Tempted By The Mafia Boss

CHAPTER FOUR

Charlotte

Sicily, Italy

Present day…

“Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God,” Father Rossario says with fervency and smiles at me, holding my gaze.

It’s the smile he gives the congregation on Sundays.

He does it just like that after a bible verse, pausing for effect so you can think about it. Ponder it.

“Yes,” I say with a nod of conviction. “That is true.”

Father Rossario is one of the most revered men in the village.

People look to him because he gives them hope. Always hopeful with his influential sayings.

Faith can move mountains, nothing is impossible when you believe in God, blessed are the pure in heart for they shall have the kingdom of God.

The words and the passion he says it with are so gripping that they all believe him.

I did too.

He tilts his head to the side and his pale blue eyes twinkle. “Do you know how hard it is to be a peacemaker, Charlotte? What it consist of? All the work, all that work to love others and try for them, even when you know there is no hope.”

“Must be hard, Padre Rossario.” I smile at him, just like I know I’m supposed to. Just like I was told to.

He nods and smooths his hand up to his collar to remove it. I watch, keeping my eyes on him. He doesn’t like it if I look like I’m not paying attention.

Disinterest is just as much a sin as any other because if you miss the principle you won’t understand anything. That was the message he gave me the first time I met him.

The collar falls to the floorboards and a gust of breeze from the long windows makes it drift over to the fan palm tree in the vase.

I only see it out the corner of my eyes because I need to be good and pay attention.

“I believe the peacemakers deserve some kind of reward for their hard work. Don’t you?” His voice takes on a low timbre and he runs a hand through his silver hair before he starts undoing the buttons on his cassock.

“They do.”

“I have you. That’s why I have you. You are my reward for my hard work each week.” He dips his head and an ease smile inches across his thin lips.

“Yes,” I agree, again recalling my first meeting with him. He said something similar and says it often, like an affirmation of his rights to have me.

Antonio is one fucking asshole of a prick, but the first thing he insisted we did when we got here was go to church.

We went that Sunday when I first arrived and sat through the whole sermon Father Rossario gave and I confess I experienced some level of hope. It was something to hang on to.

Like most things I was proven wrong.

That same night Father Rossario came to the house and I found out very quickly why we went to church.

It was to show me off, and the way that I was to help my family pay back the debts owed to Antonio.

Father Rossario came to the house and paid five grand to have me for the night. He had me and has done so every Sunday since. His reward for being a good peacemaker.

Our Sundays start with us at church sitting on the front row so the other men can see me and they end with father Rossario balls deep inside me. Sometimes when I have what Antonio calls a free night, father Rossario comes then.

Like tonight.

His cassock drifts to the floor revealing his naked body and I can’t look away because I’m supposed to pay attention. If I don’t or piss him off in any other way someone could die.

It was my birthday yesterday and I spent it the same way I have for the last ten years, as a prostitute for my husband who makes a pretty penny from all the men who keep booking their nights to fuck me.

“You are so beautiful,” Father Rossario mutters.

“Thank you.” I’m supposed to answer and smile. I’m supposed to do as I’m told or someone will die.

Breathe the wrong way and someone will die.

I always fear that will be my parents or, God, even Cordelia. Ten years have passed and I’m thinking of a stupid feud over a man I had with my sister. It stopped mattering a long time ago.

What matters is the now. It matters now that I do what I’m doing. This is my forever. The last time I made the mistake of crossing Antonio he killed Benita, the only friend I managed to make here.

I didn’t smile when Father Rossario came to be with me. He complained to Antonio and he threw her into the crocodile pit he keeps out back. He did that and made me watch. That was a year ago. Benita was the person who took care of me when I got here. That was what Antonio did to her and cast his threats on me.

Benita has a son and daughter who work here too, here in the castle-like structure I live in.

I smile when Father Antonio pulls the straps down on my negligee and pushes it down so my breasts pop out.

“Yes, so pretty. Your pretty titties are always so perfect,” he says filling his palms with them.

Ten years ago when he first did that it shocked me to shit. He was forty five at the time. Now he’s fifty five and just as vile.

I shuffle on the bed so he doesn’t have to kneel. He sits next to me with his cock completely erect and covers my left nipple with his mouth.

