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“Right?” I asked.
Alessio backed away. “Let him do the noble thing for once, Rory. Don’t be stupid. Don’t tempt something you can’t control.”
He turned on his heel and vanished inside the house. If he’d planned on keeping me away from Nevio, his tactic had backfired.
I went inside, even more determined than before. If Nevio pushed me away because he thought he was being noble, I would show him that I didn’t need protection, least of all from him.
I was a Scuderi. I wasn’t an outsider who’d cry herself to sleep over all the horrors in his pastand present. Dad was an Enforcer, and even if I didn’t like to dwell on the details of his daily work, I knew it was cruel and brutal. I still loved him, and so did Mom.
Nevio wasn’t in the living room when I entered. Massimo and Carlotta were still in the spot I’d last seen them, though. She gave me a questioning look and made a move as if she wanted to come over to me. I shook my head. I was fine. She looked doubtful, but I shook my head again.
I headed for the kitchen, but Nevio wasn’t there either, so I moved to the wide staircase that led up to the second floor. What if he was up there with the girls? I really didn’t want to catch him in the act. It was one thing to know what he was up to. It was a very different matter to see him.
I hesitated at the bottom of the stairs. What would I even do if I found him with the two girls? Jump between them? Drag him away?
“Are you lost?” asked a guy with dark blond hair, a polo shirt with a turned-up collar, and a scar on his cheek that suggested he was in one of the old-fashioned fraternities.
I felt it sometimes. I gave him a firm smile. “No, I’m fine.”
He hovered. “Are you alone?”
“No, here with friends,” I said. “Umm, is there anything else you need?” I hoped he’d get the memo. I wasn’t interested in his flirting. Maybe making Nevio jealous would have been an option, but I didn’t want to start playing these kinds of games, and if Nevio wasn’t interested in me, jealousy was hardly on the menu.
I spotted Alessio in the doorway to the kitchen, watching with mild interest. I didn’t want to cause a scene, for which the Unholy Trinity was notorious, and narrowed my eyes at him. He stayed where he was and didn’t intervene.
The guy followed my gaze, then made a face and left without saying another word.
Alessio strolled past me, looking pleased with himself. “Nevio doesn’t get jealous…”
I sighed and went upstairs before he involved me in another of his ominous warnings.
My heart sped up as I reached the first-floor landing. No one was in the hall, but I could hear voices and giggles from a couple of rooms and around the corner at the end of the hallway. I slowly walked through the corridor toward the corner.
A girl’s voice rose in anger, and a deep male voice said something in turn. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but I could tell it wasn’t nice just from the tone. It was definitely Nevio’s voice.
I stopped right before the corner, worried about what I’d walk in on. A slap sounded, making me jump. I rounded the corner as Nevio grabbed a girl by the throat and pushed her against the wall, his chin and left lower cheek turning red, and his eyes terrifying enough that even I was a little scared of him. The girl looked positively out of her mind from fear.
“Never again,” Nevio snarled, then his eyes slanted to me, standing frozen in the corridor. He released the girl immediately and stepped back. With a harsh smile, he backed up to the wall and leaned against it. His fly was open and his boxers below askew. He wasn’t even wearing a shirt, only his leather jacket.
The girl shoved away from the wall and rushed past me. As she did, she hissed at me. “You can have him. Have fun sucking his dick.”
I watched her leave with parted lips. I wasn’t sure what had happened. From the corner of my eye, I saw Nevio right his boxers and pull up his fly. He obviously didn’t expect me to do what the girl had suggested, though he must have heard her. He pulled a cigarette from his pants pocket and lit it up, then took a deep pull.
For a while, we just stood like that, not saying anything.
He was leaning against the wall, his head bowed down, his hair falling into his face, and he was hiding his expression from me. The half-empty vodka bottle stood beside him on the ground. I couldn’t believe he’d already drunk half of it. The cigarette dangled from his mouth, the tip glowing ominously. My eyes traced his muscled arms, pronounced six-pack, and the narrow swing of his hips, hating the idea that the girl had felt this part of him, that she’d run her hands over him how I wanted to do. I’d known Nevio all my life, had seen him shirtless countless times, but in the past few years, the sight had had a different impact on me. I wanted to touch him, to feel his body against mine, to lean my nose into his neck and smell him—sandalwood and musk, sometimes the hint of copper, which I never allowed my mind to dwell on.
My skin became hot, then hotter when I followed the hint of dark hairs into his black jeans. His leather belt was already half unbuckled. My chest ached thinking of what I’d almost overheard. It didn’t make me want him any less. Every part of me desired Nevio.
It wasn’t healthy or advisable, but it was fact, how Massimo loved to say, and in consequence, Carlotta too. I should be with her now, not up here, especially not up here with Nevio. But Carlotta was safe. Much safer than me in every sense of the word.
I had a feeling this was my chance. Maybe my only one. Nevio’s guard was down. I could…what could I really do? Talking to him was out of the question in the state he was in. I’d seen how much he’d drunk, not to mention the marijuana he’d smoked, which I could smell even from a distance. Maybe I could… kiss him. Show him that I wasn’t one of the guys. He hadn’t glanced my way in the way I’d hoped tonight despite my outfit, not in a way that other guys looked at me, even if it was so unlike anything I usually wore. I was air to him. I wasn’t sure what else to do to catch his attention.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he gritted out with the cigarette between his teeth, still not looking up.
“I needed a break from the party and thought it would be quiet up here.”
“You shouldn’t be at this party,” he clarified and raised his face, his dark eyes hitting me.
