Death Do Us Part

IX. Domenico

Domenico

Sleep isn't something that comes very easily to me. I suppose my bad sleeping habits started when I was thirteen, when I saw a man get killed for the first time. It's hard to close your eyes and trust the dark when you've seen the things I've seen, done the things I've done. My childhood habits bled into my teenage years, and eventually my adulthood. I've never been able to kick them, but luckily for me I've adjusted to these patterns, and only need a few good hours of sleep to feel sharp and rested.
Most nights I stay up until I physically can't keep my eyes open anymore, but tonight was different. After my phone call with Giada, I was hit with post orgasm drowsiness. I tried to stay up and finish my outline for the Castellucci's new delivery routes, but the longer I stared at the screen and blueprint maps, the heavier my eyes got, so I abandoned mission and headed to bed early.
It was maybe eight thirty when I first laid my head on my pillow, and now it's just after midnight when a phone call wakes me out of my sleep. I feel around for my phone in the dark, fingertips steadying my glass of water when I nearly knock it over.
"Hello?" I bring the phone to my ear, sitting up in bed to turn my nightstand light on. Half of the room floods with light, and I squint away the intensity of the brightness. I'm so groggy, I don't even check to see who it is, but I'm praying it not my father or one of my brothers calling me to help them handle something this late.
"Get yourself nice and hard for me baby. Im pulling up to your building in five minutes."
"Turn around Leila. I'm not up for it tonight."
"You're joking right?" She giggles. "What could you possibly be doing that you don't want to see me."
"Im watching paint dry."
"Don't be an asshole Dom. Im almost there. I know you missed me while I was in Miami. I worked out like a maniac while I was there to keep my body nice and tight for you. All of my holes are so ready for you."
Leila is a beautiful girl and she knows it, but she has a way of taking things too far, her vulgarity always way less sexy than she intends it to be. It's borderline disturbing actually, and I can never place why words that would work me up if said by any other women make me so uncomfortable when she says them.
"I'm serious Leila. Do not come here."
My revulsion must have something to do with her growing desperation. We've been fucking for four months, maybe five, and each time we see each other, she gets more clingy and needy. I would have cut her off months ago, but to her credit, the sex is greally good, and I'm only a man after all. She's a wild little thing in bed, fucks like a bunny rabbit. She contorts her body in the craziest positions, and doesn't complain when I won't fuck her missionary to keep her from kissing me.
"Too bad Dom. I'm pulling up now. Call the concierge and tell them to let me up."
"I'm going back to bed." I hang up before she can protest, putting my phone on the charger when I notice the battery life getting low.
Flipping my lamp back off, I roll onto my stomach and let my head sink into my pillow. It would be nice to feel what a full eight hours of rest feels like, but I don't think I'll be getting that tonight. My phone rings again, rousing me just as I'm beginning to drift off. This time it's my business phone, which is plugged in across the room.
My neck and back crack as I push myself up, padding across the cold wood floor to answer the call. It's the front desk, and I've got a feeling I know why they are calling.
"Hello?"
"Mr. Zanotti," Andrew's shaky tone responds. "I'm so terribly sorry to disturb you this late, but it seems there is a guest here for you, and she's demanding to see you. I've tried explaining to her that our policy states that we don't disturb our residents after ten o'clock, but she's causing quite the scene and threatening security."
"My apologies Andrew. She's a disgruntled ex fling. Don't let her up. Threaten to call the cops if you have to. I'm sorry again for any disturbance caused. Thank you for doing your job." I can hear Leila screaming in the background.
"I haven't even begun to cause a scene you little shit! You want to see a scene?" A loud crash echos over the line, and I hear Andrew drop the phone.
"Ma'am please! Those are antique vases."
Shit.
Im going to have to go downstairs and handle this before the cops actually get called. There isn't an NYPD officer, or police officer anywhere for that matter, that I fear, but I prefer not to interact with them if I don't have to. My family has a tense relationship with New York cops, for obvious reasons.
I throw on a hoody and pair of black sweats, sliding shoes on my socked feet. On the elevator ride down, I think of ways to keep myself from throttling Leila like she deserves.
Being with Leila was fun while it lasted, but I can't afford to keep her around, not with her temper, and especially not with Giada returning to the East coast for good very soon. It's too much of a risk. I can't have them crossing paths.
I've ignored the warnings from my sub conscience to kick her to the curb, solely because of the benefits of keeping her around provides. She drops anything and everything on moments notice when I call, and she never makes me wait. It's like she can't get to me fast enough, and I'd be lying if I said it doesn't fluff my ego.
