Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90642 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90642 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Which he seems to enjoy. He licks me up and sucks his fingers clean when he’s all done, and I’m a drooling mess of pleasure endorphins.
“That’s my good girl,” he says, kissing me, holding me tight against him. I’m aware of how hard he is like an iron bar jutting against my leg. “You needed that, didn’t you? It’s okay, I have you now.”
I curl up into his arms. I’m tempted to offer him a blowjob, but I’m feeling sleepy and comfortable, and he doesn’t seem like he’s taking this any further. I kiss his neck and breathe him in, and I’m shocked when I glance at the clock. It’s been almost forty-five minutes. And I’ve barely said ten words.
This man managed to keep me quiet with nothing but his mouth and his fingers. And that’s no small miracle.
I don’t want to move. It feels too good lying here in Brody’s arms. I know we should get up at some point, but I’m breathing deeply, and the couch isn’t that bad really, and he seems happy enough to keep on holding me.
And at some point, I start to drift.
Only for the sound of a vibrating phone to drag me back into the night. “What the hell,” I mumble, fumbling through my pants.
“You okay?” Brody asks, half asleep.
I sit up and raise the screen. Adrenaline dumps into my veins. It’s after three in the morning—which means I fell asleep for a few hours in Brody’s arms—and Simon’s calling.
“What happened?” I say the second I answer.
Simon sounds exhausted. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I should’ve waited until morning.”
“Now you have me. What happened, Simon? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Davide’s fine. But—” He takes a deep breath.
“Tell me,” I whisper.
“It’s Matty.”
Chapter 19
Brody
The funeral’s tasteful. All the Bianco guys show up for their fallen soldier, even the high-ranking Capos and their important lieutenants. The church is packed shoulder to shoulder with mafia enforcers and merciless killers, and when Matty’s father gets up at that podium and gives the eulogy, there’s not a single dry eye in the whole place. Seasoned, hardened murders pretend like it’s just dust and allergies.
Elena leans against my arm at the cemetery. She’s crying, but not like she did when she first found out, not the body-wracking, bone-shaking sobs that looked like they might rip her in half. No, this is a quiet kind of mourning, the sort of mourning that comes after the shock wears off and only a deep, dark hole’s left over.
I know a little bit about mourning.
My father died on a Tuesday. He’d been up the night before dealing with some organization shit, but even though he only got a few hours’ sleep, he still rose with the sun and got back to work. That was how my old man operated. The business came before everything else, and he constantly instilled that into his children.
Mom said it happened fast. I don’t know because I wasn’t there. But one second Dad was in his office, and the next Mom was giving him CPR and the ambulances were screaming into the driveway, and there was the hospital, the bad news, the cold sheen of his quiet skin when I went to say goodbye after he had already left.
The days after are a blur now. Mostly I remember Mom crying the way Elena had, except Mom kept on going, day after day, sobbing like she was going to fall apart because she lost her partner, the only man she’d ever known and loved. It took her a year before she reached the quiet part.
It took us all a while to face the world without Dad.
Now Matty’s family was doing the same thing. They were coming to grips with a life without his voice, without his laughter, without his presence at the dinner table. Elena liked him, but she didn’t love him. They were friends, but they weren’t family. Her mourning will fade, but that father may never get over the loss of his son.
“I hate these things,” Elena says as the funeral breaks up. She stands beneath an oak tree and watches everyone leave, her head on my shoulder, my arm holding her against me. “Everyone shows up and says all the right things but it doesn’t really help. Matty’s poor mother looks like she’s going to pass out.”
“She’ll probably look like that for a while.” I track the woman as she walks slowly toward the procession of cars. Simon’s at her elbow along with his wife, Emily, and Matty’s father. They’re speaking in low tones, and I’m guessing Simon’s letting them know that he’ll take care of them for the rest of their lives. That’s what I’d do, at least.
“You want to hear something selfish and terrible?” She’s crying again when she looks at me. “When Simon said it was Matty, my first thought was, okay, good, at least it isn’t Davide. Isn’t that fucked?”