Page 67 of Corrado

Alessio suspected whatever phone Corrado had on hand was being tracked, which was where the red dot came into play. He almost wondered what Corrado had been doing all evening, and why he’d been allowed to leave The League’s complex before his first year of training was up, but those thoughts quickly drifted away as he watched him from afar. Nursing what looked like a glass of whiskey on ice, Corrado didn’t even notice Alessio just twenty feet away standing in the entrance of the hotel’s bar.

Despite being only eighteen, and not at all legal to drink, Alessio didn’t think Corrado looked out of place at the bar in his dark wash jeans, and leather jacket. He tipped that glass up for another drink and shook his head when the bartender came around like he was going to offer another round, if he wanted it.

Alessio bet—because of rare occasions, he knew Dare let people have a free day away from the complex—that Corrado had been given whatever he needed for the night. A vehicle, likely, and IDs to get him by; probably cash, too, if not black cards without a spending limit.

He was content to watch Corrado for a while, and not interrupt his time alone, but that idea quickly went away when he realized the man sitting next to him at the bar was leaning closer. To his benefit, Corrado wasn’t paying the guy any attention.

Not a lick of it.

That didn’t stop the man from trying, though. In a silk dress shirt, top two buttons undone around his throat, and a grin that said he was interested … the man leaned closer still, his hand coming to smack Corrado’s arm.

All things Alessio instantly hated.

The guy could simply be attempting a friendly conversation. He might have noticed another quiet man at the bar and decided to make a friend.

Or maybe it was something else.

An attempt at more.

It didn’t matter.

Alessio didn’t like it.

He’d felt a lot of things in his life; far too much anger and bitterness from his childhood, and the loss of a father and mother that had never really been his to begin with. Abandonment and loneliness sometimes felt like his best friends when he was alone with his own thoughts at night, in a cold bed. Pride was something he’d learned to let go of years ago because someone always wanted to take it from you. He knew affection and loyalty because those were some of the first things Dare and Cree taught him when they took him in at only ten, and those emotions sharpened for him over time, but especially to those he cared for.

Right then, though?

All he felt was a hot, burning jealousy searing through his chest. It cut right through his fucking ribs, and stabbed him in an organ he liked to pretend didn’t exist a lot of the time—his heart.

And he’d never felt that.

Not like this.

Not that strongly.

It was so strong and piercing inside his body and mind, in fact, that it propelled him forward across the floor of the hotel’s bar before he had even thought about it. His legs taking long, sure strides until he came up behind Corrado, and the man that felt way to close to someone that Alessio felt like was only his.

Corrado was his.

He wasn’t sure when he decided that fact—possibly that day he saw Corrado in the knife room, and the man didn’t care to take his shit like everyone else did. Or maybe it was that first taste of him, mouth bloody, but damn, he still found something perfect there. It could have been late nights in his rooms where conversation wasn’t always present, but Corrado’s presence brought him the closest to the feeling of security that he’d felt in years.

He didn’t care when it happened.

It just was.

And that man was too close to something that wasn’t his. It couldn’t be his when Corrado was Alessio’s … even if he didn’t think so.

Yet.

He would know soon.

The man beside Corrado saw Alessio approaching first, his eyes widening a bit. Maybe it was just the fucking aura Alessio gave off—a back off kind of vibe—or it could have been the severe expression he couldn’t shake, not that he bothered to try.

At the man’s obvious distraction, Corrado turned to look over his shoulder. His gaze slammed into Alessio’s, and for a second, it felt like the world slowed down around them. Gone were the sounds of a busy bar, and chattering people. The music in the background was dulled, and he barely felt the floor under his feet.

None of it mattered.

Not when Corrado’s gaze skipped over his face and the rest of him like he was trying to correlate what he was seeing to real life. Like he didn’t believe he was standing there for a moment, and he needed to make sure it was really happening.