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“I told you I’d fuckin’ handle it. This was the only option you left me to work with,” he grunted.
“You…” I couldn’t say the words. They wouldn’t travel up my throat or form in my mouth. None of this shit made sense. He wouldn’t. I refused to believe it. “You really stabbed me in the fuckin’ back…?”
“Nah, you did that to yourself, brother. When you chose loose Italian pussy overfamily.”
Benny slapped a hand over Zeke’s shoulder before the man I thought was my brother pushed years of friendship aside to walk past me, guiding his sister towards his dark-blue Civic without so much as a glance in my direction.
61
SIX YEARS PRIOR
“Who the fuck is that?” I asked while peering through a crack in the bedroom door, my daggered gaze honed in on the two guys presently arguing in the hall. One of 'em I recognized as Patrick Mulligan, Leo’s old man.
The other fucker? Couldn’t say I’d ever seen him before.
Leo rushed up behind me and quickly pressed a finger to my lips. “That’s my Uncle Benny. My dad’s brother. And not someone you should be looking to piss off, Rossi.”
I flicked my eyes over to the Irishman with a waistline that told me he was the sort to never turn down seconds before landing my glare back on Leo. “Pretty certain I can take 'em.”
“In a fair fight, sure. But that fucker don’t play fair. And ya can’t trust a word that comes outta his mouth neither.”
“Yeah, same goes for the lot of you, or so I’m told.” I shrugged a shoulder, my mouth already tipping up into a grin.
Leo grabbed my waist and pivoted me to face him, clicking the door closed in the process.One arm propped up on theframe, the other locking me in place. “Stop looking for trouble, Dani. 'Cause one of these days you’re gonna find it.”
“Thought I already did,” I countered, my fingers wrapping around each side of his unbuttoned dress shirt and tugging him forward. “Think you can fuck me against this wall without them hearing ya?”
“It’s not me I’m worried about them hearing, babe,” Leo grunted, and forced himself back a step while reaching up a hand to comb his fingers through his hair. Like he always did whenever shit was bothering him.
“What’s wrong? Why d’ya look worried?”
“Ain’t nothin’ wrong, Dani. I mean, nothin’ other than the fact we’re playin’ with fire here.” Leo huffed, and I quirked a questioning brow.
“I thought you liked the heat, Mulligan? But, ya know, if it’s too much for ya, I can leave.”
“That’s not what I’m sayin’ and you know it,Rossi.”
I popped a hip and pressed my lips into a thin line. “I don’t know, 'cause ya won’t tell me shit.”
Leo watched me for a moment, those too-pretty for a boy lashes fanning his eyes and refusing to flutter. To blink. What he was looking for I couldn’t tell ya. Didn’t even know if he’d found it or not, but something had him shaking his head and dropping his guard at the same time.
“Him being here… it ain’t right. Don’t know what it is. Call it a feelin’. I don’t fuckin’ know. But whenever that slimy bastard gets his claws in shit, things go south fast. Worse is the fact that Junior idolizes the prick. Follows 'em like the guy’s got whiskey-scented wind comin’ out his ass.”
“Yeah, well, your brother ain’t the brightest marshmallow in this bowl of Lucky Charms.”
“Dani, I’m bein’ serious.” Leo stalked as far away from me as he could get, perching his ass up on the sill of his bedroomwindow. “You asked me what the fuck was wrong. I try to talk to ya about this shit. And all I get is more jokes.”
“What ya get, Mulligan, is all I’m willin’ to give ya. A good sense of humor and a great set of tits. Never promised ya more than that.” I didn’t bother moving or lowering my voice, even as I noted how Leo’s eyes zeroed in on the door as if the damn thing could remove itself from its hinges and come after him. “Ya want your cock sucked? I’m your girl. You want a wife? Find yourself one of those prep school princesses always following ya around.”
“Ya mean the girls who wear those teeny-tiny uniforms that look an awful lot like the one you left on my floor that first night?”
“Yeah, but less flexible and more desperate.”
The words weren’t even outta my mouth before Leo was closing the distance, much quicker than he’d created it, and pinning me to the wall again. His fingers pinching my cheeks and prying my chin upward and his glare now perfectly level with my face.
“Drop the act, babe,” he whispered in a way that didn’t sound much like a whisper at all.
“What act?” I grunted in reply, my tone less threatening when pressed out through puckered lips.
