Santori Reloaded Read online

  Contents

  TITLE

  EPIGRAPH

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  PART TWO

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  EPILOGUE

  SANTORI RELOADED

  The Santori Trilogy

  Book 3

  By

  MARIS BLACK

  It was beauty killed the beast.

  King Kong, 1933

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  PETER

  “Welcome to Heartbreak Hotel.” A young Elvis impersonator approached us dressed from head to toe in black leather. His dyed black hair stood tall and stiff on his head, shining like polished obsidian in the yellow glow of the foyer chandelier.

  I wondered if maybe I’d somehow tripped and fallen into a dream. Gio was still beside me, solid and stoic, but this place was surreal. One minute we’d been strolling along a Vegas sidewalk, and the next we were in a narrow Victorian dollhouse like something out of one of those books they’d forced us to read in school.

  It was a strange combination: faded floral wallpaper, plush woven carpet, brass light fixtures, and Elvis standing there in all his garish glory. Larger than life. The King of Rock-n-Roll.

  Bewildered, I reached out and took the hand he offered. His palm was warm and slightly damp, the handshake heavy with the weight of his rings.

  “You look so much like him,” I said, compelled to say something even though I had no idea where I was or what was going on. What did one say to a fake Elvis, anyway? “Ummm… I’ve seen a lot of impersonators, but you’re the most convincing. I almost think you’re the real thing.”

  “Thank you very much,” he drawled in typical Elvis fashion. He had the voice down, velvety smooth and not overdone. Even his smile was on point—a little bit crooked, but endearing and magnetic in a way that few were. A panty-dropping smile. A fainting-in-the-aisles smile. “Got the cheekbones for it, that’s why. My daddy always said Mama had a torrid love affair with the King about nine months before I came along.” He winked. “She was a big fan. Saw him seven times before he died.”

  “Is that true? I mean the part about your mom having a torrid affair?” I would have had no trouble believing it. He did have the same cheeks, after all. He was right about that. They popped out when he smiled, like little pink apples.

  “I doubt that part is true,” he admitted. “But she did name me after him. Says Elvis right on my birth certificate. If I’m lyin‘, I’m dyin‘.”

  I smiled, charmed by the man’s story. Then I glanced over at Gio, mostly to gauge the likelihood of this guy pulling my leg. Nothing in his expression suggested he thought I was an idiot.

  He stood at my side looking like a million bucks as always. His dark gray tailored suit fit him like a second skin, and his hat—the fedora I’d bought him from Christys‘ in London—cast a shadow over his ice blue eyes, giving him an air of mystery and danger. Just looking at him made it hard to breathe sometimes.

  He’d made me wear a suit that matched his tonight, right down to the blue silk tie. I figured we must have been going somewhere really fancy, because he knew I wasn’t crazy about ties. I much preferred a dress shirt and slacks, or if we were at home, nothing but a pair of jogging shorts. The latter was for comfort, but even more importantly so that I could strut around half-naked in front of Gio. There was no greater joy than teasing him until he pulled me onto his lap and ran his smooth hands up under my shorts, fondling and stroking and probing until I was begging him to fuck me.

  “What are you thinking about?” Gio asked with a knowing grin. He had a way of reading my emotions that bordered on Twilight Zone territory. It was freaky, but I’d gotten used to not being able to hide from him. In a way, it was comforting to be understood and accepted so easily.

  My face heated. “Uh, just that you look especially distinguished tonight. That’s all.”

  Gio arched a brow. “Distinguished?”

  “Very.” But we both knew he was far from distinguished. Sophisticated, yes. Charming, definitely. But distinguished implied that he was some sort of gentleman, and the raw animal lurking just beneath the surface of that slick facade was anything but gentlemanly.

  Elvis clasped his hands in front of his chin in a very un-Elvislike pose and blinked at us. “You two make such a handsome couple. I swear I’m going to get misty-eyed before we even get started.”

  I snapped my head around to look at Gio, alarmed that we’d been found out. Were we that obvious? Could everyone tell? The more time we spent together, the harder it was to keep up the charade of being—what? I still wasn’t sure what people thought when they saw us together. Teddy and Frank made jokes about Gio adopting me, and every time Carlos drove us somewhere, he gave us weird looks in the rearview mirror when he thought we weren’t looking.

  I walked on eggshells, just waiting for the moment someone confronted us on it, but it hadn’t happened. Until now. I expected Gio to set Elvis straight, but he was smiling like it didn’t bother him in the least. In fact, he didn’t even look surprised.

  Then the rest of what Elvis had said sank in. “Get started?” I asked.

  Elvis’s only reply was a huge grin.

  “I told you I had a surprise for you,” Gio said with a mischievous gleam in his eyes. Then he removed his hat and got down on one knee right there in the foyer. Shocking, considering his aversion to dirt. He wasn’t a germaphobe or obsessive-compulsive, but everyone knew he liked things clean and orderly. No shoes in the apartment, clothes all dry cleaned and hung up in order of color… Yet here he was digging the knee of his designer suit into a rug that had been trampled by no telling how many dirty shoes. Even I cringed a little at the thought of doing that, and I had been raised by a drunken slob in an apartment held together by mildew and rust.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, not daring to assume what his kneeling meant. My heart pounded so hard I heard it in my ears.

