Page 4 of Corrado

“Like love at first sight?”

“No. It’s something else entirely.”

“Is it a real thing?”

“It was for me,” the man murmured.

He had a realization, then.

Like the priest said, they all sinned; their sins were simply different.

“You must tell me if it ever happens to you, too,” Father Gene said. “Gian is waiting for you, isn’t he? Have a blessed day.”

“What is this fucking place?”

Gian gave Christopher a look over his shoulder that quieted Corrado’s twin fast. The oldest between the two of them, Chris, was far more likely to toe the line and behave. Corrado, on the other hand, seemed to find some sort of trouble wherever he went.

Life wasn’t fun otherwise.

Today, both twins pushed their father’s limits.

Chris side-eyed Corrado when their father’s back was turned. If it were anyone else, he might have to ask what they were thinking in that moment. But it was his twin, and he never had to ask. When one shared the same face as someone else in the world, even their expressions could explain the things they didn’t say.

The two took after their father in appearance—brown eyes flaked with gold, straight noses with a sharp slope, full lips that always seemed to be smirking, and dark brown hair that, when not cut into a shorter style, seemed to be fucking unmanageable. They took the angular shaped faces from their mother, Cara, though.

The rest?

All their dad.

Corrado shrugged to answer his brother’s unspoken question about the building they were currently approaching. Deep in Nevada’s rural, dry land, they might as well be in the middle of nowhere. There weren’t even power lines out this far. It felt like they drove for hours after exiting their father’s private jet only to turn off on a gravel road that still led to fucking nowhere. Until all of the sudden, a tan building—or rather, what seemed like several buildings, although it was hard to tell—started to form on the horizon.

A few trees towered around the building that, partly looked like a warehouse but also brought to mind the word compound, when Corrado thought about it. The plain cement walkway didn’t give anything away about the place, but the very expensive cars parked any which way they wanted to stop next to the side of the building made him think something was happening here.

Out in the middle of the desert, apparently.

“Was that a fucking tumbleweed?” Corrado asked, his gaze drifting to the line of cars again and the dry item that skipped behind a black Hummer.

“If you two don’t fix your mouths and questions,” Gian murmured a few steps ahead. “Correct it before we go inside, s’il vous plait.”

“I’m just saying horror movies start like this, Papa.”

Gian made a noise under his breath but said nothing else. At the front of the building, there were no windows. Just a wall of tan-colored brick and a black door. Stark black, really. One couldn’t miss how it stood out blatantly compared to the rest of the yellow earth and walls surrounding it. Above the door rested a camera blinking with a red light.

Silently, Gian pulled a card from his pocket. Corrado glanced at it quickly, taking in the matte black cardstock, the wax seal on the back side with a cursive L stamped into it, and the white, classic lettering on the front.

What did it say?

The League, Corrado thought.

What in the hell was—

His thought process was interrupted by a buzzing noise that was loud enough to scare a scavenging bird sitting on top of the entrance door’s eave. It squeaked before flying off to rest somewhere else. By the time Corrado glanced at his father, both Gian and Chris were already heading inside the dimmed corridor of the tan building.

Ha.

Just like how the fucking horror movies started.

“Are you coming?” Chris called back to him.