She's easy and convenient, and she likes to fuck the way I like to fuck; fast, rough, and borderline animalistic. It's never too much for her. I never have to slow down or ease up. She just takes it and begs for more, then she leaves my bed and goes home to her seventy eight year old husband, who's got one leg in the grave already.
It's the perfect scenario, or would be if she didn't present just as many problems and drawbacks as she does relief. The first, and possibly most important reason I shouldn't be fucking around with her is because I'm an investor and shareholder in her husband Sebastian's jewelry company. It's how I met her actually. Her interest in coming to meetings with her husband seemed fairly innocent at first, but it became abundantly clear to me by our second meeting that she'd set her sites on me.
A bit of flirting here, a few brushes of her leg against mine under the table there, and here we are. Sebastian Miller is a hard man to work with, and I've never particularly liked him. If his family name wasn't so trusted in the Jewelry business, I never would have agreed to invest in his declining store.
He's old and slow, nowhere near as spry and quick witted as he needs to be to run a company, and to make matters worse, his two sons are fumbling idiots incapable of being the heirs that he needs. He's grumpy and stubborn as fuck, and changes his mind like the weather changes, for seemingly no reason at all.
One might think I'd forgive him because he's old, but the bastard grates on my nerves. That's why I had no conscience about what I was doing when his wife cornered me on my way back from the bathroom and grabbed my dick.
Leila must realize that our chapter is coming to a close. She's never acted out this badly before, and I wouldn't doubt if she's heard the rumors about my engagement by now. Maybe that's why she's so desperate to get to me. She wants to talk me out of going through with it, or perhaps she's crazy enough to try to get me to run away with her and take care of her. She whispered that to me once, in between rounds when she thought I was asleep.
Before the elevator doors open, I hear the commotion in the lobby. The bell dings, the square box coming to a stop on the first floor. Two of the eight glass vases lining the wall are overturned, laying in shattered ruin on the pristine marble floors. Four of the buildings security guards stand in front of four of the vases to protect them, two unguarded likely because there's not enough security. Poor Andrew stands in the middle of the chaos, trying to stop Leila from throwing her high heel at the mirrors lining the walls.
"Miss, you don't want to do that please!! Those are very expensive to replace- NO!" He shouts as she changes course, throwing her shoe underhand as hard as she can to hit the chandelier above. It connects with a dangling jewel at the bottom, sending several pieces of carved glass crashing to the floor.
Like the real man he is, Andrew yanks Leila out of the way of the falling glass, protecting her from getting hit with the consequences of the destruction she caused. It would have served her right if he'd let it hit her, and I'm sure he thought about it for a split second, but he's a good kid. He's better than I am, that's for sure.
Wordlessly, I exit the elevator. My sights set on the flailing, and obviously drunk woman. She doesn't even see me coming. Though he's got a good six inches on her in terms of height, Leila has managed to wrestle Andrew to the ground. She's mounted him, and is wrapping her hands around his throat.
I pluck her off of him with the ease of peeling scotch tape off of a piece of paper, wrapping one arm around her torso. Her feet dangle above the floor as I drag her outside, shooting apologetic glances to Andrew and all of the security guards for the night they've had. I'll have to find a way to make it up to them.
"I do apologize boys. All of the damages will be paid for. You have my word." The guards relax now that the chaos is detained, returning to their respective posts. Some disappear through a side door to the security office, while others stand guard by the elevators, awaiting threats to the peace of their residents, like Leila here.
Dante, the guard who stands near the front door eyes me as I near the exit. "She's a crazy one. You let me know if I need to call the police."
"Fuck you rent-a-cop!" Leila screams. I clamp my hand over her mouth and she sinks her teeth into my palm. I drop her onto the pavement outside. She grunts as she lands on her ass, glaring up at me.
"You're like a rabid dog! Have you lost your fucking mind! I told you to never come here unless I invited you first."
"Have you lost your dick! What the hell is the matter with you?" She slurs, clinging to the leg of my sweats to pull herself off of the ground. She stands on unbalanced feet with a missing heel, and she looks a hot mess from her tumble with Andrew. Her hair is fucked, her face is shining with sweat, and her arms are marred with red marks, likely from where the guards tried to restrain her.
"I told you I'm not in the mood. I did warn you not to come. You have a listening problem."
"When I show up offering to let you twist me up like a pretzel, you get yourself in the mood! No one denies me!"
"Get over yourself and get a fucking grip Leila! You're married! Or have you forgotten?" She crosses her arms, rearing her head back to stare daggers at me. She opens her mouth but a hiccup interrupts whatever she was about to say. "You're drunk. Just go home Leila."
