DAMIANO
I leavethe Clemenza to sleep for a while and go down to get a long-overdue first coffee of the day from Rosa. Sammy is in the kitchen, too.
“What are you doing sitting around?” I ask him.
Usually he’s out running errands for Rosa in the mornings. But he’s sitting there at the counter, watching her cook.
“Nothing to do,” he says, but the way he stares at me makes me think he’s been waiting for me to make an appearance.
Rosa, without comment, busies herself making me a coffee. I sit up at the counter next to Sammy rather than take the coffee up top to the sunroom, where I usually have it in the mornings. I don’t want to be any closer to the Clemenza than I have to right now. There’s something about him that gets my brain clouded. The further I stay away from him, the better.
“Where’s the Clemenza?” Sammy asks casually, as though he read my mind.
I’m surprised enough to answer. “I don’t know where the fuck you heard that name, but you keep it to yourself.”
“The asshole told me himself, said his name like he wasproudof it.” Sammy’s eyes flash as he turns to face me.
“It’s got nothing to do with you, Sammy.” I wish I’d gone up to the sunroom like usual. If I’m not getting harassed upstairs, I’m getting harassed downstairs.
“Are you fucking him?”
I almost spit my coffee back in the cup. “What the hell did you just say?”
“I asked if you’re fucking him.” There’s a cold, obstinate look on Sammy’s face when I stare at him.
“You keep out of my business. Don’t make me tell you again.”
There’s silence, blessed silence for a minute, maybe two. Then Sammy keeps on pushing. “If you’re not fucking him, why’s he here?”
“It’snot your business,” I snarl.
Rosa is glaring at me now. As thoughI’mthe one being unreasonable.
The problem is, I understand why Sammy is pushing this. It’s not just the Clemenza thing, though God knows that would be enough. The night I saved his life, he was getting beat within an inch of it in a back alley by a bunch of Clemenza thugs.
But that’s only part of it.
He’s…always had kind of a thing for me. I’ve never encouraged it. In fact, the one time I was dumb enough to fall asleep in the downstairs lounge, and woke to Sammy’s hands sliding up my thighs, I grabbed his wrists and told him toget. He ran out and didn’t try to speak to me again for a week.
It’s just misplaced gratitude, and he doesn’t know how to express it except sexually. He grew up real rough, and the only way he ever knew how to pay for things was with his body. So I don’t want to come down too hard on him, but he’s sure making it difficult.
“But—” he starts again.
I slam down my coffee cup, turning to him. He shrinks back at the look on my face. “You don’t get to question what I do in my own house. Do you hear me?”
I’m horrified to see his eyes start to shine with tears. “It’s my house, too. You’re not the only one who lives here.”
“You’re here because I’mlettingyou be here.”
“You said I was family,” he says, the hurt clear in his voice now. And the thing is, when I took him in, that’s what I told him. That he’d be like family if he could keep on the straight and narrow, listen to Rosa, do what we told him.
“Family doesn’t question the Boss,” I growl. “Now get out of here, go do something useful.”
He shoves back his chair hard so that it scrapes on the floor, and I roll my eyes as he stomps toward the doorway. Sammy is twenty-six, but his emotional growth stunted around five, probably from the horrific shit he started going through at that age. So when he turns in the doorway again and he’s crying for real, I’m not surprised. “I thought Imeantsomething to you!”
For fuck’s sake, how am I supposed to react to that? “Youdomean something to me,” I tell him, trying to find a way to be gentle. “But…” I shrug, because I’m real bad at emotional shit like this.
And it’s exactly the wrong thing to do. There’s a fractured look of pain in his eyes, and he turns with slumped shoulders, heading back down the hallway. A second later I hear a door close as Sammy goes back into his room. It’s not even a slam.