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I shook my head. “If you call her a whore again, I will pull every tooth from your head.”
Rocco lifted his palms. “Fine.”
“Get out. I have much to do.”
“I will stay for dinner.”
I reeled on him, and he smiled. “Ah, ah, ah, cousin, you cannot touch me now.” Rocco’s eyes narrowed in challenge.
“Get. The. Fuck. Out. You are no more than a trained dog.”
He shook his head and tapped his temple. “I have accomplished much.”
“You have an owner. And I will always be free.”
“You will always be a slave to your vengeance.”
I swallowed the last of my beer and set the bottle on the counter.
I shoved my hands in my pockets in an attempt not to break the bones in his face. I took a step toward him and met his black eyes. “When we were boys, and we moved from Egypt, I was forced by my father to be friends with you and play games with you. I did not like you then, and I do not like you now. I no longer wish to know you. Get the fuck out of my house.”
Rocco’s face reddened with each word I spoke. He shrugged on his jacket and grabbed his gun, tucking it back in the holster. “You have no loyalty.”
“I have found it does not pay off.”
“There are still games to be played, cousin.” Rocco chuckled as he slammed the door behind him. I finished my beer and took a look around. Weeks on the job had done nothing to ease my ache for her. I sat at my desk and opened my laptop. During my missions, I had succeeded in avoiding her. I ’d resisted every urge to watch her. As I sat at my desk with the possibility of seeing her a click away, I lost the battle. I pulled up the footage of the penthouse and rewound it to the last time I saw her. Nothing. She had not been back to the penthouse. A dull ache ripped through my chest where she had resumed her place. No matter how hard I tried to rid myself of thoughts of her, they pushed through the recesses to the forefront of my mind and tortured me in waking dreams.
Rocco had been right. Taylor was a weakness. And my father had seen me as a disgrace up until the day he died for not being one to follow his footsteps. His disappointment in me was the result of my hatred for him. He had pre-destined his sons to become his disciples, soldiers and the predecessors to the family business. He, like Rocco, fed on power and corruption. He was the evil I despised. He had lost one son to his iron will and another to his depravity. Rocco was his only heir.
My security alarm pinged again as I pulled up the footage. I moved my mouse to pinpoint the time of the alert and saw a yellow hatchback pull up to my gate. Probably just some lost traveler.
I froze when I saw a glimpse of red hair when she exited the vehicle. She walked up to my gate and peered through the iron to survey my property. All the breath left me when she turned and looked right into the camera. My heart thundered as she spoke directly to me.
“That’s not how you say goodbye to a lover.” My chest recoiled as I gripped my keys in my hand and I paused at the door of my villa. Dread filled every part of me as I recalled my cousin’s parting words.
“There are still games to be played, cousin.”
I’d spent the time in Barga, unsure of my next move, walking the streets, taking long drives through the Lucca countryside, and living like a tourist. Metal-gray Dyer seemed light years away from the countryside filled with trees, lush green fields, pastel flowers, and a mountain backdrop. I felt like I was driving through a picture I’d seen in an art gallery when I lived in New York. With the sun nestled into soft white clouds, the hills in spun gold, I turned a drive into a dream. As angry and lost as I was at the hot mess my life had become, as tortured as I felt about everything I left behind, including a suffering Amber, I found a sort of peace as I drove.
At night, I lay wondering about the lover who left me so abruptly, who had tortured me with his hello and goodbye. I hated that I loved him. I hated that I couldn’t find it in me to resent him for any part of what happened when I was with him. I hated that I played with fire and burned my sister, the person I loved most in the world. I hated that in order to protect her, I had to stay away from her.
I was never meant to have a family or love. I had resi
gned myself to that fact long ago. And those thoughts had been stripped away once again with Daniello’s absence and the nightmare after. I’d been conditioned to believe emotions were for the weak. I should have trusted my mentor and not my heart.
“You ever heard the saying ‘Don’t ever tell your problems to anyone. Twenty percent don’t care, and the other eighty percent are glad you have them’?”
Ray ignored my teary eyes. “Handle it.”
“What if it’s positive?”
Ray’s eyes scoured me briefly, his face void of any emotion. “Handle it.”
“Ray, you can’t be serious.”
He shot up from his chair. “You’re going to finish first in your class. We should be hearing from Harvard any day. You want to give that up for a mistake?”
Bile threatened as my stomach churned. “You are a cruel bastard.”
