Catherinelle by Diane Portman-Ray
3
I was laying in my bed, resting my head on one of my arms and looking out the window at the East River. In the darkness of the night, the water looked like tar – heavy and gooey, ready to swallow everything in its path – and it calmed me.
Jill had her head on my chest, while Trish was laying lower on the bed with her cheek on my thigh and two of her fingers making circles close to my dick. They were catching their breath and deservingly so. I gave them a workout. The only difference between them was the color of their eyes. Jill had a clear blue pair of irises while Trish was sporting hazelnut doe eyes; apart from that, they were identical. Same long black hair, busty breasts and pussy the color of peaches.
I found a good time in a threesome; it kept my mind more entertained than a quick, dirty fuck in the back alley of a club, not that I didn’t have a lot of those too. And there was something perverted in fucking sisters. Same blood, look-alikes, both fighting over the same dick. Jill and Trish were a rare find; it was not every day that a pair of twins wanted to jump in bed with the same man, but these girls had no qualms.
Tonight, I fucked Jill from behind, stretching her ass with my massive dick and slamming her shoulders into me while she was devouring her sister. The woman went down on that pussy like it was her last meal, and it was fucking hot to watch. The cum that was drenching my sheet was proof of how pleasing it was.
Most importantly, it kept my mind in the moment, not giving my dumb ass a chance to slip back to the image of a certain seductive young woman, with the deepest ice-blue eyes and pink hair tips.
“Hugo,” Trish sang, looking up at me. “You’re slipping away from us. You always do that when we’re done with your dick. It’s not nice.”
“Yeah!” her sister agreed and slapped me playfully.
“I’m sorry, girls, I have things at work.”
It was a lie but an effective one. They both knew that I had nothing to discuss with them about my business. I wished there was some stressful job coming or something to eat at me, but it wasn’t fucking work that made my skin crawl. Cutting someone’s hand with a machete to send a message, bury some poor, unhappy soul who did took a wrong step on our territory, take out a rival with a bullet between his eyes? All that was easy stuff. Managing the raging boner I had when my best friend’s little sister was around was like drinking a cup of water from the rivers of Hell. I felt pulsating rage inside because I couldn’t take what I wanted; frustration, annoyance, they were all out to play.
Last week I almost lost my restraint when I went to the school to pick her up, and I saw some motherfucking football player slapping her ass on his way out of the school. Cat didn’t lose any time and hit him right back, punching him in the chest – just like we taught her – and from where I was standing, it looked like a powerful hit. From my point of view, no justice was served, and her honor hadn’t been washed. I wanted to go there, rip his skinny arms from his body and then shoot him in both balls. What was terrifying was that I wasn’t the killing machine of the Nucci family, just protecting an assignment that Gino gave me. I was a fucking jealous man, and that was fucked up.
Catherinelle wasn’t only my best friend’s sister; she was my Don’s sister.
Jill grabbed my face and turned me to look at her in a move I didn’t like so much. I wasn’t a fucking puppet.
“Should we do something to put you in a better mood, Hugo?”
“Nah, I have to go. Do you need a ride?”
“No, we’re good.”
I pushed them both off of me and walked naked across the room to find a bottle of booze and swig it back. I got into the shower, stepping under a jet of cold water to clear my head and shrink my balls. It didn’t have much of an effect on me, but nothing seemed to these past months. I came to the conclusion that castration was the only thing that could stop me from looking at Catherinelle like she was a fair-game woman.
When I got out, the twins were dressed, one on the bed, one arranging her hair in a ponytail. I was hoping to find them gone already, so I just went to my closet with no words and pulled out the black duffle bag and small suitcase and packed everything, getting ready to head out. I looked at Jill and Trish to let them know it was time to go.
“Are you taking a vacation, Hugo?” Trish was quick to ask.
“No.”
Unpleased with my answer, they both started walking to the door, and I followed behind until we got to the parking lot in front of my building. Jill’s Honda was parked right next to my Rover, and I asked her to open my trunk for me so I could put the bags away. She searched my pockets until she found the key and did so.
“Thanks, Jill.”
“No problem. Will you stop by the club any time soon? We’re on night shift all week.”