  Gio smiled sweetly up at me and took my hands in his. “Peter Santori…I love you more than anything in this world.”

  “I love you, too,” I said in a shaky voice.

  “When I lie down at night, I can’t sleep until you’re tucked in beside me.”

  “More like wrapped around you,” I corrected.

  “Yes,” he said with a smirk. “And every morning when I wake up, the first thing I do is check that you’re still there.”

  “As if I would go anywhere.”

  He took my hands in his, gently massaging my fingers with the warm pads of his thumbs. “When I first confessed my love for you, I told you I was never going to let you go. That you belong to me.”

  “The threat,” I whispered. “I remember.”

  Gio brought my hand to his lips and placed a feather kiss on my knuckles. “You’re messing up the flow of my speech, sweet pea.”

  I blushed. “Oh. Sorry.”

  He chuckled softly. “I meant those words more than you will ever know. Since the day I met you, I’ve been guided by one simple truth. That I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  A tear slipped from the corner of my eye, drawn out by the overwhelming weight of this single moment in time.

  Gio’s ice-blue eyes thawed as he gazed up at me, and ignited like blue fl
ames burning just for me. “Will you marry me, Peter?”

  I opened my mouth, the word yes on my tongue, but I was unable to speak it. I looked down at our joined hands. Gio was proposing to me?

  Over the two years we’d been together, there had been talk of marriage. We’d said we would have pledged ourselves eternally if only we could. If only it were legal for two men to marry.

  It had been pillow talk, though. Words. Easy enough to say when we were sweaty and sated, our naked flesh pressed together beneath the covers. When I was wrapped up in Gio’s arms, his fingertips ghosting down my spine. But they were whispered wishes that would never come true. Or so I’d thought.

  Gio squeezed my hands gently and dipped his head to catch my gaze with his. “I need an answer, love.”

  I had blurted out random commentary all during his speech, but now that it was time to actually give an answer, I froze. I wanted to say something grand or eloquent, but all I could come up with were cheesy lines:

  You’re the sun, and I am the moon… Ugh. No.

  Like the ocean to the tide, I keep coming back to you. God, did that even make sense?

  You’re my soulmate, Gio. We were meant to be together. Hmmm. Not awful, but…

  Of course I’ll marry you, ya big lug. Okay, now I was just getting ridiculous.

  Yes…Yes. Just one simple word, and yet even that wouldn’t come out of my mouth.

  In the end, I did the only thing I could do. I dropped to my knees in front of him and threw my arms around his neck. I clutched desperately at him, needing to be closer than I could possibly get, and then the tears came. Great torrents of them where before there only been one lone tear. Now the faucet had been turned on, and I was getting Gio all wet. His cheek, his throat, the collar of his shirt.

  “That looks like a yes to me,” Elvis said with a chuckle.

  When I was finally able to pull away from Gio, I sniffled and asked, “How did you— Can we— I mean, is it real?”

  A hint of sadness crept into Gio’s expression. “It won’t be legal, sweet pea. But Elvis is a friend of mine, and he’s agreed to perform the service just like he would for any other couple. It will be real to us, and that’s all that matters.”

  Despite my euphoria and utter bliss, I took the time to wonder how Gio had managed to befriend an Elvis impersonator. The man definitely had mysteries.

  “I’ll even let you sign my guest book,” Elvis said. He gestured toward a thick hotel registry displayed on a small table to the right of the door. A banker’s lamp lit it up like some important relic in a museum. “That makes it official as far as I’m concerned. And years from now, when the government finally comes to their senses and makes it legal, your names will be right there for all to see.”

  I made a move to scramble up and sign the book, because hell yes I wanted our names in there, but Gio stopped me with a firm hand on my wrist.

  “We’ll sign that after the deed is done. Right now, I have something for you.” He reached into his jacket pocket and produced a light blue box tied up with a matching ribbon. He held it out to me.

  Without taking it from his hand, I pulled the ribbon loose to reveal the words Tiffany & Co. embossed on the lid. I may have been poor and unsophisticated growing up, but even I knew what that meant. Boxes like this contained happy endings, and this one was meant just for me.

  Unless I was dreaming, which I hadn’t yet ruled out.

  Gio lifted the lid of the box to reveal yet another one, this one fashioned from suede in the same iconic Tiffany blue. With trembling fingers, I removed the box. The hinge didn’t even squeak as I opened it, and I found myself staring at a set of gleaming wedding bands. Gold had never looked so precious. Dazedly, I reached for one of the rings.

  “Not yet, Peter.” Gio pulled the box just out of my reach and handed it off to Elvis. “Not until you say I do.”

  “I do,” I said quickly, making both Gio and Elvis laugh.

  Gio stood gracefully and pulled me up and into his arms. I angled my face upward, silently begging for a kiss, and he did not disappoint. He devoured my lips right there in the foyer of the Heartbreak Hotel where anyone could have walked in and seen. But no one did, and when we had kissed each other breathless, Elvis beckoned for us to follow him.

