I looked toward the wall of screens. Toward the club floor. Toward the place where a girl with dark hair and furious eyes was probably still wandering around somewhere beneath me.
Probably still angry. Probably still confused. Probably still wondering why I'd walked away. Then I smiled. Slowly. Not because I was happy. Because I felt something much worse than happiness. Something dangerous. Not anger. Something colder than that. Something quieter.
The kind of feeling that didn't explode like rage or burn like jealousy. The kind that slid into your ribs and sat there patiently, almost calmly, while it sharpened knives in the dark.
After Angelo died, Marco had become disturbingly good at reading me. Too good. Eight years beside me had turned him into some kind of unwilling expert on my personal disasters. He knew every expression I made before violence. Every silence before a bad decision. Every tiny shift in my face that usually ended with broken bones, blood on marble floors, or somebody screaming my name while running in the opposite direction.
And right now? He looked worried.
"Santino," he said carefully again. I didn't answer. Because I wasn't really in the surveillance room anymore.
I was staring at the wall of camera feeds while blue-white light flickered across black leather and steel around us. Camera after camera shifted beneath the glow. The dance floor. The bar. Hallways lined in gold and shadow. Bodies moving beneath hanging lights. Women laughing with champagne glasses in hand. Men leaning against walls pretending they weren't staring at women.
Normal life. The club kept breathing beneath us exactly the way it always had. Bass rolled faintly through the floor beneath my shoes like a distant heartbeat. Whiskey and smoke stillhung in the room. Ice slowly melted inside my untouched glass. Everything was normal. Except I wasn't seeing any of it.
Because all I could see was her. Dark hair spilling over bare shoulders. Big eyes glaring at me. Tiny white heels. Pink lips pulled into offended little frowns.
Jesus Christ. The memory hit me so clearly I could practically hear her voice again. Marco stood. Very bad fucking sign. Marco only stood when sitting no longer felt sufficient for whatever catastrophe was currently unfolding. Usually that catastrophe was me.
"You agreed with me earlier?" he asked slowly.
I looked at him. "What?"
"When I said stay away from her,” he reminded me.
I looked back toward the camera screens. Then I laughed. Not because anything was funny. Because the entire thing felt completely fucking absurd. Out of every woman in this city, out of every club, I had somehow walked directly into that.
Marco's expression darkened. "Fuck. I don’t even want to know what you’re thinking."
I kept staring at the screens. "Yeah, I think you don’t."
"No." He pointed at me. "No, I know that face. The face where your brain starts replacing common sense with terrible ideas."
A slow smile pulled at my mouth before I could stop it. Marco looked personally offended.
"You've known her for like..." He looked at his watch dramatically. "An hour."
I said nothing. Marco narrowed his eyes. Still nothing. Then he dragged both hands down his face. "If you go anywhere near Aurora Ventura, you are not chasing a woman."
His voice had changed. No humor. No sarcasm. No annoyance. Just seriousness. Complete seriousness. Silence filled the room. The camera screens flickered quietly against the walls. Bass rolled beneath my feet. Somewhere downstairspeople were laughing. Drinking. Dancing. Completely unaware that my entire fucking night had just detonated.
"And we just got peace," Marco continued quietly. "Barely. You and Leo spent years circling each other like loaded guns with safety switches."
His eyes locked onto mine. "One wrong move will kill you."
I looked at him. One wrong move. Funny. Because something deep in my chest whispered that I'd already made one. The second I kissed her.
I looked at Marco for a long second. Then scoffed.
"Jesus Christ," I muttered, grabbing my whiskey again. "Stop being such a drama queen."
Marco stared at me. Not the irritated stare. Not the you're being an asshole stare. This one looked deeply personal. Like I'd reached across the room and insulted his mere existence.
Very slowly, he pointed at himself. "I'm the drama queen?"
"Yes." I leaned back in the leather chair and took another drink while the burn of whiskey slid down my throat and settled warm in my chest. "You just gave me an entire speech like we're standing in the rain on a battlefield somewhere while violins play in the background."
"I gave you a warning,” Marco hissed.
