said, breathless. “I want you, and I’m going to have you. That’s it.”

“I’m death to you.” He accelerated. The BMW kicked awake as if that was its shining moment.

“No. You’re like mainlining life. I want it. I need it. I don’t care what I have to do to earn your trust, I’ll do it.”

He pushed me down, swung the car right, then left, bumping the Lexus onto a turn up the foothills. The Maserati shot around us and in front of the Lexus, taking it in the side with a crunch.

“Cazzo,” he growled again, but not to me. He screeched the BMW to a halt inches from the Lexus.

Paulie and Zo were already out of the Mas with their guns drawn.

Antonio unbuckled me with one hand and pulled my head onto his lap with the other. “Stay there.”

I glanced up at him, his rock of an erection at my cheek.

He looked out the windshield. “I need you to drive away.”

“You’re not getting rid of me.” I heard a scuffle outside.

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“I don’t want you seeing this. I don’t want you near it.”

“I’m not going back to Daniel with any of it.”

“It doesn’t matter. Look at you, ready to kill a man with a club. I’ve contaminated you enough.” He slipped out from under me, opening the door and getting out.

I sat up. In my headlights, I saw how desolate the area Antonio had pushed the Lexus into was. Bruno was pinned to the ground by Paulie’s foot on his busted hand. Zo knelt on him with one knee on his unbusted arm and the other on his thigh. Bruno’s sneaker had been stuffed in his mouth to muffle his screams.

It all sunk in, what I’d gotten into and how. I froze, becoming myself again for a second.

Antonio leaned in the door. “Contessa. Drive.”

“I want you.”

“I heard you.”

“You don’t believe me.” My eyes were locked on the pinned man.

“You want a man you imagine. If you knew who you were talking to, if you knew what I could turn you into, you’d run back to your DA.” In my peripheral vision, I saw him take a pack of cigarettes from his pocket.

I turned to him. “Walk away. Don’t do this. Not over a little road rage.”

He lit the smoke with a clack of his silver lighter. “This wasn’t road rage. He is stupid and dangerous. And he was after you. Now I have to make sure he never touches you, and that I never touch you.” He closed the door and spoke through the open window. “Make no mistake, I will hurt you to protect you. Now go.” He turned to the three men. “Zo, get off him, I got it. Drive her if she won’t go.”

“Yes, boss.”

Antonio turned his back on me, and Zo approached. My beautiful capo didn’t look back, only down at the man who had gotten me to chase him into a desolate area for a purpose I could only imagine, with the smoke and fire of hell winding around his fingertips.

Before Zo could reach me, I backed out and into the street. I didn’t get far before I had to pull the car over. I covered my mouth with my hands and cried, muffling myself as tears fell down the cracks between my fingers.

What had I done?

Of all the things I could do from the front of my dented BMW, I had not one I would do. I could call 9-1-1. I could call Daniel. I could reveal the whole thing to the press. But I wouldn’t, and I knew it.

And Antonio knew it. On some level, he trusted me.

twenty-eight.

thought Katrina would come home and collapse, but when I walked in and found the house empty, I was the one who collapsed, throwing myself on the couch with my forearm over my eyes. They hurt from crying and would continue to hurt because the tears came again. I didn’t even know what I was crying about exactly. Was it stress? Or the man I knew was going to die? Or the fact that I was responsible? Was it because I was pretty sure I had been about to kill him myself?

I don’t know how long I laid there like that, but I fell asleep. I woke to a knock on the door. I looked out the peephole and felt so much relief that I whispered his name when I saw him. I opened the door.

“Contessa.” His voice was rough.

“Capo.” I leaned on the door, looking up at his eyes, sunken and tired and a little bloodshot. They flinched when I called him that then warmed.

“Send me away,” he said. “Slam this door in my face.”

I stepped aside and let him in.

“I tried to stay away,” he said. “I’ve never wanted a woman this much in my life. I’d burn cities to have you. I’d fight armies. I’d commit murder to take you right now.”

I grabbed his lapels and pulled off his jacket. He let me slide it down his arms. I didn’t ask him any questions as I unbuttoned his cuffs. I didn’t ask how he was when I undid the front of his shirt. I must have been a sight with my swollen eyes and stained cheeks.

