Page 10 of Claiming Vanessa
At that, Slayer turns his head and stares at me. He blinks, and the expression of shock on his face is almost comical. “What?” he asks. “I thought you were always careful!”
I laugh and wave him off. “Yeah, I am. But Damien here has convinced me. With my old man out of the picture and unlikely to produce the little brother or sister I’ve always wanted, it’s on me to carry on the family line. And who else to carry my spawn into this world than the daughter of a… okay, also dead, mob boss? Say what you want about Giorgis Bellini, but he held his own against Victor Corvi for over a decade, so he wasn’t an idiot. His worst mistake was trusting my father.”
“Pretty big mistake,” Slayer says, but I can tell he’s still reeling from the mention of my new role in life as a father. “So does that mean she’s off limits?” His disappointment is palpable, but he doesn’t step away from Vanessa. If anything, he presses closer to her, boxing her in against him.
“Yes,” Damien says, at the same time that I say, “No.”
Vanessa makes a soft whimpering sound, but all of us ignore her.
Slayer huffs in annoyance. “Which is it?”
“Use a condom,” Damien says, and I know it kills him to even offer that compromise.
I grin and give Damien a quick kiss on the cheek. “You can use a condom if you want,” I tell Slayer. “I don’t give a fuck if her child is mine or yours or Damien’s. We’re in a modern age! Family isn’t defined by blood. The ancient Romans, they picked anybody they wanted to name as their successors.”
“We aren’t in ancient Rome,” Damien answers firmly. “Most modern Italians aren’t even descended from ancient Romans. And we’re barely Italian as is. Your mother was Swedish, Giulio.”
“Oh, stop bitching,” Slayer says, his hands sliding up and down Vanessa’s sides as she makes soft little sounds of rising panic. “I always use a condom with the girls here. I don’t know where her cunt’s been.”
That’s actually a fair enough point, but I doubt Damien would have picked Vanessa if he thought she was a used-up whore. “Does Slayer have any reason to worry, Vanessa?” I ask between bites of my burrito. “You were a college girl, right? Did you have a string of boyfriends?”
Vanessa hesitates a moment, then says, “Yes. I had a lot of sex. Unprotected.”
Slayer snorts. “Little liar.” He cups her cheek with his hand. “Try that again, with the truth this time.”
She shakes her head, and Slayer’s hand is suddenly around her throat.
“I said, the truth, bitch.”
Damn, that’s fucking hot. And from the way Damien’s breath hitches, I can tell he thinks so too. He might not like Slayer, but he definitely appreciates Slayer’s… effect… on women.
“The Bellini guard seemed to think she was more, ah,purethan her sister,” Damien mentions. “I never told Emilio, but a few of Bellini’s men had definitely fucked Lucia. Although according to them, she seduced them. She was a very outgoing little slut, per their words. But none of them had ever done anything with Vanessa.”
That little bit of information leaves me speechless for a second before I burst out laughing. It takes me way too long to calm down again. My old man got taken in by a slut? He’d been talking up how “virginal” she was and how she’d been saving herself for marriage. I remember his rant from when he’d been rejected by her the first time, before he’d had Clarissa killed.
And it was all a fucking lie? That’s fucking priceless.
“Christ, Damien,” I say when I can finally speak again. “That’s just… that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all day, and I already heard Angelo fucking Guerra say he fed my old man his own balls.”
Slayer barks out a laugh. His hand isn’t tight around Vanessa’s neck; I can still hear her panicked breathing, but he doesn’t let her go. “Damn, that’s brutal,” he says. “Maybe we should send Guerra a gift basket.”
“Good idea. Damien, remind me to get him one of those edible bouquets or something.” I crinkle up the burrito wrapper and toss it into the plastic bag. “Okay, I’m done eating. Are we fucking her or what?”
“Yes,” Slayer says. “And it sounds like you need to get working on her, if she’s going to carry your heirs or whatever.” He releases his tight grasp on her throat, but he strokes it, making her swallow hard. He snorts. “I can’t imagine you as a daddy. Is Damien gonna raise your little spawn for you? Take them to the park and swing them and play in the dirt with them?”
“Yeah, of course Damien’s gonna help raise the kid.” I roll my eyes. “But who do you take me for? I’m gonna be the funnest dad ever. I’ll take them to do all sorts of activities, the kind my old man would never have taken me on.” I stand up and stretch. “If you play your cards right, I’ll let you be the nice uncle who teaches the kid how to shoot straight and gut a… rabbit.” I pause and give Vanessa another hard look. “She’s trembling. Kind of like a rabbit. Want to play out a hunt?”
“Not much room in here,” Slayer says. “She wouldn’t be able to get far. But yeah, another time for sure. I’m good at rabbit hunting.” He smirks.
“Please,” Vanessa croaks out in a whisper. “Please don’t touch me.”
“It’s a little late for that, bitch,” Slayer tells her. As though to prove his point, he squeezes one of her small breasts. “Could be built a little better up top, but eh. Perfect mouthful.”
“Fine, fine, no hunting.” I look around the room and shrug. “Back to my original plan, then. She’s a desperate young waif, and if she doesn’t strip for her prospective new boss, she gets thrown out on the streets naked to be taken advantage of by all the trash hanging out in the back alleys.”
“N-no,” Vanessa says shakily. “I’m not… I’m not… I’m not doing that.”
Damien throws his own burrito wrapper onto the table—not even into the trash bag, come on, man—and stands up. He walks over to Vanessa, standing on the other side of her from Slayer. He gently pets her, and I knew I wasn’t wrong when I thought he was way more into her than he’s been into other ladies.