Author: Alexa Land
Category: LGBT
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/alexa-land/page,12,529414-all_in.html
Chapter Twelve
“Wait…Dante is flying halfway around the world to kill someone?”
“Didn’t he tell you?” Mrs. Dombruso asked as she handed my phone to me.
“He did, actually. I didn’t believe him.” I stared at her incredulously. “And…you’re ok with this?”
“Well, I’m worried about Dante, of course. Natori’s a very dangerous man. But this needs to be done. My grandson will never rest until he puts Sal Natori in the ground.”
“Dante’s in danger?”
“Yeah.”
I sank onto a corner of the bed and murmured, “This conversation has just gotten absolutely surreal.” With his free hand, Austin rubbed my back comfortingly.
Mrs. Dombruso got to her feet and said, “You look like you could use a drink, Charlie. Come on, let’s go upstairs and show this little cutie the Top of the Mark.” And she turned and bustled from the suite.
We were quite the ragtag group, me in my t-shirt and jeans with a jacket draped over the cuffs on my wrist, Austin in his big inside-out sweatshirt, and Mrs. Dombruso in her huge velvet head wrap and crooked lipstick. But the maitre d’ greeted her warmly by name, and we were immediately ushered to a table at one of the windows. We arranged ourselves so Austin was beside the glass, and he stared out at the sprawling cityscape with childlike wonder.
Mrs. Dombruso insisted on treating, and soon the table was loaded up with every appetizer on the menu. I was too dazed to eat, and Austin claimed he wasn’t hungry. But Mrs. Dombruso tucked in eagerly. “That hospital food, ugh! I wouldn’t give it to a dog!” she exclaimed.
I took a sip of the beer she’d bought me, then asked, “Ma’am…could you please tell me what exactly Dante’s doing? I mean, I know that you said he’s going to kill someone. But why? And…and does he do that a lot?” The whole mafia thing had suddenly gone from abstract concept to all too real.
“What, kill people? Of course not,” she said. “Dante, he’s more of what you’d call an executive. He runs a business. Granted, it’s an illegal business. But a business nonetheless.”
“Then what’s he doing now?”
Mrs. Dombruso dabbed her mouth with a thick cloth napkin and said, “In order to answer that question, I gotta tell you a story, Charlie. And it’s a terrible story. You wanna hear it?”
“Yes please.”
She paused for a long moment, and turned her head to look out the window. And finally she said, “You know the business my family is in. Well, we’ve been in that business for eight generations. Every generation has had its natural leaders, like Dante, and like his father before him. And leaders always have the biggest target painted on their backs.
“My son Paulie, Dante’s father, he made a lot of enemies. It happens in this line of work. And one of these enemies, a man by the name of Sal Natori, decided to make it personal. He went after my son not on the streets, but in his home, at night, while Paulie and his family were sleeping. He took several men with him and broke in and shot my son and his wife right in their bed. And…” her voice wavered and she made the sign of the cross as she said, “and then they went after the children. They got to little Sophie’s bedroom first and put a bullet in that beautiful, precious baby girl. And then they went down the hall to the boys’ room.”
Her hands and her voice shook as she continued, still staring off into the distance, “Dante, he must have heard something. I don’t know what. The men were using silencers. But when they got to the boys’ room, Dante was ready for them. He had a gun pointed at the men. He’d found one of his father’s big hunting rifles, I don’t even know how he could lift it. And he’d gone to his little brothers’ room to protect them. He held off the men while Mikey, Johnnie and Vincent climbed out the window. They were just three, four and five, poor little angels. Dante had them run to the neighbors for help, it’s the only reason they survived.”
She dabbed her eyes with her napkin. “Little Dante, he shot one of those men, killed him dead as he lunged for the escaping boys. But another man caught Dante and made him drop the gun. They were gonna kill my grandson, but they decided to smack him around first, make him pay for taking out one of their own.”
“Oh God,” I whispered.
