AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Did you have sex with me?” My voice breaks halfway through.
“Will it make you feel better if I say no?”
His vague answer is more torment. The smugness on his face tells me this. He likes leaving it as a mystery. It’s a form of power. Something for him to dangle over me, use to make me feel disgust and shame.
“The thought makes you sick, right?” he asks when I say nothing. His dark eyes gleam as he sips from his wine. Mine remains untouched. “You made it to bed safe and sound. Consider yourself fortunate.”
Only Giancarlo would be enough of a twisted asshole to think I should be grateful I was able to be safe in bed.
I’m nothing but a possession to steal for him.
After a slow inhale, I close myself off to emotion. I can’t lose sight of my goal. I have to stay on his good side. I have to find an escape.
As painful as it is, I can’t wallow in what has or hasn’t been done to me.
“How are you so experienced?” My voice falters as I change the subject. “Do you…do you use often?”
He takes so long to answer, he doesn’t like my prying. I clear my throat and fiddle with my cloth napkin. I’m not sure why I thought someone as reclusive as Giancarlo would want to discuss his experiences with drugs. He’s not a man of many words.
The ache in my heart throbs in painful reminder of Gio. If I were seated for dinner with him tonight things would be so much different—we’d be lost in each other, bonding over wine and candlelight. We’d quickly move on to passionate dessert.
I’ve never missed him more than I do right now. I’m learning the grief doesn’t subside; it only grows stronger, more poignant as the days pass. Even the littlest things remind me of him.
Giancarlo sharing his face doesn’t help.
“Every day,” he answers after the drawn-out pause. He motions for the waiter to come forth with our soup. The silverware clangs as we’re served. Once we’re alone again, he finishes his thought. “You can say I’m a functioning user.”
“I never would’ve guessed—I mean, I haven’t been able to tell.”
“I can. It’s why I need it.”
“No oneneedsit,” I say, shrugging. “But many have addictions that make them think they do.”
The emptiness in his obsidian-black eyes conjures a shudder out of me. “You don’t understand. I need it if I’m to be what I need to be for the day.”
“Which is?”
“Human.”
A small frown dips my mouth. “You’re human whether or not you use. Maybe not a good human…but still human.”
That’s it. I’ve done it again. He holds me captive under his unsettling, dark gaze. Enough time passes that the soup in front of me loses its tendrils of heat.
“What makes me a bad human?”
“Oh…” I say, surprised he’d ask. I’m careful piecing together an answer. “There’s no one way to be bad. But I’m not sure you can be in your lifestyle and begood.”
“Does that include my brother?”
The elephant in the room. The subject we share in common but haven’t directly addressed.
I shift uncomfortably in my seat. “It’s not black and white. That’s one thing I’ve learned.”
“In other words, yes. It does include him,” he says aloofly. He nudges his soup away and then motions for the waiter. Our table is cleared in seconds. “You admit my brother was not a good man. Yet you fell in love with him.”
It’s like I said—complicated.
Falling in love with Giovanni was never part of my plan. It just sort of happened on its own. He might be gone, but I’m certain he would’ve said the same. I’ve spent a restless moment here and there in the middle of the night wondering how I can love a man who lords over entire cities. He breaks the law. He runs countless illegal operations. He kills with zero hesitation.
