Page 30 of Captured Fantasy

Lucien waited.

“Something I need to assist Mrs. Russo with.”

Every nerve in my body stood to attention. The image of her in that black bikini, all wet and almost naked, burst into my mind. A surge of jealousy moved through me that Federico was seeing her and I wasn’t. I had done nothing for days, weeks, but think about her despite my efforts not to.

“I’m heading out that way, I can run the errand,” Amadeo piped up.

Federico shook his head. “I’m her financial guardian, I need to handle it.”

I took a slow breath and released it. Lucien sat back in his chair and reached for a cigarette, flicking the lighter and putting it to his mouth. He stared into the distance, his face expressionless on first glance. The longer I studied him, the more I realized that something was making him uncomfortable. The mood in the room was strained, like a rubber band stretched too tightly.

“Well, after you’ve run your errand on Mrs. Russo, meet me back here,” said Lucien coolly.

His wording caught me by surprise, but before I could decipher it, Federico was on his feet. He strode from the office. The conversation remained in my head for the rest of the day. I found myself mulling it over silently at the bar that night, surrounded by the laughter of my peers. I should have joined them, but I was too distracted.

Elio Ricci, one of Lucien’s soldiers, appeared at my elbow at the same minute Federico walked into the bar. Elio shook his head, setting down a shot of whiskey before me. I caught the look and glanced between the two of them.

“You have a bone to pick with Rico?” I asked.

“Nah, I think it’s funny, that’s all,” Elio said, sitting down beside me. He was already drunk, his dark eyes glassy. “He got made the financial guardian of Gino Russo’s widow. And he’s just been running errands for her all day ever since.”

My gut twisted as Paolo Venetti leaned across the bar, clearly interested in the conversation.

“Maybe he’s just fucking her,” he chimed in. “I doubt he’d run around after her unless she’d at least put her head in his lap.”

They both laughed and another man, one of Lucien’s younger soldiers I didn’t know well, leaned over and said, “You know what they say about her?”

“No, what’s that?” Elio pressed.

The man shrugged. “Gino used to tell his golf friends that she could take it all the way down.”

“All the way down?” I asked.

He gestured at his throat. “That she could take it in her throat. No gag reflex, nothing. He told my uncle’s friend that she’d just open her mouth and let him have at it like it was her pussy.”

I’d heard a lot of this sort of talk before, most of it rougher and more degrading, but his words rubbed me the wrong way. Mrs. Russo deserved better than to be discussed like this. My mind filled with the sight of her walking into the bathroom at her husband’s repast. The way her violet eyes fixed on me, intelligent and glittering with life.

“Don’t fucking talk about Mrs. Russo like that,” I snapped.

Everyone beside us fell silent. The man frowned, confused. “Why the hell not? I don’t know her.”

I mentally scrambled to come up with an answer that didn’t cast suspicion on me. “She’s a widow, she deserves some respect.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Federico lean across the bar. His black eyes glittered as he swept them over us.

“For the record, I’m not fucking her,” he said. “I’m making sure she’s cared for, as is my responsibility. And Cosimo’s right. Don’t talk about her like she’s a whore.”

Federico was a primary underboss and his opinion held more weight than mine. His words shut down the conversation and I found myself alone, nursing a glass of whiskey. Whatever Mrs. Russo could or couldn’t do with her mouth was irrelevant. The most confounding information I’d derived from the afternoon and evening was that she had somehow made an impression on more than one of the outfit’s most powerful men.

Lucien knew something about her and her relationship with Federico. I found that I believed Rico that he wasn’t fucking her. His voice had been sincere when he’d denied it. So what did she mean to these men and how had she gotten herself tangled up with them?

CHAPTER NINE

LORENZA

That year, St. Bede’s hosted a Fourth of July school fundraiser at the country club. Mrs. Venetti assigned me the arduous task of making three dozen vases of fresh flowers for the tables. Federico sent one of his men to the florist in the early morning the day before to pick up the flowers and vases I’d ordered. He carried them into my kitchen and left me in a sea of flowers, the air thick with the scent of sweet pollen.

I tied back my hair, put on a pair of shorts and my bikini top and set to work unpacking all the vases. They were covered in dust and each one needed scrubbed so it was lunch time before I had them all set up in the living room, waiting to be filled. Then I took a break to have a sandwich and some iced coffee on the front porch.

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