Jill and Trish were both bartenders at D’oro Sassofono – The Golden Sax – a jazz club downtown owned by Gino. It was a clean place that was making money on its own, so no gambling or shit like that. A few years ago, it was renovated, and it became popular with the rich and famous in the city after Gino booked a list of A-list jazz bands and soloists to take the stage every month. It was one of the last places Sinatra sang before he went where the grass is greener. Because it had such a fancy audience, it wasn’t my favorite hangout, but it was a great place to land a lonely cougar to fuck, so I spent a few nights drinking there.
“Nah, I have business to take care of. I’ll call you.” Not soon anyways. I’m on babysitting duty.
It was half an hour after midnight, so I made it to Gino’s house pretty fast and found the place silent, only a few lights left on. I went straight to one of the guest apartments on the bottom floor, across the hall from where young Enzo lived for a short time. It was a shame what happened with that kid; he was too young to bite the bullet, and it made me fucking mad every time I thought about it. People could think what they wanted about the mafia, that we were a bunch of cold-blooded criminals who would spill blood left and right, and some of the rumors were right. I was ready to kill at any time of the day; my instincts never slept, but there were some things that no mafiosi should do. There was a code; there were principles. We didn’t harm the innocent or the people on your own streets or fucking kids. War should be amongst the men, not their families, but in the last twenty years, more than once, those principles were flushed down the toilet, but not by the Nucci family. Here, the old code was still alive. I’d been with them for over twenty years. I got a lot of dirty jobs, but never – never – was I ordered to take out someone’s family. Enzo died protecting his sister, like a fucking man, and I was proud of the kid. His father had some beef with Muse, and he took a sixteen year old kid out instead. A coward. If Vito wouldn’t have painted the walls with his brains, I would have loved to have the honor.
I didn’t get choked up by those things like most people did when they saw death, maybe because I was used to being the one bringing it, but I was not made of fucking stone. I liked the kid, and his death hung heavy over the family.
After throwing the clothes that I brought into the closet and whatever else I needed in the bathroom, I opened the nightstand drawer and placed the two handguns that I had on me all the time. A Desert Eagle 50 Action Express, a pretty standard handgun but powerful enough to get any job done, and a state of the art 44 Smith & Wesson revolver, for the times I felt I wanted to take someone out with class. The second one was gifted to me by Roman and Gino when I turned thirty. The barrel was encrusted with my street name, the Albanian Monster, and the handle was sculpted out of ebony wood and ivory. It was a pretty thing to hang on my belt, and one shot with that could kill a buffalo.
It was pretty late, but I had to let Cat knew I was there so she didn’t worry during the night. The house had more guards than Fort Knox, but none of them were inside. I went to the main hall and called for the elevator, pressing the button for Cat’s floor. This townhouse had been Gino’s residence since I could remember. His grandfather built it back when he was in construction, then he used the power he had in the worker’s union to gather the money and buy the whole thing. He also bought the lot behind it that was now a private parking lot for Gino’s fleet of cars and the two buildings that were flanking the house, one of which was empty, and the boys were using it when they had lookout shifts on the streets. The other was rented to Gino’s uncle, his mother’s cousin, who spent more time in Italy anyway. It was pretty much a normal family house, if you didn’t count the bulletproof windows, the wooden front door that had titanium inside, and the soundproofed basement that also hid an armory. When his mother moved out, Gino redesigned the house, occupying the entire top floor, making the third floor a common area and giving the second to Catherinelle so both of them had enough privacy during the week when she was in the city.
The moment I set foot on the white marble floor of the second floor, something didn’t feel right. It was too quiet. Cat liked to go to sleep with the radio on, listening to her music, so why the fuck was there no music? I checked the living room and the reading room first, and there was no trace of her. With light, soundless steps, I made it to her bedroom door and listened for a second to see if there was anything coming from inside, but all I got was radio silence. Maybe she was asleep after all.
I knocked two times and still got no answer. I knew I had to open the fucking door and check, but if she was in a nightgown or something, I was about to lose my shit. I clenched my teeth and turned the door knob, careful not to make a sound. The room was submerged under thick darkness, only a string of light punctuating it through the drapes. My eyes adjusted to the dark, and when I looked at the bed, I found it empty and untouched. Fuck.