“Fortunately, the shotgun blast had awakened a couple of Paulie’s men that were staying up in the converted attic, and they got downstairs in time to save Dante.” Her watery eyes met mine as she said quietly, “He was only seven years old, Charlie. He was a baby. Those men, they scarred him for life. They took his parents and sister. And now, twenty two years later, he’s closing in on that animal. This time, he’s got a solid lead. He may finally get to avenge the death of his family.”
“But what if Natori kills Dante?” I said softly, and Austin laced his hand with mine and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
“That’s a chance my grandson is willing to take. Dante feels it’s his duty to go after Natori, to avenge his family. And if he’s successful this time, if he kills that piece of shit? Then maybe it’ll finally bring Dante some peace. He’s still tormented by the death of his parents and sister. He can’t sleep to this day. Maybe once Natori’s dead, Dante will finally have some of that, you know. Closure.”
“Dante’s not doing this alone, is he? Please tell me he’s not going after Natori by himself.”
“No way. He’s got a team of his best men with him. He’s not taking unnecessary chances with his safety.”
I whispered, “Oh God, if Dante is killed….”
“You can’t think like that, Charlie. You gotta trust in the fact that he’s strong and capable, and is going to do everything in his power to come back to you.”
“He has to,” I said quietly.
Chapter Thirteen
I was mentally drained by the time I got back to my apartment, Austin in tow. But I still had to deal with Peaches. Working together, one big glove on each of our free hands, Austin and I managed to get the smelly little beast out of the pen and leashed, and took him for a good long walk before bringing him back home and feeding him his dinner.
I didn’t have the heart to put him back in the pen after that, which meant that Austin and I had to go and hide in the bedroom with the door shut to keep from getting chewed on. I fell across my mattress and Austin sat cross-legged beside me as I asked, “Would you take a look at the manacles, see if maybe you can figure out how to open them?”
“Sure.”
He rested my chained hand on his thigh, and I felt his delicate touch on my skin as he circled the edge of the wide metal cuff, feeling for hidden levers or springs. After just a couple minutes of this, he stopped his exploration and patted the back of my bound hand with his free one.
“Giving up already?” I murmured.
“It’s an incredibly complex design. More art than S & M, really. I wonder where Mr. Dombruso got these.”
I felt him pulling the back of my t-shirt out of my jeans, and turned my head to look at him. “What’re you doing?”
“I want to see how bad your bruises are,” he said quietly, and carefully tugged the waistband of my jeans down a few inches.
“Can you see them?”
“Yup. You’d feel a lot better if you soaked in a hot bath,” he said, releasing my waistband. “It would disperse the bruises more quickly as well. Do you have a tub?”
“Yeah, there’s a tub-shower combo. I’m not really a bath kind of guy, though.”
“You might want to learn to be.”
I rolled on my side to look at Austin. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he said matter-of-factly, “that if you do get back together with Mr. Dombruso, you’ll need to learn ways to recover from the things he’s going to do to you. And a hot bath is a good basic starting point.”
I stared at him for a long moment as he held my gaze steadily. And then I said, “Yeah, ok, I think I will go and soak. Which of course means you get to hang out in the bathroom with me.”
“Not a problem.”
&n
bsp; I plugged the tub and started the water running, then stripped down to my boxer briefs. I couldn’t take my t-shirt off with the cuffs, so I asked, “Would you hold this for me?” And when he nodded, I pulled it off my free arm and my torso and rolled the shirt up onto his arm so it would stay out of the water.
And then I said embarrassedly, “Um, I need to pee.” Austin turned his back to me and stepped as far away as possible to give me the illusion of privacy, and I did what I had to do with one hand.
Then when I climbed into the water, Austin glanced at me and grinned. “You’re still wearing your underwear.”
“In retrospect, I suppose a bathing suit would have made more sense.”
He sat on the edge of the tub and said, “You know, you don’t have anything that I haven’t seen before.”