He touched his thumb to the hollow of my eye. “You were crying.”

I put my fingers on his lips, shushing him, and he kissed the tips.

“I can’t keep away from you,” he rasped.

“Don’t. Don’t ever.” I took his hand. “Come. Let’s wash tonight off.”

I pulled him upstairs, walking backward. Halfway up, he lifted me. I hooked my legs around his waist and my arms around his shoulders, letting him carry me to my bedroom. We didn’t kiss but kept our eyes open and our faces close, sharing breath and space.

He set me on my dresser. I finished unbuttoning his shirt and slid it off. I got his undershirt off so fast his gold charm clinked and dropped. That’s when I noticed the yellow hospital wristband.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I’m fine.”

“You were admitted.”

“Somebody had to be. For the records. Otherwise they have to report a gunshot wound, even in the hand. Nobody wants that.”

I inspected his face for a second.

“What is it, Contessa?”

“You took him to the hospital?”

“To a doctor I know at the hospital. We have people for emergencies.”

My face got hot again. I felt my nose tingle and my eyes moisten. “You didn’t kill him?”

“No.”

A breath whooshed out of my mouth, and I cried with a smile. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just wanted to see you again. I didn’t mean—” I was lost in tears.

“He’s ambitious, and he saw an opening. What he did is past forgiving, but I kept seeing your face.” He looked away and set his jaw. “If he comes near you again, I will kill him.”

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He held my chin in those powerful hands and tilted my face up. Our mouths crashed together. Our arms twined around each other, seeking purchase, finding it, an moving again.

He brought his lips to my ear and whispered, “When you left my office, I thought I’d never see you again, and it made me crazy. I was so angry at myself, I did stupid things it’ll take years to fix. God forgive me.”

I held him, kissing his neck and cheek with all the tenderness and forgiveness I could manage. It wasn’t enough, not by a lot, but it was all I had. I wanted his skin against mine. I pulled my shirt off and twisted out of my bra.

Looking down, he touched my ni**les with the backs of his fingers. “This is wrong. We’re wrong. You and I. One of us is going to get the other one killed.”

“I think about you all the time.”

“I can’t let you into my world. It won’t work. They’ll rip you to shreds.”

“I touch myself thinking of you.”

“I’ve done things I can never talk about. Even knowing what they are could hurt you.”

I slid off the dresser and took his hands. “Come with me.” I led him to the bathroom and turned on the shower. I wiggled out of my pants then reached for his waistband.

“This doesn’t fix anything,” he said.

“There’s nothing to fix.” I unfastened his trousers, and they dropped to the floor. I reached into his underwear and got out his ****. “This works.”

“It’s for f**king you.”

I snapped the shower door open. “Never stop putting that c**k in me.”

He kissed me hard, pushing my head against the wall. “God help me. You make me crazy. We can’t be together, but you’re all I think about. Making you mine completely.”

“I’ll be yours. Let me be,” I said.

“You’ll be destroyed, Contessa. Peacetime is over. If anything happened to you—”

“We won’t tell anyone. I’ll be your secret, and you’ll be mine. We’ll meet in the night, when no one can see.”

“It’s too late for that.”

“No, we’ll say it’s over. It’s that, or nothing. If never seeing me again works for you, then go. I won’t chase you again.”

“Promise?” he asked.

His body relaxed, and I thought he was really going to go. It seemed impossible that his body wouldn’t be pressed on mine, but it was his choice to make.

“I promise. I have the will to do it.”

He put his nose to mine, his eyes scanning my face, then dropped his gaze. “I believe you.” He kissed me, and the rigid pressure of his body returned. “You have the will, but I don’t. I have to have you. Tonight and after, you’re mine. Your first loyalty is to me. Every moan on your lips. Every wet drop from your ****. When the thought of f**king crosses your mind, it’s mine. Say it.”

“I’m yours, Capo.”

“No more halfway bull****.”

I swallowed nervously, because I didn’t want to test our resolve or find out his desire truly was halfway, but I wanted *****rrender completely to our pledge.

