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“Are you jealous?” I asked scathingly.
Nevio’s smile sent a chill down my back. “I don’t get jealous, Rory. I get murderous.”
“You can’t kill everyone who talks to me.”
“Who’s going to stop me?”
“Your father will eventually have enough. People will ask questions and even a Capo has to answer to his soldiers at some point.”
“Oh, he’ll be mad at me. He’ll wanna kick my ass. But he’s not a saint. He’s got his own long list of hardly justified kills. And he’ll always have my back in front of others, so you really shouldn’t count on him to stop me.”
I shook my head. I took a deep breath, asking a question I’d avoided from fear of what it would do to me. “It was you, right? You killed Marcos because of me.”
Nevio’s eyes didn’t hold a hint of regret. He stepped closer, his gaze sliding over me like a cold shower. “He was too invested in your coffee orders.”
I took a step away from him, bumping into the side steps. “He was a normal guy. He was just flirting. He didn’t do anything, certainly nothing to deserve his death. What’s wrong with you?”
“The list is very long. I warned you to stay away from me, Rory. I really tried to keep you out of my head. He wanted the wrong girl, and I don’t play games.”
I swallowed hard. “He wasn’t even part of our world. You could have just scared him. You didn’t have to kill him. Do you even realize what this did to me? How the guilt has been eating away at me? Do you want to break me?”
Nevio grabbed my hand and pressed it against his chest. “I don’t care about him or pretty much the entire world population with a few exceptions. I don’t feel pity, and I fucking love hurting others. Yet you think I would send him off with a little warning like a normal guy?”
Feeling his heart beat calmly against my palm, a wave of anger mixed with despair overcame me because I still wished for his heart to beat for me. Did it? Did murdering someone so he couldn’t have me say it did, or did it just show how messed up Nevio was and that he’d turned whatever was between us into a sick game, a new adventure that would fill his nights?
I ripped my hand from his hold and turned away from him, feeling my eyes burn with unshed tears. I didn’t even know if Marcos had a family. Maybe I could send them an anonymous apology and some money to alleviate some of the guilt I still felt.
“Don’t cry for him, Rory. He wasn’t the nice guy you thought he was if it makes you feel any better. His last girlfriend got a restraining order against him because he kept breaking into her apartment and following her after she broke up with him. He even put dead birds on her doorstep.”
“You’re making that up to make me feel better,” I gritted out. I really wished he’d told me before because my conscience had been an absolute mess these past few weeks, but I guessed Nevio simply didn’t understand how a person could suffer because someone they barely knew had died. And even if Marcos was kind of messed up himself, did that make him deserving of death? No, but maybe it said a lot about me and made me feel better, just like Nevio intended.
Nevio shook his head slowly, a few strands falling down his forehead. “Didn’t I just make it clear that I don’t feel pity?”
I slanted him a look. “You also made it clear that you don’t care about others. What about me?”
Nevio regarded me in a way that halted my breath in my chest. It was an intimate look that slipped under my skin, warming every inch of my body, “I think that’s a question you can answer on your own.”
I huffed. “And your justification of why it was okay to kill him doesn’t even make sense coming from you since you’re also a stalker. I could probably get a restraining order against you if we weren’t part of the Mafia world.”
Nevio chuckled, obviously amused by my anger. “I don’t need justification to kill, Rory. I only told you for your benefit. I’d kill a fucking priest or Nobel Peace Prize winner if he made a move toward you.”
“Just stop it,” Aurora seethed.
Her anger rolled off her in waves, but it wouldn’t change a thing. I would not, could not stop this. As long as I wasn’t sure what Aurora had done to me, as long as my own emotions and mind were a jumbled mess, I would make sure nobody got close to her. Fuck, I hadn’t even intended to follow Aurora to the races when I’d found out about it. I wasn’t the jealous type and never even understood the reasoning behind it in the first place. But the night before Aurora’s move to the race circuit, I had been unable to fall asleep. I’d thought back to the asshole I’d killed in New York, had thought about how many more assholes would be at the races. Assholes who would dare to make Rory smile, to make her laugh, to fucking touch her. That thought had festered inside me and made my skin itch as if thousands of ants were digging tunnels under it. Usually, this kind of restless craziness only took hold of me when I hadn’t killed in too long. Now the idea of not being near Rory caused it too. What a shit show.
When I returned to the bonfire a little later, I felt the itch under my skin again.
“I don’t like the look on your face,” said Alessio when I sank down beside them.
I took out my knife, half tempted to cut open my fucking skin to get rid of the itch, but it didn’t work that way. I knew only one thing that elevated the sensation…
My eyes were drawn to Gigimo, who drank a beer with a couple of guys. Just looking at his stupid face drove me up the wall. He emptied his beer and excused himself, probably to take a piss. I rose to my feet.
“I can smell trouble,” Alessio muttered.
“Adamo won’t be happy,” Massimo added.
I waved them off and stalked after Gigimo.