Flicking the lights on, I pulled the gun up from the back of my belt and chambered a bullet. The bathroom door was opened, but it was empty. I felt the pulsation of adrenaline inside my gut. I checked the windows, but all were still closed from the inside.
Fuck. I took the stairs all the way to the rooftop and started looking in every room, trying to find a breach, hoping that Cat just went for a midnight snack or something, but there was no trace of her anywhere in the house. I even checked Gino’s office and the basement, even though she didn’t have any business being there. When I was sure she wasn’t anywhere to be found, I picked up the phone in Gino’s office and called the number of one of the boys from the house next door where the guards were. Someone was there at all times.
“Joey here.” I knew him. He was a nice kid that I trained to toughen up a few years ago. He was some kind of cousin of a cousin of Ignazio’s who wanted to get into business, but when I first met him, the boy couldn’t throw a punch. Now he was pumped and the first to jump in a brawl.
“Joey, it’s Mustafa. Where is Catherinelle?”
“She should be home.” He had become stronger, but he had also become fucking dumber.
“I know where she should be, asshole. The house is fucking empty. Go to the street, ask the boys and come back to report.”
It took him five minutes, so three minutes too late, to come knocking on the front door.
“The boys say the last time they saw her was when you dropped her off today. She hasn’t left the house since. I sent a couple of guys to check the parking lot. Who knows, maybe she felt like taking a ride.”
“She doesn’t have a license, idiot. And there are men on the back entry too.”
I was starting to lose my fucking patience. Where the hell was she?
Another bull, Patrick, came running from around the corner.
“She left. She snuck out.”
He had to be shitting me. This had better not have been about that party she was blabbing about in the car today.
“How the fuck did no one see her?”
“She used that side exit, next to the basement door, the one coming from the empty room the maids use as storage on the bottom floor. I don’t know what to tell you, man. She knows the comings and goings of the boys, and she’s a slippery girl. I was her tail a couple of times, and it’s easy to lose her. You’d think that pink hair would make her easy to spot, but no.”
In the past year, she had made a habit of running away from the people that were supposed to look after her; that was the entire reason I was here. Gino got sick of replacing her bulls so he passed her to me. She wasn’t able to pull anything of the sorts until today.
“Patrick, are you sure there isn’t any breach? No one could have come inside?”
“And what, take the boss’s sister? Nah, Mustafa, she left. Maybe she’s meeting some handsome fella and didn’t want you on her tale.”
I felt the blood pulsing through my body and going straight to my head. A vein was pulsating on my neck only thinking about it. If that was the case, I sure hoped the handsome fella knew how to pray because I would put him on his knees and shoot him like a dog.
“Fine, I’ll handle it.”
I turned my back to them without any other word and locked myself in Gino’s office, calling every lookout we had in the city and every club, restaurant or bar we had to let them know I needed to find Cat. The finest places of New York’s night life were under Nucci’s name so she’d probably turn up at one.
As I hoped, the phone rang half an hour later.
“Mustafa.”
“Hugo, it’s me, Ignazio. Were you looking for principessa?”
I sure fucking was.
“What do you have, Ignazio?”
“She’s here, at my gambling joint with some friends. They had cocktails somewhere in the city and came here for an after party. She said Gino gave her the green light.”
“And you believed her?” I breathed into the phone.
“Ah, not really, but what can I say? She has a way around my heart.” Everyone had a way around his heart. The man was too kind for his own good. “I’m not throwing her out, so you will have to come and pick her up if you want. But I can take care of her. No hard liquor, and someone will drive her home.”
Nah, that wasn’t about to cut it. I’d had enough of her spoiled ass. Tonight was the night where Catherinelle Nucci would learn that no one, not even her, should push my fucking limits.
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Come on, Mustafa, all the girl is doing is enjoying a glass of rose with three of her friends and mingling at some Black Jack tables.”
“Fifteen minutes, Ignazio. Do not let her move.”
I got into my car and drove down there like I was on autopilot. I didn’t even see the fucking street I was taking; the rage was like a drop cloth over my eyes. Unfortunately for Catherinelle, she was about to feel that rage first hand.