“We’re being forced to live in awfully close proximity here. I figure maintaining a sense of privacy will make this a little more comfortable for both of us.”
I spent several minutes examining the metal cuffs as I steeped in the hot water. They were really intricate, several narrower bands of metal interwoven into a wider cuff. I didn’t have a clue how they’d possibly open. Finally I gave up and leaned back in the tub, and said, “So, why don’t you go ahead and deliver your lecture? Get it over with. Tell me what a terrible person Dante is, and why I shouldn’t be with him.”
“Before that, I need to ask you one question. And please answer honestly.”
“Alright.”
He looked me in the eye as he asked, “Did you like it when Mr. Dombruso spanked you?”
I blushed deeply, but went with total honesty: “It was wonderful. I don’t think I’ve ever been that aroused. I not only absolutely enjoyed it, I felt like I needed it.”
A little half smile tugged at the corner of Austin’s full lips, and he said, “I was hoping you’d say that. Because if you’d actually hated every minute of it and were enduring it just for his sake, then I would have felt obligated to try to steer you away from him.”
“But now you don’t?”
“The thing is, I like Mr. Dombruso. He doesn’t think I do. A lot of clients, they treat me like trash, like I’m worthless. But he’s always treated me with respect. So I actually think he’s a good man.”
“Why does he think you hate him?”
Austin grinned and said, “That’s probably because I would spend the entire time he was whipping me cussing him out. That was another good thing about him, he really didn’t seem to mind being called every name in the book.”
“Really?”
“Well then again, he probably did mind. But he let me do it anyway. He knew that was my coping mechanism, and he let me do it because it helped me get through it.” Austin shifted on the rim of the tub, crossing his legs and taking my hand between both of his so he could rest it on his lap.
“Is it weird that I liked it when he spanked me?” I knew how ridiculously naïve that sounded, but I just had to know if I was somehow a total freak of nature.
“Not at all. See, with me, I’m not naturally submissive, and that’s why I hated it so much. Actually, I’m not even naturally a bottom. I just take those roles when my job requires it. But there’s nothing wrong with the fact that it gets you off. And it means that you and Mr. Dombruso are actually really sexually compatible.”
“Did, um…did he beat you every time?” These questions were super embarrassing, but there was so much I wanted to know.
“Without fail. Every session began with him tying me down. Next he whipped me or spanked me until he was aroused, and then he fucked me, hard. The only variations were how he chose to tie me down, and what implement he used to do the whipping. As you saw in the playroom, there was a lot to choose from.”
“I didn’t even know what most of that stuff was.”
“Everything in that room serves one of two functions: either it’s for tying someone up, or it’s for beating them. Because that’s what gets him off, plain and simple.”
“I’m really inexperienced when it comes to this stuff, obviously,” I admitted. “I only had one boyfriend before Dante, and we actually never went farther than oral sex. I kind of feel incredibly clueless about…well, pretty much everything.”
“Anything you want to know, I’ll tell you.”
“Thank you. I really appreciate you being so open with me.”
“You didn’t ask, but I’m going to tell you something else, because you might worry about it down the road: he used a condom with me one hundred percent of the time. For the record,” he added, “I’m clean. I don’t know how the hell that’s possible, given all the shit that’s been done to me. But anyway, just so you know, he always played safe.”
“Good to know.”
“You also didn’t ask this question,” Austin said with a smile. “But he hasn’t fucked me since he met you. Mr. Dombruso actually texted me the night he met you in a bar, because we had an appointment that night. He cancelled on short notice, and hasn’t rescheduled since then. You know, just in case you were wondering.”
When we got ready for bed that night, Austin traded his tight jeans for a pair of my sweats, which were ridiculously big on him. He cinched them up the best he could with the drawstring, and between that and the toothbrush I gave him out of the twin pack I’d bought at the dollar store, we made do pretty well.
