Page 32 of The Beast Who Bought Me
The idea is unbearable.
I meet his dead eyes and give him the truth. “I think you’re fucking insane.”
His smile is sharp. “Maybe. But you’ll join me there over the next year, little prince.” He raises his flask to me. “Welcome home, Caligula Clemenza.”
CHAPTER 13
DAMIANO
I watchthe Clemenza for a long time, drinking him in along with the bourbon. I dim the light with the controls on my phone until it lulls the Clemenza into a sleepy state. The shadows dip and swell over the lines of his body as he breathes. For years I’ve imagined this day, fantasized about all the ways I would make him hurt, mentally and physically.
The reality is very different.
Notbaddifferent. Not necessarily.
It’ll just take some getting used to, is all. I never thought I’d have him here so soon, for one thing. Everything is in place, has been for months, but he fell into my lap unexpectedly. And I need to find a way to explain this to—how did Daniel King put it?—to a higher power.
I also need to figure out who that kind stranger was who texted me, told me to get my ass to the Obelisk tonight.
But all that can wait. Right now, I just want to enjoy the moment.
Caligula Clemenza is totally shot. I can see it in the way his eyelids flutter and his limbs melt into the bed. He’s fightingsleep, afraid of what I might do. He’s smart. I noticed that right away, how he tried to play me in the car, the way he observes everything, gives nothing back.
Yeah, he’s smart. But he’s also human. So, eventually, the eyes blink and close.
“Tell me how you ended up at the Obelisk,” I say, to jerk him back awake. “How come the last prince of the Clemenzas ended up selling his virgin ass to a stranger?”
His hand comes up to wrap around the collar. “Does it matter?”
“Everything about you matters to me, golden boy. You’re mine now, and that includes your secrets, your fears, every fucking thought in that beautiful head.”
The possessiveness in my voice surprises even me with its intensity, and he stares at me for a long moment before responding. “I needed money. And protection.”
“Why do you need protection?”
“Someone wants me dead.” He gives me an appraising look as he says it.
“I don’t want you dead. I want you alive, so you can pay for your father’s sins.”
He gives a slow shrug. “Someone else, then. They’re after my whole Family. Anyone who shared my grandfather’s blood. Surely the Commission must have noticed.”
So he saw the writing on the wall, the writing that everyone else in this town is so eager to pretend is written in some foreign language that they can’t understand. The New York Commission, made up of the heads of the four most powerfulFamilies in this city, has been happy to look the other way. And it figures. Luca D’Amato, Don of the Morelli Family and leader of the Commission, was the one who took down the Clemenzas in the first place.
The amber eyes are narrowing again, not sleepy this time, but sharp. “It’s really not you? The one killing us off?”
“No. Was it you?”
“What?”
“You were covered in blood and running away from the scene of your cousin’s murder the other night, golden boy. With him dead, the empire’s yours.”
He scoffs. “What empire? There’s nothing left of it. So no, I didn’t kill Louie.”
No. I don’t suppose he did. Those soft hands have never killed anyone. Caligula Clemenza never got made, not like his cousin. Far as I can tell,thisClemenza kept out of the business, even though he grew up right there in his grandfather’s house.
“So you just found the body?” I ask. He nods. “You didn’t go to the cops?”
“Are you serious?”
