I can’t take my eyes off the way the blush goes all the way down to her chest, fuck yes, her nipples are hard.
“You are so vulgar. It was one kiss.”
“A kiss divulges many things, much more than words do. Tells me you are as pure as you appear. How you’ve never come before. How you’ve never been kissed so good it made your pussy wet.”
“You’re disgusting.” She’s fidgeting with my pocket square.
At least she doesn’t try to lie. “No, I’m honest. And I honestly love eating pussy. I’ll always make sure you come every time before I take my pleasure.”
Curiosity flickers before she shakes her head. “I don’t want to talk about...what did you mean you were never with teenagers even when you were one?”
At least she’s talking. I secure my seat belt then check to make sure the road is clear before easing back onto the highway. “I mean I’ve never fucked a teenager. The first woman I fucked was in her late twenties, and I was fifteen. She was my social worker. After her, younger women never appealed. Pretty much all the women I was with from then on were in their mid-twenties and older.”
“Your social worker? Fifteen years old? How—why?”
I laugh at her outrage. “Calm down. It wasn’t a big deal. I’ve looked like I was twenty since I was fourteen. I shot up almost five inches in only four months and I’ve been lifting weights since I was twelve.”
“None of that matters, it was illegal for Christ’s sake. She took advantage of you. Why did you need a social worker?”
“If anyone took advantage of anyone it was me taking advantage of her. My mom died. My older brother, Anthony Junior, went a little nuts and got involved in shit he shouldn’t have. He wound up dead. Pop lost it, killed everyone involved with Anthony’s death. He got himself caught on one of the murders and got sent up for a nickel. I got saddled with a social worker.”
I had definitely taken advantage of Sara. She’d been so small, delicate, and genuinely sweet with stars in her eyes, wanting to make the world a better place, completely unlike anyone I had encountered up to that point in my life. I wanted sweet, needed it at that time when my world was falling apart around me.
“She was going through a rough time, divorcing an abusive asshole. Before Pop went in, he gave guardianship of me to one of his men, but then she came by and kept coming to make sure everything was good. I needed her to approve everything and go the fuck away so I could do what I needed to do. Paying her off wasn’t going to work, she needed more than money.”
Regina is quiet for so long I glance her way.
“What?”
She’s studying me. “I just...I don’t even know where to start on asking you—I can’t believe everything you went through. When did your mom die? How did she die?”
“When I was fourteen. She got addicted to painkillers from a car accident. Pop’s parents and her were in a car accident maybe three years before then. She was the only one to walk away from it. It was one of those things where she wasn’t paying attention to how much she took and she overdosed.”
“Was it really an overdose?” she asks hesitantly.
She’s not the only person to ask—Pop had wondered and so did Anthony. I was the only one who didn’t have a doubt. “Oh yeah, if she was going to kill herself she would have done it in a Gucci dress with her hair and makeup done. Not in what she’d worn for the last three days with her room a mess. Anthony Junior blamed Pop for it because Pop got her the drugs, not taking into account she’d have gotten them somewhere, had been getting extras when Pop wouldn’t give her what she wanted. Anthony went out on his own to get out from under Pop. He shouldn’t have been allowed. He was only seventeen, too damn young to run his own crew. But he was a Sabatini and our Don approved him to take the territory he would have inherited.”
I shake my head, remembering how pissed Pop was. “My grandfather stopped running guns and drugs in the seventies. He didn’t want to touch it and he didn’t want Pop or any Sabatini to touch them. The Outfit has never trafficked women, it isn’t done. We handled sex workers but they were never forced. The one time a capo tried it his dick was cut off and he was left to bleed in the street, pants down for all to see his shame.
Regina gasps.
“There weren’t a lot of options for Anthony that didn’t have him stepping on toes. Guns were one of the few, so he went in on a deal with someone he didn’t properly vet. The scum, Michael Corsia, was also moving women. Anthony told him to let the women go.”
“The guy said no?” The words are soft, she already knows the answer.
“Yeah, and Anthony with all of one man as backup put a gun in his face.” Even now I can’t believe how stupid he was to do it. “There were six men there the night my brother was killed. Pop lost his shit, in less than seven days every one of them was dead. He came close to getting away with it, except there was a witness at one of the killings who came forward. Pop got manslaughter.”
“What did you mean when you said you needed the social worker to go away and let you do what you needed to do?”
Glancing her way, light flashes from the highway onto her face; those eyes of hers are wide. As if even though she asked she doesn’t want to know the answer. No, she doesn’t, not really. But she needs to know, all of it. “I mean Pop went away and fuckers were out to get what was his, what was supposed to be mine when I came of age. It was your father who, as the underboss at the time, kept the civilized members of our family at bay by offering me his protection, who gave me my rites into the family and my first hit for my induction.”
“You were only fifteen years old when you—oh god.” She says god in a whisper.
Nodding, I sigh. Even now, almost twenty-five years later, I still remember the first time. All the other men I’ve killed blurred together, but the first one, I can’t forget that one. The shock on his face, the sound of the gun going off, the way it bucked in my hand. How much blood there was, everywhere. The smell of gunpowder, the copper tint of the blood filling the air. For almost three months every time I slept, I dreamed of that moment. Until the next time I killed someone and the dreams went away.
“I’ve known since I learned my name it would be the life I would lead. Pop and his father ingrained into me from a young age that as a Sabatini, this life came with a duty that would necessitate doing things others couldn’t. I’m not proud of the killing I’ve done. At the same time, I don’t regret doing what needs to be done or let it keep me up at night.”
She’s shaking her head, looking out the window, but I know she’s not seeing anything.