“I want your skin on my skin.” I hated to bring it up, but it was my last chance. “After I found out Daniel cheated on me, I got tested for everything. I’m clean. And I left the IUD in.”

He smiled, and my heart opened. “I’m a condom guy.”

“Every time?”

“Of course.”

“No halfway bull****, then.”

I got into the shower. He peeled off his underwear and joined me.

The water was hot and powerful. He leaned his head back and let it fall over his face in rivulets. The water darkened his lashes, making them stick together. I rolled the rectangle of soap in my hands then put them on his neck, running soap over the curves of his body. Shoulders, biceps, forearms, the space of his chest under the gold chain with the circle charm. He enfolded my hands in his, transferring the soap.

“What’s this?” I asked, touching the gold medal.

“Saint Christopher. Patron saint of protection.”

“Does it work?” I kissed it and the skin around it.

“Am I dead?”

I took his c**k in my hand. “Apparently not.”

Turning me, he put his hands between my shoulders, my ass, the backs of my thighs, then up the crack, massaging my pu**y with his finger and my ass with his thumb. I picked up my leg and rested it on the ledge so he could get his fingers farther into me.

“Oh God, Antonio. I’ve wanted you for days.”

“I’m going to f**k you so hard, little princess. I’m going to break you in two.”

I twisted to face him.“Do it. Take me hard.”

He looped his arm under my knee, pulling it up. The skin of his dick was so smooth on my pu**y, he stretched and slid into me. He had to thrust twice more to get all the way in, hitching up my leg. He was so rough that I had no choice but to be a doll in his hands.

“You’re so f**king hot,” he said, pressing his thumb to my ass.

“Hard, please, Capo. Take me hard.”

“Have you ever been f**ked in the ass, little princess?”

“No.”

“I’m taking your ass, right here.” He grabbed my con***ioner and squeezed the cold, viscous liquid down my crack. “Are you ready?”

“I don’t know.” I was nervous and admittedly aroused.

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He f**ked my pu**y hard and wedged his fingers in my ass. “Your little ass is so tight. It’s so sweet.”

His fingers sliding in and out of me, stretching me, opened up new pleasure. “Oh, that feels so good.”

He took his dick out of me and lodged it at my pucker. “You ready for me to f**k your ass?”

“Yes.”

“Relax.”

I tried to relax as he pushed forward. I had to brace against the tile, and he couldn’t get in.

He reached around and put four fingers on my clit and his lips on the back of my neck. “Relax, sweet girl. Let me take you. Let me own you.”

I groaned with the rising warmth under his fingers and relaxed. The head of his c**k slid into me, and the invasion made me tense. I gasped.

“You are so f**king beautiful.” He put his other arm tight around me and grabbed my breast. I felt bound and secure, unable to do anything but let go. “This ass was made for me.”

He jammed forward, and I screamed, getting hot shower water in my mouth.

“What do you want, Contessa?”

He was asking if I was all right, and he waited for me to answer before he moved again. I needed a moment to breathe and took it. I shifted my hips until I felt better.

“I want you,” I said. “I want you to f**k my virgin ass so hard.”

He gripped me harder and pulled his dick out. The pleasure was overwhelming, reaching right to my clit, where his hand still gripped me.

“Take it,” he growled in my ear as he slammed into me again.

“Oh, God. **** me in the ass.”

“I love it. I love f**king your ass.”

He pumped hard, rubbing my clit and stretching my ass farther than I thought possible. I kept whispering take me take me as the feeling of an impending explosion built. I went far away in my mind, past words, past thoughts, pain, pleasure. I was only his fingers and his ****, knowing me in a way I’d never been known before.

“You’re going to come,” he said. “I can feel it.”

I grunted. The fuse sparked close to the keg, crackling and bright.

“Come on. Give it to me.”

My ass clenched and pulsed around him, and my legs dropped under me. He held me up as I had the most powerful orgasm of my life, a slow motion detonation, every piece of flak airborne in its own sweet time, trailing smoke behind. I didn’t realize I was screaming until the last bits of fiery shrapnel floated to the ground, as if I’d been unconscious. I woke to Antonio thrusting hard, slow, with a different rhythm.

“…in your ass, Contessa, si, si, si…” he whispered in Italian, sweet words I didn’t understand.