I sit and smile while he sucks. I’m not supposed to do anything else until he tells me to.

He alternates from one breast to the other in his usual way and I smile down at him every time he looks up at me. I’m required to act like I like it. I’m required to look like I’m enjoying it like the good little pet I am, sex slave or whatever the fuck it is they want to call me.

Pet is a more fitting word I think. But pets tend to get better treatment than I get here. People love their pets. They adore them sometimes and what I am is more of an attraction.

Bile rises in my stomach as I continue to smile down at this fiend.

Bile is rising and I actually feel it burning. I don’t know how I don’t vomit in his face when his disgusting tongue flicks out and starts licking over my nipple. It’s not the first time this man has done this to me and it won’t be the last. I just feel sick every time it happens.

“Spread your legs wide for me beautiful,” he coos.

I lie back on the bed and do as he says. His cold fingers run over my thighs and he gets on the bed, lowering to start placing kisses all over my legs. He likes to take his time. He’s normally here for a little over an hour. Sometimes longer if he wants to fuck me again.

This is the part where I think of my favorite things to block out what is happening to me. It’s the best I can do. It’s all I can do.

And while I think of those things I dare not think of Gabe.

He’s still in my heart but I can’t go down that path. I can’t contemplate what could have been ten years ago.

I can’t cast blame on anybody because I know what kind of man Antonio is. Feared by everyone not just in Italy but the States too, that’s how big he is. The De Luccas are an assassin family and nobody messes with them. Antonio was hot shit ten years ago, but my wonderful husband got upgraded to boss a few years back and became king.

I knew nobody would come for me and I don’t expect anyone to try, let alone Gabe.

I have a place in my heart that will always belong to him but my heart withered away long ago along with any hope I had left of leaving here. ‘Til death do us part.

So every night I’m forced to endure this torture and curse of beauty while I think of what gives me my escape.

I love poetry.

Anything by Browning or Tennyson. The Romantics fantasized about the time they lived and the Post Romantics tried to hold on to the past. They escaped in their writing by highlighting the beauty of the past, the medieval and Arthurian times. Poems about knights and damsels, fair ladies and their gentlemen-in-waiting.

It was all the beauty I wanted to share with my students.

At least Antonio gave me that but it wasn’t because he wanted to give me anything. The women in his family are required to study and look intelligent, especially the younger wives who don’t have children. My days at the start were filled with studying at the University of Catania, then I moved on to teach at the local secondary school. I did that for seven years, studies included. Then it ended when I accidentally broke a tea cup.

It was a tea cup that belonged to Antonio’s brother, Francisco. The one that killed himself because of Pa’s mistakes. I haven’t taught since.

I’m not even allowed to read. I’m not allowed to do anything besides eat and exist. Oh… and go to the doctors for my weekly check to make sure I’m clean so his special clients can fuck me without a condom. Like Father Rossario here.

The stories… the poems are all in my head. All the stories are in my head, sealed in my mind for comfort.

I wonder if Abuelita in all her wisdom saw any of this happening to me.

I’ll never know. My little box and everything I owned was left in Chicago. When I was taken we left for Italy two days after. I never saw my family again and I can only imagine what must have happened to Gabe.

A man like that would have forgotten me.

Ten years have passed. There’s no way he would remember me.

Father Rosario pushes my legs wider and in that second we hear a loud bang come from downstairs. It’s a gunshot. I’ve heard enough of those in this house to recognize the sound.

The noise… that noise, the sound reminds me of the day so long ago when everything changed.From NôvelDrama.Org.

Another gunshot sounds and Father Rosario straightens.

Who has Antonio killed now?

I pray it’s not Benita’s children. There were two shots fired.

Footsteps sound on the stairs and the door bursts open.

Who I see coming through instantly makes my soul shriek away with fear.

Tobias Antonella.

That’s what his name is. The only other people who are as fearsome as the De Luccas are the Antonellas. This guy here is a sick fuck who paid Antonio two million dollars to sleep with me repeatedly over the span of a month. Like some sort of all-access monthly pass.

“Father Rossario.” Tobias smiles and booms in a hearty voice. “I expected you to be at home prepping for this week’s sermon or at the very least in a confessional.”