She drops to her knees and begins chanting a mantra of please please please please and I'll leave him for you, I swear.
She yanks on the strings of my sweats, attempting to pull them down. Is she really that desperate that she'd blow me right here on the sidewalk, with neighbors across the street peeking out of their windows to see what's happening, and Dante the security guard watching from my building door. I don't need this turning into a bigger production than it already is.
"Get up," I growl, closing my hand around her forearms. I yank her from the ground and she gasps, clawing at the front of my hoody. "And get your fucking hands off me. I'm an engaged man." I have half a mind to shove her, but I don't need to brutalize her to get my point across, nor do I want to. I pin her arms at her sides, but she backs away from me and shrieks like I've slapped her.
"It's true?" She stares at me for a silent moment, and then wraps her arms around herself, as if to hold herself together as she begins sobbing. She tips her head back, looking to the sky and crying no no no no no, over and over again.
I'm exhausted, and completely fed up with her antics. I sigh, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her just enough to get her attention.
"Listen to me Leila. You call someone to come pick you up, or call an Uber home, and don't ever come back here." She stares at the ground so I lift her chin.
"Please," she sobs, mascara running down her cheeks. "Please don't do this. You can't get married. Bernice told me you got engaged but I didn't believe her. Please Dom you can't-"
"Enough!" She cries pitifully, staring up at me like she wants me dead. "It's over! You and me, for good! Do you understand me?" I release her from my grip and she sinks to the floor. "Get out of here before I call your husband and stick him with the bill for all the shit you broke in the lobby. You can explain to him why you were here. You'll secure yourself a one way ticket to divorce when he finds out how many times you've opened your legs for me."
"You bastard!" She pulls a bottle of what looks to be vodka from her purse and hurls it at me. I dodge out of the way, and hits a Bentley parked at the curb, activating the alarm. "As if he won't have Christian or Jackson cut your dick off for touching me!"
"I'm not scared of either of your husbands useless sons, Leila," I scratch at the stubble growing along my jaw, my bed calling to me from thirty floors above.
"You should be! You can't take both of them, and they will beat you to a pulp when they find you." 
She's only threatening such retaliation because she has no idea of my true identity. She thinks I'm merely a business investor, and nothing else. Though I've fucked every hole in her body, as she so classily said herself, there's a lot she doesn't know about me. She's had me inside of her, but that doesn't mean I ever cared about her enough to give her the truth.
She has her theories of course, encouraged by the rumors and tales about my family that have always circulated New York, but I lied to her face every time she tried to dig information out of me, and I don't feel bad about it. I knew from the beginning she couldn't be trusted, so I told her all of the rumors were bullshit, and that my family always had our hand in investing and shareholding.
"They couldn't find their way out of a fucking paper bag, let alone find me if I wanted to stay hidden. But I'd never hide Leila, and I know deep down you know why. I'd advise you not to send anyone after me, because then I'd have to send an army of men after you and your family, and I don't think you want that, do you?"
Her eyes glance from me to the ground nervously. Her hands ringing around the lose material of her dress. She gulps, bloodshot eyes meeting my gaze. She really needs to quit drinking.
"What do you mean by that?"
"I'm sure you know what I mean by that. I don't have to verbalize for you to understand. You're smart enough to get it. Think hard about conversations we've had."
"You lied to me. You told me none of that was true."
"And you believed me." She blinks away fresh tears, that unbreakable fury inside of her finally faltering. I smile, nodding slowly as it all sinks in.
"I'll go to the cops!"
"And you think they'll believe you? Based on what evidence Leila? I haven't admitted anything to you. You're also piss drunk and probably won't remember most of this conversation by tomorrow. So do as I said, and go home to Sebastian."
Dante opens the door for me, and no sooner have I stepped inside than Leila starts throwing whatever her hands can find at the door. Dante shuts it quickly, locking it with the keys dangling at his hip. Leila screams, pounding on the door. She paces in circles, pulling at her hair and reaching into the trash can at the curbs edge for more stuff to throw.
"That broad is possessed," Dante says, reaching for the phone at his desk. "I hope you don't still have feelings for her, cause I'm calling the cops bro."
I shake my head as I watch her unravel. That girl will be her own demise.
"Call them," I shrug, already headed for the elevator. I could give a shit less if the cops come now. All they will find is a crazy woman throwing trash at the side of a building. If she wants to land herself in jail, so be it. Her husband can bail her out, and I don't give a shit if he wants me out of his company. He will have to buy me out, and I'll never let that happen.
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