“Come, Capo. Come inside me.”

His groan was loud and final. A few more thrusts, and he molded his chest to my back, our rising and falling bodies matched in time.

“Bene.”

He kissed my shoulder. He pulled his dick from me, and I sucked in a breath.

“Bene is right,” I said.

He stood up straight, and I turned around.

“Now we should shower, no?”

I laughed, and his smile lit up the room. We washed and toweled each other dry.

“Can you stay for a few hours?” I asked. “You can still slip out in the night.”

“I have to take care of Uvoli, still. There are consequences to what happened with you and Bruno, and me. I have to talk with people.” He reached for his clothes.

“I thought I saw him at Zia’s.”

“He’s not my crew. He’s a free agent. We keep him close. I’m saying nothing else.”

I snapped his jacket away. It had his burned pine smell all over it. “Let me keep this then. To remember you when you’re pretending you don’t own me.”

“While I’m telling lies about you?” He dropped his clothes and pulled the jacket from me.

“Tell me the lies. For practice.”

He kissed my cheek. “I will tell them I f**ked her once, and she got attached. But she knows the DA and will cause us trouble if she’s hurt. I’ll say I don’t trust her. She means nothing to me.”

“Like you said about Marina?”

“It was the truth about her.” He pushed me onto the bed. “About you, I’ll lie. Say you’re not the most beautiful woman I’ve met. You’re not ***y. You’re cold, unpleasant. Nothing a man would want to keep.”

I touched his face, his lips, his stubble, his insane lashes. “What would it be like to be your girlfriend?”

He kissed my cheek and jaw. “We’d be friends first. And no touching.”

“No touching?”

“No kissing, no touching.”

“That wouldn’t work.”

He kissed my chest and br**sts gently, little flicks of his tongue on my ni**les. “You’d live with your parents, and I would come to visit you. We would sit and talk in the garden. Your mother would cook for me, and I would sit at the table with your family.” He moved down to my belly, exploring every inch of it. “I would see you at church. Other men would talk to you, and I’d chase them away. Your father would hate me for a while. Then he would approve. I might touch your hand when no one is looking.”

He got up on his knees and opened my legs. “I would f**k other women and you’d understand, because we hadn’t even kissed.” He brushed his lips inside my knee. “Then I’d ask your father for your hand, and when he said yes, I stop f**king other women.” He ran his tongue inside my thigh. “You’d plan the wedding, and I’d work. I’d build myself. Being young and blind, I wouldn’t see that you’re now a target for my enemies.”

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He kissed my pu**y gently. “You’d cry on our wedding night and call me a brute.” His tongue flicked my clit. “You’d tell your mother I’m an animal. I’d promise to never f**k you like that again. I’d promise to be tender always.” His tongue ran the length of my lips, circling the clit twice, then back to my opening. “It wouldn’t matter. You’d be part of my life. My world. You’d get hard and cunning *****rvive, or you’d stay gentle and die.”

“Antonio,” I whispered, “can you do it like that? Can you do it gentle?”

He crawled up until we were face to face. “Come volevi tu.”

I pushed against him, feeling his hard c**k on my pu**y. My ass was sore, but I wanted him again already. He guided himself in, and I took him slowly, his shaft angled to rub against my clit.

“Oh, that’s nice.” I groaned.

He rocked against me, pushing all the way in. “You’re so ***y. I love watching you walk, how your body moves under your clothes. How beautiful. How straight you are for the world, and how you bend and cry for me. I want to go so deep in you we have the same thoughts.”

His eyes were unguarded, open, warm for me. The swelling in my pu**y blossomed as I looked into his face. The sight and feeling mixed, becoming a swirl of emotion and sensation. We moved so slowly together that I felt everything, every inch of skin touching, every firing sliver of pleasure.

“I’m close, Contessa.”

“Can you come with me?”

His face contorted with effort. “Soon. I’m trying to stay slow.”

“You’re amazing, Antonio. Amazing.”

The last word barely made it out of my mouth as I was overcome with electricity. He jerked, slammed into me, and I cried out. He’d put me over the edge. I clawed his back as he jerked and thrust, growling my name. I spread my legs farther, feeling him against and inside me. We came as a crawling, rolling, single creature, as if we were having one orgasm. Even afterward, our breathing was the same and our hearts beat in time.