“What do you want?” Father Rossario spits back.

I shuffle back on the bed and look at the two men.

Father Rossario is butt naked and hasn’t even thought to cover himself.

Tobias has long blond hair that stops at his shoulders. He looks normal and has the disguise of innocent eyes to fool you. He wears a long black leather jacket and looks like something out of a video game.

He sighs and looks from me to Father Rossario. I keep looking to the door expecting Antonio to come rushing up the stairs. I don’t know what is going on but it feels very ominous to me.

“You know I’m a motherfucker, an absolute sick fuck. People call me psychotic. They’re right to because I like torture. I also like eating my victims on occasion.” Tobias laughs and glances at me licking his lips.

My breath stills as our eyes lock. I can’t believe I’ve had that man inside me. I can’t believe he actually touched me. A demon like him.

Fear grips my insides, holding me in place. I can’t bear to look at him. My time with him was awful and vile. It all feels like rape to me, being raped over and over again and I just want to die. With him though I wished I never existed.

I say nothing as he continues to stare at me. I say nothing.

He smiles and looks over to Father Rossario. “Sorry padre it’s the end of the line for you. End of the fucking line. Should have stuck to your prayers and been the man of God you were supposed to be.”

Before Father Rossario can answer Tobias fires one shot to his head and another to his neck. Blood is everywhere.

My lips part to scream but nothing comes out, nothing comes out at all.

I’m ready for death when Tobias looks at me. I am. It’s been a long time coming. A very long time coming.

I flinch when he comes on the bed and moves up to me.

“Present for you downstairs bellezza. You can thank me later, best to keep this one between us shhhh.” He presses his finger to his lips and smiles a twisted smile that makes my body flush.

Flush, not with heat, but cold. Arctic cold fear is what comes over me, that and the smell. The scent of him, it smells like death.

It’s like a moldy, distinct smell that can’t be masked with his aftershave. That is what I remember about being with him, feeling like death and the scent of it hanging in the air.

I’m shaking and trembling. It’s so bad I can’t focus.

It only stops when he moves away and smiles at me. He walks through the door whistling and I stay where I am, watching. Watching and wondering what the hell is happening.

What the hell just happened?

Finding my strength to move, I slide off the bed. My feet connect with the wooden floor and the coldness from the room seeps into my soles.

Present for me downstairs…

What could that be? I don’t have anything like that here. Anything that could be deemed as a present. No, there’s nothing like that for me in Italy at all let alone in this house.

I take a few steps to the door and listen out first before venturing down the corridor that leads to the grand staircase.

I’m still listening out and I realize something. It’s quiet…

Why is it so quiet? The house isn’t normally so quiet. People are usually milling around at this hour.

Night fell long ago. There are supposed to be guards stationed around and the maids and servants doing their last rounds for the day to finish up.

Antonio is always downstairs with someone or talking it up on the phone while his business associates fuck me.

I can’t believe it’s me thinking that. I can’t believe this is what happened to me. Me the girl who saved herself for one man.

I arrive downstairs and the place is so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

Heading to Antonio’s office, I notice his door is wide open.

When I get to it I stop short and freeze right up and my hands fly up to my mouth in horror at the sight before me.

Antonio is …

His head… God… His head is on the floor next to his feet and his headless body is sitting in his chair behind his desk. There are two bullet wounds in his chest and blood everywhere.

I feel lightheaded and faint, but I don’t fall. I can’t. The part of my brain that was clinging on to hope awakens and I see what Tobias meant by present.

Freedom.

That’s what the gruesome horrific sight before me is. It’s freedom.

Freedom ten years later. Today marks the tenth year I’ve been his prisoner.

So… it’s freedom.

Freedom from a man who abused me in so many ways. It means freedom from a debt I’ve repaid many times over.

It’s hope in the darkness.

It’s so quiet and no one else is around. I don’t know what the hell happened here, because my late husband was supposed to be untouchable and feared in two hemispheres. Nobody is supposed to be able to get to him, yet Tobias did.

He did. And left me alive?

I’m not stupid…that means something. I don’t know what it means yet, or what he wants but I suppose I’ll find out soon enough.

Right now I have freedom and by God I am going to take it.