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Domenic
I couldn’t sleep that night. I kept pacing around in my apartment, head in my hands, wondering what the fuck I’d done. I knew it was a bad idea to hit Tommy McGillis – but I didn’t believe Cara when she’d insisted that he wouldn’t have hurt her too badly. That man was nothing but a creep and a predator, and I was willing to bet that he’d do just about anything to Cara if he had the chance.
I’d seen the way he looked at her – he was no better than a lion hunting a wounded gazelle to torment. Tommy looked like he didn’t just want to make Cara unhappy. He wanted to toy with her, just to frighten her.
I couldn’t think about why I that made me so angry. It was too painful to think that I was developing feelings for her. She was completely off limits. I told myself that it didn’t matter that I’d had the hottest sex of my life with her in the back of my car. It didn’t matter that for days afterwards, the musky scent of her pussy filled the backseat and made my cock achingly hard. It didn’t matter that she was turning out to be one of the most interesting and beautiful people I’d ever met.
Before I’d started talking to Cara, I’d assumed that she’d be like all the other Italian-American crime family girls: spoiled, bratty, and stupid. But Cara wasn’t; at least, she was marginally better. She wanted things for herself. She wanted an education. She wanted to break the mold that she’d been born into.
But it didn’t matter, because I knew that I’d never be able to help her achieve any of those goals. I was a mere grunt man, a bodyguard. That was my role, and I wouldn’t be able to surpass it. Besides, I could never make someone like Cara D’Amato happy for more than a few minutes at a time. She was used to opulence and splendor – I considered buying tissues and toilet paper a luxury. Her father’s house looked like a set from a soap opera, and my apartment was barely livable.
When my phone rang, I grabbed it immediately, thinking it was Cara.
“Hey,” I said. “You feel like going out tonight? Hungry? Want me to bring chicken nuggets?”
There was a long pause.
“Domenic,” Gino said in a deep growl. “Come over here. Right now.”
He hung up before I could ask what it was about. Anxiety shook my nerves, but I knew that I had to be tough – I couldn’t let Gino know that I was starting to develop feelings for his daughter. This couldn’t be good, though. It wasn’t like Gino to fake someone out. He wasn’t the kind of guy who pretended that everything was great and charming until it wasn’t.
The drive to Gino’s seemed to take forever. The traffic was agonizingly slow, and by the time I arrived, I was a nervous wreck.
Gino’s housekeeper, Lucy, answered the door.
“Mr. Gino’s in his office,” she said, keeping her eyes lowered. “He asked that you meet him in there.”
Great, I thought to myself. I glanced around, soaking in the luxury of Gino’s foyer. If I had to die, at least I was going to die in a beautiful home.
Gino was sitting at his desk when I walked in. He was looking down at a leather-bound book, making notes with a fountain pen. The sound of the pen nib scratching across the page set me on edge even more. Worse, Gino didn’t even look up as I entered the room.
“I’m here, Gino,” I said, easing into a chair in front of his desk. “What did you need?”
Gino slowly looked up at me. His eyes were ice cold. “That’s Don D’Amato, to you,” he said coldly. “You got that, Domenic?”
“Yes, Sir,” I said quickly. “I mean, Don D’Amato.”
Gino folded his hands on top of the desk and cocked his head to the side. “You mind telling me what happened last night?”
“I took Cara and her friend, Leah, out to a club. Foxes,” I added. “That’s the name.”
“And then?” Gino raised his eyebrows. “The whole story, Domenic. Don’t leave anything out. I’ll know.”
I sighed. “They were dancing, and I was watching,” I said. “Leah went and got drinks and handed one to Cara. It was her third drink of the night. She was dancing with Leah, not with any of the guys there. Then Tommy McGillis grabbed her and tried groping her. Cara cried out and screamed for him to leave her alone, but he wouldn’t take his hands off of her. When I saw that she was actively trying to fight him away, I walked over, grabbed Tommy, and threw him to the ground. Tommy tried to throw a punch, but I grabbed his arm to stop him from hitting me.”
“And then what?” Gino asked sarcastically. “That’s the most important part, Domenic. What happened next?”
“I punched Tommy in the stomach,” I said. “He fell to the ground, and he was crying out in pain. He’s fine, though,” I said. “I made sure not to hit him too hard.”
“Listen,” Gino said. “Something I oughtta mention here. Whenever Tommy tries anything, whatever he tries, you gotta let him do it.”
“What?” I narrowed my eyes. “Don D’Amato, you don’t understand, Cara was trying to push him—“
“I’m talking, Domenic,” Gino said. “And it doesn’t matter. You are not to interfere with anything Tommy McGillis tries to pull with my daughter. You understand?”
A metallic, unpleasant taste – like iron – seeped into my mouth.
“Why not, Don?” I asked quietly. “She obviously doesn’t want anything to do with him.”
“You are not to interfere,” Gino said. He pulled out a cigar from a small humidor and propped it against his lip as he lit the edges with a butane lighter.
I frowned. “What if he’s hurting her?”
“He won’t hurt her.”
“How do you know?” I knew that I was being insolent, that I was on the edge of being fired, but I couldn’t help it. This wasn’t adding up. I didn’t understand what Gino was saying.
“I just know.”
“But how can you be sure?” I pressed. “He was acting very aggressively last night, and if I hadn’t stepped in, I think he would have ripped her dress off and had his way with her right then and there.”
Gino leaned back in his chair and exhaled a plume of blue smoke right in my face.
“Cara is promised to Tommy,” he said, “and Tommy isn’t so dumb that he’d actually attack her. She’s going to be his wife. If Tommy hurts her, that hurts the deal that I made with his father.”
“What?” The word spilled out of my mouth before I could stop it. “Are you serious?”
Gino nodded.
My stomach twisted and clenched as I gazed upwards at the ceiling, wondering where Cara’s bedroom was located in the house.
“Does she know?” I asked. “Have you told her yet?”
Gino took a long pull from his cigar and ashed it in the gold tray on his desk. “Not yet,” he said slowly. “I’ll tell her soon, but I need to finish making plans, first.”
I was reeling. I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard – that Gino, the man I respected most in the world, was about to marry his daughter to the nastiest pig in all of Wilmington. Tommy was worse than a pig – he was a dangerous, greedy, evil, and sadistic man. My mind was reeling as I tried to think of a way to tell Cara her fate... and how I could possibly save her.
“Domenic?” Gino asked as I was getting up to leave.
“Yes?” My heart was pounding.
“Don’t say a word to Cara,” Gino warned.
“Yes, Sir.”