“I need to see you again soon,” he said into my cheek.

“You’ll come secretly in the night.”

“Yes. I will. Be ready.”

Downstairs, the door opened and banged shut.

“Maybe not so secretly,” I said.

“Ah, this is the director?”

“Yeah.”

“Is there another way out?”

“No,” I said. “But I trust her.”

He got up. “Good for you.”

***

We went downstairs together, dressed and clean, to find Katrina standing in front of the television with a quart of salty vanilla ice cream and a spoon.

“You’re up early,” she called over her shoulder. “Did I wake… Oh, hello,” she said when she turned. “Nice to see you again, Mister Spin.”

“Katrina, you’re up late. Or early, perhaps?”

She put her ice cream down and jammed the spoon into it. “Because I’m amazing!” She threw her arms up like a cheerleader.

“Oh dear, what now?” I crossed my arms.

“I got post-production financing!”

“Oh my god! How? Who? What?”

She said the next part so cheerfully, as if painting on a cartoon face. “Scott Mabat.” She did a little jazz hands shake.

“What?” I yelled.

“Gesu Christo!” Antonio exclaimed.

Her knees bent, and her hands went from jazz to stop. “I have a plan.”

“This better be good, Directrix.”

“I take the money, start post, and get fresh financing from this German investor who’s been sniffing around. I can keep the energy up, then just pay him off when the German money comes in.”

“That guy”—Antonio pointed—“is a lowlife. Okay? He is worthless ****, and he’s sick in the head. How much did you get from him?”

“Hundred thou,” she said.

Antonio and I groaned.

“That’s what it costs to finish a movie, guys. And that’s cheap. I’m sorry but these are realities.”

“Screw the Germans,” I said. “I’m giving you the money.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am. I’ll pay the note, and you’ll be done with it.” I turned to walk Antonio out. “Come on, I’ll finish with her.”

“Hey, Spin,” called Katrina as I opened the door. “You should come to the wrap party Saturday night. Strong chance of epic.”

“I’ll think about it,” he said.

I pushed him outside and closed the door behind us. The stars were drowned out by the light of Los Angeles.

“You’re coming up with that kind of money?” he asked.

“Yes. My family is well-off. I have a trust, and I can use it for whatever I want.”

He put his fingers on my chin. “I know all about your family. If Scott wants cash, you do not transport it by yourself. And you are not to see him without me. No negotiating.”

“We’re supposed to be a secret.”

“Call him, don’t see him. I’m serious. You don’t know what you’re exposing yourself to.”

I put my hands on his chest. He’d left his jacket upstairs for me, and I felt his muscles through the shirt. “I’ll stay away from all the loan sharks in Los Angeles.”

“Please. I ask only this, please.”

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“How are you getting home? You came in my car.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

I pulled away a little, so I could see the entirety of his face. “Don’t feel pressured to answer this question.”

“I won’t.”

“Did she stay gentle? Or did she become cunning and hard?”

“She stayed gentle.”

I didn’t feel right pressing him further. We kissed again, and I let him go.

twenty-nine.

movie opening with Daniel seemed like the easiest, most convenient way to make sure Antonio and I didn’t look attached. If he needed us to be a secret as long as possible, a few public sightings with Daniel Brower would do the trick.

—I’m going to a movie with Daniel—

He didn’t return the text. I thought nothing of it. We were in stealth mode after all.

***

Big Girls was a huge, star-studded drama about a hot-button issue. The script was built for award-winning performances, and the director had a long career of pushing talent to the limit. So even without any car chases, explosions, aliens, terrorists, or trips to outer space, the film had been declared one for the historical lexicon.

I’d noticed the bald man outside the morning after Antonio left, and again when I’d gotten home from set. I saw him through the window, sometimes smoking or poking at his phone. I’d gotten close to him once, just long enough to confirm I didn’t know him and the walking-through-dirt scent of Turkish cigarettes emanated from him. I didn’t mention him to Gerry when I confirmed I’d go to the movie with Daniel or when I met my ex outside the limo door.

