Page 6 of Corrado

It was the way the man looked at him. The way his gaze drifted over Corrado with the slowness that reminded him of a predator, maybe. Like this guy had just found prey, and he was considering whether the kill would be worth it.

It irked Corrado.

Irritated him like nothing fucking else.

He wasn’t prey.

“What did you just say?” Corrado asked.

The guy laughed and tipped his head to the side as he pointed at the knife in Corrado’s hands. “Be careful, we don’t need you cutting yourself because you wouldn’t know what to do with a knife unless you were paying someone else to do it for you. Clear enough?”

Okay.

Yeah.

Corrado wasn’t even going to act like that was a comment he could brush off as though it hadn’t been said at all. This guy wasn’t even trying to be subtle about it; he was outright insulting Corrado, and with a fucking smile at the same time.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

The guy peeked over his shoulder, looking at something down the hall. “Not yet, but you will.”

That humming sensation was back again. It kind of pissed Corrado off that the guy could be so dismissive and insulting to him, while at the same time, acting like he had better things to do than stand there and have a conversation with him. He remembered his father’s warning about behaving, but he was very close to telling this guy to fuck off right before he busted his mouth for those comments while he was at it.

“How about,” Corrado started to say, “you go find someone else to—”

“Alessio.”

The guy’s gaze drifted back to Corrado, his eyebrow still arched high like he didn’t have a damn to give, as a new voice sounded right outside the doorway of the room. Almost as soon as the voice spoke, a new face came to the doorway, and clapped a hand on the guy’s shoulder. Right behind him stood Corrado’s father.

Gian stayed back a couple of steps, though.

He didn’t intrude.

“Introducing yourself, Alessio?” the man asked.

Alessio.

Corrado decided right then that he hated that name. And the man it belonged to, as well. The problem was, when Alessio turned his gaze back on Corrado, the humming was back. He couldn’t look away from the ocean of blue that stared back at him, or the way that as much as this guy rubbed him wrong … he wanted to know why.

Or anything about him at all.

“You’re not causing trouble, are you, Corrado?” his father asked out in the hallway.

“Define trouble.” Alessio chuckled. “Is he allowed to play with knives where someone can’t keep an eye on him at the same time?”

The man next to Alessio smacked him in the back of the head, making him glower back at him.

“Fuck off, Dare,” Alessio muttered.

“Play nice, Les.”

He looked back to Corrado again.

“But why, though? This is way more fun.”

Fuck him.

And the fact Corrado found he liked it.