Smoke, page 13
Back on the street, there were few people or cars to impede or distract him from what lay ahead.
When he reached the Stuyvesants’ refurbished 1960s bungalow a third time, he slowed to jog up the curved length of the gravel drive. He climbed the granite steps to the front verandah and knocked at the double door. There was no sign of bright yellow police tape here. Not in this neighborhood.
His chest rose and fell as he caught his breath, perspiration sheening him from head to toe, dripping down his bare torso and legs. He checked over his shoulder to confirm the front hedgerow shielded him from street view, then wiped his brow with his forearm and knocked again. He toed off his runners to stand barefoot on the welcome mat, then cupped his hands to his face and peered in through the sidelight.
The checkered marble foyer cut right through the home from the front door to the greenery of the rear yard. A lap pool stretched the vista farther across manicured grass into the diffused shadows of a chandeliered pavilion, decked out with current-season Ralph Lauren furnishings mixed with antiques undoubtedly garnered from weekend jaunts to Connecticut and Massachusetts. To London and Paris.
Rafaella slunk toward him through the foyer, her stride practiced and smooth. She possessed the same wry smile as Eleonora. The same as Angi. Her silhouette was ample and feminine, cloaked in a white caftan that was little more than gossamer against her naturally tanned Euro flesh. She let it drop to the tile as she welcomed him in, then closed the door behind him.
Smoke pushed his shorts to the floor and kicked them to the side in one fluid movement, Trojans scattering.
Everything about Rafaella was familiar. The taste of her mouth, the pressure of her lips and tongue, the curve of her buttocks in his grip. And the strength of her legs around his waist as he lifted her up against the front door. They shared an unhurried tenderness. Raw and provoking in its sensitivity. Their movement around and into each other was deliberate and gentle. Intoxicating. Heady and pungent as they kissed, and licked, and bit, and eventually fucked.
Slow and thoughtful.
He carried her through the foyer and down into the pool, his flesh still burning inside her, their motion against each other escalating, becoming more urgent with the slap of water against them. But then he paused and pulled his mouth from hers, intent on her eyes. Studying the dark flecks radiating across the hazel. Breathing deep of her breath, as he intentionally slowed their frenzy. He subtly shifted his angle within her, challenging the convolutions of tender flesh until he recognized the spark he was seeking. Every muscle ached and burned. But there was no need to hurry. His focus was solely on her, satisfying her needs, and giving her pleasure.
Rafaella closed her eyes and tilted her head back, her mouth slack, her lower lip plump in the gentle bite between his teeth. Still, his movement within her was excruciatingly slow and considered, attentively checked by an almost unbearable urgency that was becoming harder for him to restrain. Her grip on his shoulders loosened as she relaxed into the moment, as he lifted her up out of the pool and padded around its edge and into the pavilion. His quads and glutes trembled as he lowered her onto a daybed, their connection unbroken as he pressed his mouth once more to the wetness of hers.
Time drifted around them as they continued their intimate exploration. No need for words as they came to know each other. As they acknowledged there were no boundaries between them they wouldn’t cross. Not now.
He was close, and he knew she was as well. Unbearably close. Still, he held back, measuring his pace within the rhythm of her escalating tension and squeeze, edging forward, savoring the taste of her mouth, becoming more and more enamored with the fleck of eye and freckle of nose.
Rafaella abruptly gasped and convulsed beneath him. In response, he thrust hard and deep. His considered plunge and pull of flesh within flesh compounded her tremor and his own. It was an intensifying pump. His balls loose and aching with the repetitive, hard slap against her. She suddenly released, wet and warm, and he came, hot and viscous, within her. Cresting waves shuddered through them. Both fulfilling and draining. Swelling until eventually subsiding into a shared, pleasurable jerk. A body-length shiver.
Smoke maintained the aching tense of muscles, holding the weight of his bulk above her. His heart thumped, blood coursing through him, his breathing heavy and dizzying, the unsheathed head of his cock unbearably sensitive inside her. Continuing to throb. And ache. Threads of saliva stretched between their lips as they breathed only the warm breath of each other, and he gently lowered his mouth to hers once more.