I’d ended up agreeing to everything just for the sake of convenience. Even uptight, rich bitches had to deal with parking woes in Hollywood that were ameliorated with a limo.

“You look stunning.”

“No flattery tonight, Dan. I’m just here to keep you from biting your nails.”

He smiled and stopped me before I got in. “There are four guys in there. One is a bodyguard. The other three are going to talk my ear off about the press conference tomorrow.”

“That’s fine.”

“I brought you this.” He out held his hand. In his palm sat my engagement ring. I’d thrown it at him, huge stone and all.

Daniel had scrupulously saved to get me a ring that wouldn’t embarrass him in front of my wealthy family. It hadn’t mattered to me, but it mattered to him. He took me up to the Griffith Observatory on a night when Saturn was close and bright. He helped me onto the apple box as the astronomer showed me how to look into the telescope. There, with Saturn’s rings as close and tangible as they’d ever be, he slipped the ring on my finger and said, “This ring around our world, Tink.”

I picked up the ring. Did he say that? Or did he say, my world? Did it matter?

“You don’t have to give it back,” I said.

“The wronged party keeps the ring.”

“No, the one who initiates the break up surrenders it. You would have stayed if I’d let you.”

“Just take it.” He opened the door. “One day, maybe you’ll put it on again.”

I got into the car, holding the ring. There were indeed four men in the back, and they did indeed talk strategy the whole way to the theater. Though I understood what they were talking about and I would have had plenty to contribute before the break up, I felt disconnected. It just wasn’t fun anymore. I was watching animals in the zoo discuss their escape, but I was already outside. I’d moved on.

Cameras flashed, and Daniel answered questions as we entered. I smiled. I’d done it a hundred times, yet I couldn’t believe I’d almost agreed to a life of it.

Right around the middle of the movie, the heroine and her husband had brutal, bruising ***, and I thought of Antonio. I wanted it again. Hard and fast with a side of hair pulling intensity, him grabbing me from behind as if he would tear me apart. When the movie ended and I stood, a drop of warm fluid escaped my underwear and ran down my thigh. I pressed my legs together to stop it.

“Are you okay?” Daniel asked as we got into the limo alone. The others seemed to have been dispensed with. “You seem flushed.”

“I’m okay.”

“I meant what I said.” He touched my jaw by my ear, a move that had always made me shudder. “You are beautiful.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m seeing if I lost you,” he whispered, coming close to me.

I pushed him away. “No, Daniel. Just, no.”

“I still love you. You know that.”

I took a deep breath, and said something I never thought would be true. “I’m sorry Daniel. I don’t love you anymore.”

The mood in the back of the limo changed with an almost audible snap.

“It’s him—”

“It’s not.”

“I can bring him up on murder charges tomorrow.”

“I don’t care.”

“**** someone else,” he pleaded. “Fall in love with anyone. Not him. All right? Just not him.”

“It’s over, I told you.”

“He’s a murderer.” He looked as though he immediately regretted saying that. “I have no control around you. You leave, and I fall back into the guy I was because I can’t be that guy around you. God, Tink, you were my valve.”

“Daniel, I—”

“No, stop. Let me explain. I’m going to stick to the issue. This guy, I can’t even say his name right now. That nice peacetime we’ve been enjoying? It’s over as of last week. It started with a fistfight with one of his soldiers, and snowballed into what you’ve been seeing on the news.”

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Impassive. I couldn’t let on, not even a little. What we intended to keep a secret in Antonio’s world had to remain a secret in mine as well. Daniel wasn’t above using his position to administrate his personal grudges.

“Daniel,” I said firmly, “do not get distracted. You’re trying to win an office in the second biggest city in the country.”

“Not without you!” His voice got tight and sharp, his litigation voice. The voice of a man with a list of righteous grievances. “He killed Frankie Giraldi and Domenic Uvoli.”

Uvoli. Bells rung, but I kept my face impassive.

“He came here for the men who raped his sister. Two, he tracked down and killed. The third, he’s still looking for.”

Nella. The sister he’d left behind.

“Do you want to know what he did to them?” Daniel asked.

“No.” It felt ugly to be told like this. “Stop it.”