Finally, I shut off the lights and we got under the covers. We were about two feet apart and facing each other, our bound hands at shoulder height between us. Austin watched me for a while, his eyes full of some sort of emotion. And then he said quietly, “You know you can fuck me if you want, I’m bought and paid for. You can do anything you want to me. I’m a full-service whore.”
I reached up with my free hand and gently brushed the blonde curls back from his face. “You really don’t want me to do that. So why would you bring it up?”
He shrugged, breaking eye contact. “You didn’t ask to be stuck with me. And it has to be wearing on you, being forced to spend all this time with a prostitute. So I thought…I don’t know. Maybe if I could make you feel good, this would seem like less of an ordeal to you.”
“You know, were I stuck with anyone else, this probably would seem like an ordeal. But you’re incredibly easy to get along with, Austin. You’re a nice person, and I actually really like spending time with you.”
He met my gaze. “You do?” I nodded and he smiled shyly. “I like you, Charlie. I’m kind of glad we’re stuck with each other.”
Chapter Fourteen
The next morning when I awoke, I was laying flat on my back on my side of the bed. And Austin was wound around me like a cute blonde boa constrictor. He lay partially on top of me, his head on my chest, his thin arm holding me tightly, straddling one of my legs with both of his and snoring softly. When I shifted slightly he woke with a start, and realizing he’d intertwined himself with me, got off me quickly with a mumbled, “Sorry.”
We got up and dressed, and I placed a quick call to the hotel and spoke to Dante’s grandmother, who assured me she was fine. Then Austin and I teamed up to wrestle Peaches onto his leash and took him for a walk. When we got back to the apartment, I had some cereal while Austin again claimed not to be hungry. I was beginning to wonder if he ever actually ate.
As I was cleaning up after breakfast, Austin chewed his thumbnail and glanced at me, then quickly looked at the floor.
“Go ahead and ask me,” I said.
“Man. Am I that obvious?”
“Yup. Is there something you need to do today?”
“I mean…I’m on the clock. So it doesn’t really matter.”
“I was sprung on you with absolutely no notice, Austin. So if you have something you need to do today, please tell me and we’ll make it work.”
“Don’t worry, it’s not a sex thing,” he said.
“That didn’t even cross my mind.”
“Well, I actually have a class at ten a.m. And I’d blow it off, except that I have an assignment that
’s due today, and I don’t want to get marked down.”
“That’s not a problem. How long’s the class?”
“Ninety minutes. My day’s wide open after that. Oh – beforehand though, I need to swing past my apartment and change, and pick up a couple things.”
“Sure. And if it’s ok with you, I’d like to try going in to work after class. Waiting tables while chained to another person might be…problematic. But I already blew off yesterday, and I don’t want my ex to think I’m making a habit of it.”
“You work for your ex?”
“Yup.”
“How is that?”
“Awkward,” I said, pulling my cell phone from the pocket of my jeans.
Jamie answered on the second ring with, “How are you, Charlie?”
“I’m alright.”
“How did it go with Dante yesterday?”
I glanced at the cuff on my wrist. “Not quite as expected. But not bad, I suppose. So hey, I’m sorry to be such a total flake, but I’m going to be a little late coming in to work today.”
“That’s fine. Cole can hold down the fort until you get here.”
I left out the part about coming in to work attached to another person. Maybe there was a chance I could get the manacles open between now and the start of my shift, and then I could skip having to explain all of this to Jamie.
Austin and I decided to take public transit, since he said parking was nonexistent both in his neighborhood and at school. When we got off the bus downtown, I was a little surprised. I guess I’d forgotten that parts of San Francisco could be quite this bad.
Litter and graffiti punctuated the landscape. Even this early in the morning, dead-eyed prostitutes clustered in doorways, skimpy outfits doing nothing to protect them from the cold September day. Homeless people stood and sat and laid on the sidewalk. And a couple rough looking men were having a heated argument, which soon erupted into a fight. It didn’t last long though, and after taking a couple brutal hits, one of the men slunk away in defeat.