This last kiss was long and ardent as the trembling waned, as he softened, his flaccid flesh still thick and warm and sticky in their connection. His eyelids wavered between open and closed with the brush of lips and tongue, all of his senses absorbed by her. By the lines of her face. The softness of her skin and hair, her taste, her smell, her warmth. The excruciatingly tender noises of their bodies, with his tongue and cock still inside her.
“I know you killed the twins,” she whispered. “Is this when you kill me? Or am I already dead?”
“Shhh,” he said, touching a fingertip to her lips. He bit down on his tongue as he pulled himself from her and rolled onto his back at her side. He stripped off the condom, reaching to cup his balls and massage the tender ache. Then he turned toward her, speculating how this was going to end. How this definitely needed to end.
“You have a lovely home,” he said, wondering why she’d chosen this location.
Rafaella was somber. “It is gorgeous, isn’t it?” Then she laughed, an expression that made her truly beautiful. “You don’t even know how gorgeous. You’ve only seen the foyer and pool! And hardly even that as it’s been more than apparent where your attention has been since I opened the door.”
She abruptly fell silent and her smile fell, too, replaced by the hard lines of anger or annoyance. A coldness took hold. “Unfortunately, this is not my property. It belonged to a forsaking bitch and her deadbeat cunt of a husband, who are both better off where they ended up.”
Smoke was taken aback and sank inward at the venom of her words, his pain no longer pleasant, a sadness taking hold. He looked away from her to take in the sky.
Now he wouldn’t mind killing her.
Hideous creature.
Fucking hideous creature.
Chapter Thirty
He held his runners by the laces, his tank tucked into his shorts to hang by his thigh, as he barefooted it across the Stuyvesants’ front lawn. Without glancing over his shoulder, he knew he shouldn’t have returned. Not to this house. And definitely not to her. The thought of her lying dead across the high-end furniture and multi-layered floor rugs somehow warmed his heart. Yet he knew he’d never kill her unless sanctioned by the House. He wondered if he still worked for the House. If the House even existed.
He hunkered down on the grassy verge to pull on his Nikes, barely distracted by the engine firing pulses of an approaching motorbike. An Italian Ducati Monster passed, then U-turned on Independence Avenue to pull up beside him at the curb as he double knotted his laces. It was the leader of the Ruspanti. Simone had called him the capitano.
“Did she tell you anything?”
“How did you know I was here?” Smoke asked.
The capitano smiled, a curve of lips and flash of teeth that was far from unpleasant. “Get on, fratello.” He tapped the leather seat immediately behind him.
Smoke swung his leg over the bulk of the Monster and positioned himself tight behind the capitano. The rapid acceleration of the machine caught him off guard. He dug his fingers deep behind the waistband of the capitano’s slacks. Then he reached his other hand, the one with the broken finger, around the capitano’s torso to hold low and secure against his hard abdomen.
The engine was loud and the breeze cool as the Ducati circled up onto the Henry Hudson Parkway. They white-lined it between the gridlock of cars, south over the bridge above Spuyten Duyvil onto Manhattan Island. Then they curved down past the Met Cloisters and under the viaduct to the edge of the Hudson River. The machine came to a stop in the parking lot of a waterfront restaurant.
“Best you put this on,” the capitano said, whipping the tank from Smoke’s shorts and tossing it at his bare chest. Again, that easy, self-assured smile. The capitano chose an outside table at the rim of the promontory, away from the other clientele, where the churning noise of the river’s current would shroud their conversation.
“Have you eaten today?” he asked.
“You tell me,” Smoke said.
The capitano didn’t even look at the menu. “Two veggie burgers, extra patate fritte, and a bottle of Chianti,” he said to the server. He pulled off his windbreaker to a thin white cotton T-shirt with short-cut sleeves. No tattoos to pull the focus from the well-defined arms and smooth hairless chest. He stretched, tight dark curls enhancing his pits.
“You never told me your name,” Smoke said.
The capitano seemed thoughtful as he peered downriver toward the George Washington Bridge. Even to Smoke, the panorama of the bridge’s span between Manhattan and New Jersey was impressive from this vantage point. “In the company of my men or when I am directing you to action, which I most surely will when required, you will address me as Capitano Cioni. Otherwise, Andrea.”