“He castrated them, then he choked them with their own genitalia. In front of the men he needed to take over their businesses. What he did to find them, I can lay it out for you. You’ll never say his name again.”

“Stop it.” I felt filthy hearing things I shouldn’t from a man whose hurt was so apparent. “If you have proof, you need to prosecute. If you don’t, you shouldn’t gossip.”

“It’s not gossip when I’m talking to you—that’s what I’m trying to say.”

The car stopped at the building where Daniel and I used to live together. He looked at the front door, leaning over so he could see up to the eighth floor. Was he homesick? I didn’t have the courage to ask.

He sat back. “When I failed you, you threw me out. I never blamed you, but I’m fighting for you. I’m going to win you back. Hell or high water, Tinkerbell. You’ll be mine again.”

Daniel opened the car for me and led me to the door, his door, without another word. I wondered if he could smell the Turkish cigarettes as he walked back to the limo looking more determined than ever.

***

The text came when I was almost asleep, from a number I didn’t recognize.

—Sweet dreams, Contessa. I will see you soon—

I jumped at the phone.

—Come now—

My message bounced. The screen announced that number had been disconnected or was unavailable. I was relieved he’d sent me a text but disconcerted that the number was unavailable. What if I needed him?

I couldn’t sleep. I put my hand under the sheets and slipped it beneath my underwear. I was soaked by just the thought of Antonio. My clit felt as sensitive as an open wound. I felt powerful, furious with desire, and I was going to come. My fingers wanted it as much as my engorged pu**y. I counted to twenty, then I came forever, crying out for no one. When I was done, I cupped my pu**y and looked at the ceiling, thanking God for the release.

My phone rang. Again, I didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”

Just breathing. A swallow.

“Antonio?”

No. It was a woman. On the off chance she was on a borrowed phone, I hedged my bets.

“Deirdre? Katrina?”

A sniff.

“Marina.”

Still no answer. Just a weeping woman. What if she was me? What if Antonio was cheating on her? What if I was the mistress this time?

“Are you okay?” I asked. “There’s no point calling if you’re not going to tell me off or something.”

“He’s one of us,” she croaked. “Not you. He’s not one of you.”

“I understand,” I said, even though I didn’t really.

“He thinks...” She choked a little before continuing. “I know him. He thinks you can make him something he’s not.”

“I don’t know what he thinks, Marina. You should ask him.”

She shot out a little laugh that must have soaked her phone in snot. “Maybe you should ask him.”

I was about to answer, but she hung up.

thirty.

magine being cooped up in small spaces with a hundred people in your age group, eight to eighteen hours a day, strictly focused on a project’s completion. Imagine long waiting periods where you talk at length about the project and the most important thing in the world—the state of cinema. Imagine you connect intellectually and spiritually with those people. Imagine you can’t connect physically because you’re so busy.

Now imagine the party at the end of it.

“Honestly, I want to wait to hear from the Germans,” Katrina yelled over the music.

It was the first time she’d been willing to entertain a serious discussion of my offer, and only then because she had a few drinks in her. Katrina and I had gotten a downtown loft that was between owners for the party. The rental and cleanup were paid for by the last pennies in the budget, and some sneaky dealing on my part paid for a DJ and open bar. People had melded into a simmering mass of hot, wet flesh pulsing with the music. The loft, someone’s future overpriced home, had turned into a nightclub without the safety permits.

“If they fall though, I want a piece,” I said. Meaning, a piece of the pie. I tried to couch it not as a charitable offering but an investment in something I believed in.

“You heard from crying lady again?” Katrina asked to change the subject.

“Nope.” I hadn’t heard from Antonio after his good night text, either. I didn’t know what that meant. Did he plan to just come and go as he pleased? Were sweet little texts I couldn’t respond to some kind of leash?

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“Well, epic party ahead,” Katrina said. “Maintain speed through intersections.”

She grabbed my hand and dragged me into the middle of the loft where the thump of the music was the loudest and the press of bodies hottest. With the floor shaking, the kisses from the camera man, the bumping and grinding, and the gleeful exclamations over the music, I got diverted. Michael came up behind me, put his arm around my waist, and moved his hips with mine.

