Right here, in front of the coffee shop.
“He’s not a secret,” Blaze mutters. “Damien Rossi, right? Your dad’s right-hand man. His…” Blaze looks around, then whispers, “consigliere.”
“What’s that mean?” I ask. “I don’t speak Italian, Blaze.”
Papa doesn’t do that kind of stuff anymore. Mostly. Probably.
Okay, he absolutely still does, but it’s a secret and we’re all pretending Papa’s gone one hundred percent legit and not simply gone underground. Right now he’s a perfectly respectable business owner.
Sure, the business is strip clubs, but somebody has to run them. It Papa wasn’t doing it, somebody else would be raking in cash hand over fist from all the horny fuckers who inhabit New Bristol.
Blaze narrows his eyes at me. “Don’t play dumb, Pandora. I’m trying to protect you.”
I burst out laughing. “Have you? Where? When?” I sidle in closer to him. “He knew my name at the Halloween party. Were you gossiping about me? Is that how he knows?”
“He thinks you’re responsible for the frat house,” Asch says bluntly, watching me and Blaze. “And nothing we say or do seems to shake that.Thatis what River and I wanted to talk to you about the other night.”
“I don’t know why he would think that.” I step back again, only this time Asch grabs my wrist. “Ugh. Did you two kiss and make up? I liked it more when you were fighting.”
Asch yanks me close to him, and his lips brush my ear as he replies, “But isn’t it more fun to have both of us at the same time?”
I shiver as his breath ghosts over my skin.
Yeah, I like imagining the two of them together.
I turn my head up to smile at Asch. “I had you both at the same time. When you tied Blaze down and fucked his face.”
Asch scoffs, but his expression stays impressively neutral. “It wasn’t a dildo you wanted inside of you the other night,” he tells me, wrapping his arm around me. “Anyway, you’re changing the subject. Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”
“Or not talk,” Blaze suggests, boxing me in from the other side. “I think we should give you another tour of the tunnels.”
I laugh at the reminder of the first time I’d had the two of them—of when they thought they could terrorize me. “Careful. Are you sure you want to be all alone with me in a dark tunnel, no witnesses around, nobody to hear your screams?”
Asch rolls his eyes. “Is this where I’m supposed to say, ‘the only one screaming will be you,’” he asks.
“Or maybe where you start cowering in fear.” I place my hand on his neck. “I’m sure you’ll try to disarm me, but you don’t know how many knives I’m carrying, and?—”
The door to the coffee shop opens, and somebody walks out without looking. He bumps into Asch, which makes me stumble back into Blaze.
“Fuck, man,” the guy says. “Don’t block the path!”
Blaze growls and takes a threatening step toward the guy. “You want to try that again? Morrison, right?”
The guy jerks back and quickly shakes his head. “No, uh, sorry, Blaze!”
His fear of Blaze should be hot, but the mood is ruined. I yank my hand out of Asch’s grasp and skip backwards.
“Stop gossiping about me!” I say to them. “I’ve got enough on my plate trying to pass Biochem.”
I turn and jog away, because I don’t need them to tell me to be careful or to protect me or to gather more information they can pass back to Ezio Roland.
What kind of a stupid name is Roland anyway?
25
ASCH
We get back to the house, and I can feel the bad mood roiling off Blaze.