“And right here, right now?” Smoke asked. “What is this?”
“This is when you call me Andrea.” He gripped Smoke’s forearm, then let it go. The server returned with the bottle of Chianti and two glasses. “I will decant. Grazie,” Andrea said. He poured the red and handed a glass to Smoke. “Cin cin, fratello.”
Smoke sipped the wine. “How did you know I was in Riverdale with Rafaella?” he asked.
Andrea smirked. “She’s passionate, is she not? Moreso, as she has ripened into a woman of her own confidence. Much more assured than when we were teenagers.”
Smoke closed his eyes tight, biting his tongue against speaking his own thoughts on Rafaella. He took in a deep breath and opened his eyes. “Please, Andrea. I need to understand.”
Andrea held his gaze tight, then took Smoke’s hand and lifted it to the back of his own neck. He pressed Smoke’s forefinger against a vertebra, and between the thick ropey musculature where Smoke could feel an unusual nub of bone. Or something. The capitano pressed his finger atop Smoke’s, rubbing it back and forth. The small nub within the capitano’s flesh seemed to click, to float loose beneath the muscle.
“That’s natural, right?” Smoke said, in genuine curiosity.
Andrea then reached for Smoke’s neck, his fingers wrapping around the cleanly shaven skin below the jawline. Smoke knew that hand had been used to kill, and would be again. Though his hold was warm and gentle, the strength within it was more than apparent. The thought of Andrea’s hand crushing or fracturing the cartilage of his larynx, or snapping his neck, was too easy to imagine. Too easy to understand. Perhaps welcome.
Andrea pulled Smoke toward him, and tapped his fingers against the vertebra at the back of Smoke’s neck. The same small bone, the same loose movement when pressed from side to side.
He drew back, his face barely an inch from Smoke’s, his attention flicking from eyes to lips and back again. “You have only a slight scar, ambiguous amongst the fine lines of the neck, right at the hairline. Right here.” He again touched a finger against Smoke’s skin, then leaned back into his chair and sipped his Chianti. “Per your file, you were eleven when the grooming began. Of course, given your birth, there was never really any alternative, and the abuse incurred to mold you into who you now are is unfortunate. But well documented. I believe you were seventeen when an altercation at Harvard landed you unconscious in the hospital. Again, not unintentional. The incident provided them the opportunity to secure the device. It is rudimentary at best, but works well at close range.”
“The House?” Smoke asked.
“No. The chip is a modern legacy of Famiglia Medici, from long before they handed you over to the House. The House wouldn’t even know about the device.”
Smoke raised an eyebrow. “I don’t recall being handed over to anyone.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Andrea said, again touching Smoke’s arm, but this time leaving the connection unbroken.
The contact was not unnerving. Indeed, Smoke found it subtly reassuring, and yet it punctuated a conversation he wasn’t understanding.
He recalled bypassing the security of Elgan’s laptop, and then Jameson’s, when his fingertips had touched the bio-sensor. He’d thought they hadn’t been using a password. “Am I a Medici?” he asked.
Andrea laughed, his exuberance slowly devolving into a deep and lasting chuckle. Still with that smile, he slapped Smoke’s shoulder.
“You and I are two of uncountable bastards, fratello. Not pure enough to mainline a direct injection of their funds, but with enough blood they keep us close and well-tended. Just in case.”
Their burgers arrived, and they ate in silence. Smoke gazed across the water as his thoughts deepened. The sun reflected against the GWB’s sweep of cables, and boats dotted the glistening water beneath. Andrea was closely watching him, reading his expression and body language even as Smoke kept his countenance as unreadable as he could.
He swiped several French fries through a puddle of ketchup and bent them into his mouth. “Why don’t we just cut it out? The chip I mean,” he said.
“There’s more than one,” Andrea said plainly. “And we both have thirty-four years of scars along our bodies to make any search with a knife more damaging than helpful. Besides, they are relics. Few are even aware of them. And most are inactive.”