  He led us down a hallway lined with flickering electric sconces, our shoes whispering along the carpet. The place was eerily quiet, and I decided there couldn’t have been more than three heartbeats in the entire building.

  The chapel felt less like a trip backward through time. It was modern, with electric candelabras and flowers everywhere in shades of pink and yellow. We followed Elvis down the center aisle, which was flanked by white church pews, and onto a raised platform at the front of the room. We faced each other, and Gio took my hands in his. I was shaking, I realized, and I thought I felt a fine tremor in Gio’s hands as well.

  Everything was quaint and lovely and oh-so-perfect for a fake fairytale wedding that meant nothing and everything all at once. And with no witnesses other than the flowers and the candles and the silent wooden pews, Giorgio Rivera and I pledged our undying love to each other.

  Chapter 2

  PETER

  We didn’t have an official honeymoon. Not like other people. There was no Bahamas cruise, no Bora Bora, and no tour of Europe. That was fine with me.

  In the cab on the way home from our wedding ceremony, Gio asked me if there was someplace special I’d like to go. “I couldn’t ask you beforehand,” he said. “It would have ruined the surprise.”

  I shook my head. “I just want to go home.” And it was true.

  I never tired of being with Gio in the privacy of our own home. We could be ourselves there, and I didn’t have to share him with anyone. Within those walls, he was all mine.

  I suspected he felt the same way. He took me out to eat regularly, and we attended the occasional show in town, but ours was a low-key lifestyle. I knew Gio’s work was anything but low-key, and I thought maybe I was his safe haven just like he was mine.

  He seemed reluctant to leave me alone when his work took him away from our apartment, but he tried to delegate as much outside work as he could to Theo and the other guys. Ever since Z had freaked out and tried to rape me, Gio had been cautious about letting people into our apartment. He was also obsessive about keeping me locked safely inside when he was away.

  He’d upgraded the Alcazar security, installing electronic keycard locks in the guest room doors and elevators, and a Fort-Knox-sized deadbolt on our front door. When I’d accused him of going overboard, he’d gotten a haunted look in his eyes and said, “I’d rather install a few locks than have to slit someone else’s throat.”

  He hadn’t said, Or worse, but I’d known he’d been thinking it.

  He blamed himself for what happened with Z, and he’d confessed to me once that he had a recurring nightmare that ended with me dead instead of Z. I think that’s what bothered him most—the fear that he might not be able to save me if something like that ever happened again. So he kept me locked away from the world.

  Theo said it was unhealthy. “He’s controlling you, Pete. He keeps you locked up in here like some kind of prisoner. One of these days, you’re going to have to grow your hair out long so I can climb up to your balcony and save you.”

  I’d laughed at that. “You’re not exactly a Disney prince, Theo. And I definitely don’t need saving. I love the way he takes care of me, and I love being kept by him. I think you’re just jealous because you don’t have someone who loves you as much as he loves me. But one day you’ll meet the right woman, and then you’ll understand. He makes me feel safe.”

  I hadn’t mentioned that occasionally, when I knew Gio would be home soon, I unlocked the deadbolt on purpose. When I needed to feel the sharp sting of his palm against my ass. To be reminded that he still cared.

  Theo had looked at me strangely, a mixture of hurt and confusion in his eyes. He shook his head as if to clear some fog. “Meet the right w
oman?”

  “Yeah. You’ll fall in love someday. You’re a great guy.”

  “Great guy?” he’d railed. “Fuck you, Pete.”

  He’d stormed out of the room then, leaving me reeling. I couldn’t understand why he’d gotten so upset. Was calling someone a great guy a bad thing? You’d have thought I’d called him a piece of shit.

  But then I’d remembered the thoughtless comment I’d made about him being jealous and decided that, yeah, I’d deserved his anger. But he needed to keep his opinions about my relationship to himself.

  Gio and I were in love, and tonight he’d proved that to me in the best way possible.

  We were both giddy when we got home. Even Gio, who was usually so composed. He had insisted on carrying me over the threshold, and I’d loved every second of it.

  Gio sat me down on the sofa and brought out an expensive bottle of champagne. “To our marriage,” he said, holding his glass out in a toast. I giggled and clinked my glass against his, still unable to believe we were actually—well, not actually, but sort of—married.

  We drained our glasses, and then I slipped off into the bedroom to prepare for our impromptu honeymoon. I was dazed and barely fit to think, but I knew I had to come up with something special. Gio’s surprise wedding had surpassed all of my dreams, and I needed to blow his mind as thoroughly as he’d blown mine.

  I stood beside our bed twirling the wedding ring that felt so right on my finger. It was elegant and refined. Perfect, just like my husband. I pulled it off to gaze at the inscription one more time. Gio Forever, it said. And he wore one that said Peter Forever. I slid it back on my finger and resisted the urge to twirl like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music.

  Fuck, We were married. Maybe not in the eyes of the law, but in our hearts we were.

  Two years we’d been together, and though we’d had our little tiffs, I’d never gone to bed doubting that I was well and truly loved. But for Gio to plan a wedding and buy us matching gold rings? It was more than a guy from the wrong side of the tracks should be allowed to hope for. Yet here I was… Mr. Gio Rivera.