I let go. No Katrina and her money woes. No Antonio or his secrecy and lies. No Daniel, period. Just a fine-looking, nice man dancing behind me, a few more in front of me, smiles all around, and a feeling that I’d been part of something bigger than myself.

When Michael moved his arm, I kept dancing for a second. Then I felt a whoosh as an area behind me opened up. I turned with the music just in time to see Antonio throw Michael against a table. Michael bounced off the top and fell cleanly, like any actor worth his salt had been trained to do.

“Antonio!”

If he heard me over the music, he made no indication. He stepped forward, stiff and enraged. Michael, being the class clown, spread his legs, waggled his brows, and dodged. Antonio caught his wrist, the motion so fast and effortless that Michael was slammed against the wall with his arm twisted behind his back before I took three steps. A circle of stunned people surrounded the two men. Antonio was such a ball of power and rage that no one dared come near him.

“Maybe you shouldn’t let her out by herself then,” Michael grumbled when I got close enough to hear.

Antonio twisted his arm harder. I put my hands on Antonio’s shoulders, tightening my fingers to make sure he felt them and knew it was me.

“Capo,” I said in his ear, “he’s my friend. Please.”

Antonio’s face was contorted in rage, and Michael was trying to smile rakishly through the pain. I pulled Antonio back, and he stepped against me. Michael turned and shook his arm out, giving his attacker a hot look.

“I’m sorry,” I said, taking Antonio’s hand.

“Put him on a leash,” Michael said.

I feared Antonio’d take the bait and attack the actor again, but personal insults didn’t seem cause for violence. He squeezed my hand and looked down at me, working his jaw.

“You have no right,” I growled as the crowd dissipated.

“I have the only right. I’ll hurt anyone who touches what’s mine.”

I knew we were being watched, so I smiled and touched his face. His jaw was tight and tense.

“Put a smile on your face or someone’s going to call the cops,” I said.

He stared at me with white hot intensity.

“I said smile.”

He shut me up with a kiss. I must have tasted of sweat and hormones. The one beer I’d had was probably stale on my breath, but we kissed as if I was clean and fresh from the shower. Our tongues curled around each other, eating each other alive. His hands crept up my wet shirt, slipping under my bra.

“No,” I said, turning away. “You can’t just kiss me and make everything okay.”

His mouth was on mine before I even finished. I pushed away with my arms, but my mouth had a mind of its own and stayed locked on his. My resolve melted like butter in a frying pan, leaving a streak of bubbling grease behind.

He put his hands on my face and moved an inch away. “You’re mine. That means no pretty boys on the dance floor. No fake dates with the district attorney.”

He must have seen me with Daniel on the news. Maybe in the paper. Maybe the man with the smelly Turkish cigarettes had told him.

“I’m not telling him anything about you,” I said.

“I know you’re not. In my heart, I know you have too much grace for treachery. But he wants to f**k you. I don’t like it.”

I wanted to draw the rules out for him in a cold, businesslike manner. But I couldn’t, and it wasn’t just his beauty but the intensity of his gaze. Something spun inside him, some toxic lava. It terrified me, and it was the thing I wanted most. How could I draw lines around that? Was there a law I could lay down that it would obey?

“I can’t see you with anyone else,” he whispered into my ear. “It makes me crazy.”

“We’re supposed to be discreet. This isn’t helping.” He pushed his erection against me, and I gasped. “And where have you been? Your phone’s disconnected.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“You’re asking questions.”

“I don’t have the right to ask questions? Still?”

He held his finger up to my face. “I f**k you. I take care of you. That’s what I offer.”

“It’s not enough.”

“You American women make me crazy.”

I closed my eyes for a second, getting a hold of myself. I couldn’t fight him like this. He’d only come back at me like a bull.

“Tell me,” I said. “Tell me what’s happening. Where have you been? Are you all right?” I took him in, his eyes blacker, deeper from the moonlight coming through the window. “Don’t tell me facts. Your truths all sound like lies anyway. I don’t care about names and dates. I don’t care about the situation. Just tell me about you. I want to know you, Capo.” I touched his chest with the flat of my hand. “I want to know your heart.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Let me know you.”