Smoke licked the salt and grease from his lips as he considered Andrea’s revelations. The thought of him officially being a bastard made him smile—a feather in the cap of his blank family tree. Then he felt the blood drain from his face as he recalled that morning’s activity. “Rafaella?” he said, letting the name hang between them.
Andrea tilted his head and stroked his chin. There was the hint of an afternoon shadow along his jaw as his lips spread into a smile. “Don’t worry. You’d need to go back several generations to find even a remote link to her purebred branch of the family tree. What did she say?”
“It may have been subterfuge, but she didn’t seem aware I’d been at the Stuyvesants’ home before. And what she said about Angi and Daan was... ah... not complimentary. She seemed more than happy they’d been retired.”
Andrea nodded, the wrinkles about his eyes creasing as he considered that. “I know Rafaella can be a bitch. As much as you or I can be, when circumstance warrants. However, be mindful. There are factors you don’t know about. And you’re not the only one unfairly treated in their journey.”
“Are you expecting me to take your words at face value?” Smoke asked.
“Fratello,” Andrea said, locking his gaze on Smoke’s eyes. “You need to know you can trust me. That I’d only lie to you if I determined it was the best or only course of action.”
“You said at St Bart’s I shouldn’t trust anyone,” Smoke said.
“I did.” Andrea drained his glass of Chianti and poured another, his lips and tongue a deep cinnabar crimson.
Chapter Thirty-One
They stood on the upper terrace of the outside café bar in Bryant Park, within the moon shadow of the New York Public Library.
“I have this for you,” Smoke said. He reached behind his jacket lapel, then pushed into Moretti’s jacket pocket a bag containing a few buds and papers from Rafaella’s stash. “You shouldn’t light it here, but we can walk the streets later.”
“Grazie. These should be the last I’ll need. The pain has subsided to bearable.” Moretti lifted an espresso to his lips.
At the far end of the park, near 6th Avenue, a massive cinema screen fluoresced with images of Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal. When Harry Met Sally. The croon of Harry Connick Jr drifted from hidden speakers, the smooth vocals settling over the picnicking audience and eddying amongst the rows of majestic London plane trees delineating the parkland from the surrounding streets and skyscrapers. Despite Smoke’s caution, the skunk-grass smell of pot imbued the air, melding with the ubiquitous odors that less than subtly defined Midtown Manhattan. The drift of burned meat from the vendor carts askew on the sidewalks. The exhaust fumes, and the hovering remnants of that day’s sun-warmed horse shit and urine.
Ahh, the sweet smell of a New York summer evening.
“Was there still a police presence at your townhouse this morning?” Moretti asked.
“Mm-hmm.” Smoke watched Meg Ryan, his thoughts still on his conversation with Andrea—an interaction he still didn’t understand.
“I’d thought you’d be back to the hotel by noon.”
Smoke leaned against the edge of the high-top and fingered the neck of his San Pellegrino. “I needed to run. Get my head clear.”
“Uh-huh.” Moretti slowly nodded. He pulled the bag from his jacket and rolled a joint under the overhang of the high-top table. “What did the capitano say about me?”
Smoke took a swig of water. “Nothing. He just reiterated that neither of us should trust anyone.”
“Did he have any idea who was—is—willing to expose the executions of five people so closely related to the Family? Or who wanted you and Gabrielle dead, and presumably still does?”
Smoke shook his head. “Perhaps they’ll only be satisfied if I’m in jail.”
“No, Tommaso. It never works like that. And you know it. You in jail would only make it easier for them—whoever they are—to kill you and resolve whatever their issue is. You were a target for a reason. You are a target.”
They fell into silence, both intent on the cinematic conversation echoing from the speakers scattered throughout the park.
“What is this story all about, anyway?” Moretti said, motioning toward the screen.
Smoke peeled the paper label from his bottle. “Friendship,” he said, thinking of Eleonora. Of Lucy and Andrea. Of the people who had passed through his life and those who were currently in it. “Whether friendship is even possible between a man and a woman without sexual implication. Harry and Sally actually had it pretty easy, if you ask me. Their time period was much simpler. Perhaps repressed. They didn’t need to deal with today’s ambiguity of gender fluidity and the broader acceptable spectrum of sexual attraction.” Frustrated, he began shredding the paper label into strips.
