Page 65 of Satin Empire

“You really don’t care?”

“Not even a little bit. I only offered because I figured it might be fun for us to both be involved, but I don’t really care if you’re not into it. Oh, shit, I hate that you were worried about this.” He hugs me tighter.

I cry a little. I’m honestly still in shock and my emotional reactions aren’t really rational right now. Sitting in that bathroom with Noah felt like an eternity, and every noise we heard, every voice and footstep, felt like someone jabbing a hot poker down my spine. Then when the guy kicked the door in, I was positive that I was about to die, and my body filled with adrenaline so sharp that it was like overdosing on a drug, and that’s when Carlo found us. I’m still trembling at the memory, but the warm water and his strong arms help bring me back into myself.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper as he helps me out and dries me off. I keep saying it, over and over, not even sure what I’m sorry for anymore, but only that the words seem to make sense. He tries to quiet me, tries to make me understand that I have no reason to apologize, but I can’t stop myself—I keep on saying it, again and again.

“Come on, baby,” he says and gets me dressed. Once I’m dry and clothed, he helps me into bed. He wraps his arms around me under the covers and hugs me close against him. It’s warm and the steady beat of his heart reminds me that I’m safe and I’m home with my husband, and it’s okay if I let go.

“I want to share something with you,” he says, his lips brushing the back of my neck. “It’s a story I’ve never told anyone before.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” I say, and he buries his face in my hair, breathing deep.

“When I was fifteen, my father made me kill a man.”

His words make me go very still. My mouth opens, and I try to think of a reply, but there’s nothing.

“I don’t know if he did the same thing to my brothers,” he says quietly, and the deep emotion in his tone breaks my heart. “There were a lot of things my father made us do that we never talked about. My old man did it in the name of making us strong, capable leaders of the Famiglia, but I think he only succeeded in fucking us up beyond recognition.” He’s silent for a few seconds and I feel terrible for young Carlo trying to come of age in a family that chews up and spits out its own members like that.

“It was a week after my birthday.” He sounds like he’s lost in the memory now and someplace very far away. “My father woke me up early, before anyone else was out of bed, and made me follow him downstairs. We have this basement, the floors are unfinished with drains in the sealed concrete, and the walls are all soundproofed. You can imagine what we used it for. When we got down there, two of his Capos were waiting, and a young man was tied to a chair. I’ll never forget the look in his eyes, like he was hopeful that because a young kid was standing in front of him maybe he’d be spared.”

I try to picture the scene and find it impossible. I had it hard growing up with Mom and Gran, but nothing like what he went through, and it explains so much about the way these men view the world. They had their lives radically torn to shreds by an abusive monster of a father, and nobody comes out of something like that without some deep scars.

“I don’t know what he did,” Carlo says. “Nobody explained it to me, and he couldn’t have been more than twenty at most, but it was hard to tell because his face was all fucked up from the beating they gave him and a gag was shoved in his mouth. I think the gag was more for me than for anyone else. Dad gave me a gun and told me to put it against the traitor’s head. That’s what they kept calling the guy: the traitor. I guess he betrayed them somehow, maybe talked to the cops, maybe stole something, I can’t even guess at this point, and it doesn’t really matter. My father, the Don of the Famiglia, the most powerful man in the whole fucking city, told me to pull the trigger in front of his two closest Capos, men that were like uncles to me. And what else could I do? I stared at the kid and wished I could do something to save him, or at least find a way out of that horrible situation, but there was no escape. Dad said it over and over, pull the trigger, fucking pull it, and I did. I pulled the trigger, and the kid died. And you know what I still think about all these years later? How easy it was. A squeeze, and bang, a life is gone, the simplest thing in the world.

“Afterward, Dad told me to take a shower and go back to bed, and we never talked about what happened ever again. Life moved on like nothing had happened, and I couldn’t look my brothers in the eyes for a few days, like I was stained by something. But that wasn’t all that strange in our family. We learned how to deal with trauma at a young age, and I want you to know that it gets easier. The pain dulls, the memories fade, you find ways to pick yourself up and move on. It might take days, or weeks, or months, but no matter what, I’m going to be here for you. I’m ready to listen when you want to talk, and ready to talk when you can’t find anything to say. You’re my wife, Alana, and I will never, ever let something like what happened to you today, ever happen again. I swear it to you on my life, on everything that I am, on my family and my honor as a man. I’ll never let you down.”

I break into tears. He hugs me close and lets me cry. I’m sobbing for poor Carlo, for the fifteen-year-old who died along with his murder victim in that basement so long ago, at the man he’s become today at ease with the horrors he endured as a child, and I cry for my own fresh wounds only just healing. But in the tears, there’s something good. There’s a little hope in my stomach. A little hope that what I have with Carlo, whatever this strange thing has become, I hope that it’s enough to make me whole again. Not only because of today’s nightmare, but also from all the ways I’ve been controlled, held back, taught the wrong ways of doing things. I’ve been to the edge; I want him to bring me home.

Chapter 33

Carlo

We stay in bed and fall asleep eventually. I don’t even know when it happens, but I wake up sometime in the middle of the night, delirious and confused. I roll out of bed and hide in the bathroom so I can make a phone call without waking her up.

Saul answers and doesn’t sound happy about it. “It’s after two in the morning, Carlo,” he says and I must’ve woken his ass up.

“Sorry, bro. I need to know what happened after I left.”

He grunts in reply. “I tried calling.”

“We fell asleep. I had to focus on Alana for a little while.”

“Yeah, I get that.” He sighs and something adjusts on his end. “The one Russian was still alive. We brought him back to the mansion and he’s tied up downstairs. I haven’t taken a run at him yet. I figured we’d let him stew a bit.”

That’s a good plan. I have a lot of questions I want to ask that piece of shit, and a lot of very painful acts I want to perform on him, but I like that he’s sitting down there tied to a chair in pitch black thinking about the upcoming end of his life. Anyone who makes my wife suffer will take ten times more misery onto themselves.

“I’ll be over in the morning to take a crack at him. I want the first try, you hear me? He nearly hurt my wife.”

“Alright, he’s yours. But, Carlo, take it easy on yourself. What happened today was a freak accident. It wasn’t your fault.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. My hands tremble. “They were back because I bought the place.”

“You don’t know that. They could’ve been looking for some gear they left behind.”

“Bullshit. The day after the sale closed? They caught wind of it somehow and knew it was me. I used shell corporations, I kept it as distant from our name as I possibly could, but you know Jasha. He’s a clever motherfucker.” Too goddamn clever. Any other man and we would’ve caught him by now. Except Jasha excels at slipping through our traps like an eel. At this point, his Bratva is far too depleted to be a threat, but we can’t leave him out there. So long as he’s breathing, he’s dangerous.

“Even if that’s true, it isn’t your fault. Get back to bed with your pretty wife and let me sleep. You’ll be fine.”

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