Bruno Buccellati didn’t look up from his desk at first, but eventually raised his head to meet your gaze with a raised eyebrow. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
You promised yourself you’d keep your cool about this, but that tone he took—‘who, me?’—and the look on his face, that practiced expression of baffled innocence, made your blood boil. It took you a second to realize you were actually grinding your teeth.
He sat back in his seat, setting down the file he was perusing with characteristic grace. When he stared back at you, it wasn’t with anger or calculating shrewdness or even annoyance at your sudden intrusion.
You flinched back as Bruno suddenly got up from his desk, circling around it to walk towards you. When he was close enough to touch, you found yourself holding your breath, but all he did was reach out and shut the door with a soft snap, trapping you in his office.
More than anything, you wanted to step away from him, increase the distance between the two of you, but it was like you were rooted to the spot, pinned in place by his gaze. You couldn’t move.
“Enlighten me, why don’t you?” he murmured, blue eyes bright as he kept the joke going. “Tell me what’s got you so upset.”
“You’re really going to make me spell everything out?” you hissed back through clenched teeth. “I can’t believe you’d stoop to this. Threatening my landlord, Bruno?”
He put his hand over his chin, an exaggeratedly contemplative gesture as he regarded you. “Did I do something like that? I don’t recall. It doesn’t seem like me. Surely, you must have just fallen behind on rent…you can be forgetful. Or maybe she decided she didn’t want to house a gangster anymore? I can think of any number of reasons you could have gotten yourself evicted.”
Something was cutting into your palms. It was your fingernails, you realized; you forced yourself to relax your hands, smoothing the front of your shirt. Bruno’s gaze briefly dropped to follow the motion.
“Are you going to pretend you haven’t been implicating me to the police, too? That you didn’t set that shitty detective sniffing around? You’d better not be expecting me to try to get any work done with him around.”
That horrible, self-satisfied little smile was back. Bruno fluttered his eyelashes at you, inviting you to laugh at the way he turned your life into his personal punchline. “It’s important to take responsibility for your own actions, you know. What would the other capos think if they knew I had such a careless subordinate?” His hand reached out, maybe to touch your face. You slapped it away, trying to ignore the way his grin widened when you did so.
“You can’t…you won’t get away with this.”
“I don’t know…I seem to be getting away with it just fine, really.”
“I’ll tell.” The words sounded childish even to you, like you were a petty grade-schooler threatening to tattle, but they were all you had.
At this, Bruno abandoned all pretenses of innocence entirely, lunging forward to grab you. His fingers dug into your shoulder, hard enough to hurt, before he pushed you into the wall, pinning you in place.
He leaned forward until his forehead was all but pressed against yours, and you had nowhere to look but into his eyes.
“Tell who, exactly?” he breathed. Daring you to challenge him. Several heartbeats passed as you fumbled for a name, for someone you could throw at him—anyone who could make him stop this horrible game of cat-and-mouse.
Nobody Bruno answered to was an option. You didn’t doubt for a moment that they wouldn’t care. Your stomach turned at the thought of using the names of the people who would, like you were betraying them somehow, but you forced yourself to say the words anyway.
“The rest of the team. They know me, they won’t stand for you treating me like this—“
He barked a high pitched, incredulous laugh, right in your face. Bruno leaned back slightly, looking down at you with an expression that was nothing short of derisive.
“Oh? By all means, tell them what’s happening—I won’t stop you! Just remember who I am. Who you are.”
This was the reaction you’d been dreading, but not the one you expected. You stared up at him, numb with shock at how utterly unfazed he was. He reached out to touch you again, and this time you didn’t move to stop him as he traced a line along your jaw.
“You’re the newest member of the team, someone prone to making mistakes, someone who would be eager to try to climb the ranks. I’m the one they’ve known the longest—I’m the one who saved them. I have no reason to do anything untoward.”
The words burned in your ears like actual poison, and you wanted to make him stop more than anything, but you didn’t have a reply.
“It’s your word against mine. Who do you think they’re going to believe?”
Your lips were parted as if you were going to say something, but no words came out. Bruno’s hand playfully caressed your chin before pushing up, closing your mouth.
The expression on Bruno’s face was horrible, hungry, but the moment passed and he stepped away, assuming that expression of casual innocence once more.
“I’m glad we’ve come to an understanding. I’ll forget this conversation happened, for your sake. But you said you’d found yourself having difficulties with your housing situation, lately?”
You reached for the door and all but tore it open, abandoning all pretense of composure in your haste to get away.
“You can stay at my home for now,” he called after you, the cruelty of his tone ringing in your ears, “since you have nowhere to go!”
