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“We’ll talk about Salvatore. But not now. For your sake, not his.”
“My sake? But—”
I brush my lips over hers. “Trust me. Not now.”
“I wish you’d just tell me. I can’t take any more shocks.”
I run my fingers through her hair, remembering the jolt I felt when she reached out to me for help in the minutes after her mother was killed. Looking over at the traffic lights and seeing her sitting in a car with a Geak. Listening to her berate the four of us for the way we treated her on her seventeenth birthday.
The envy and triumph at seeing her hands lovingly caressing Scava as he fucked her with a gun to her head.
The press of her lips against mine for the first time, so pure and sweet. A litany of surprises as devastating as nuclear bombs. “I sometimes think the same,bambina. But don’t ever stop, will you?”
“Silly,” she mutters with a smile, and puts her head down on my chest.
I hold Chiara in my arms until she falls asleep, and then I tuck her beneath the bedclothes and send a text to Vinicius and Scava.
Then I go to the kitchen and grab three glasses and a bottle of vodka. We’re going to need it.
When they step out of the elevator, Scava looks around right away. “Where’s our princess?”
“Asleep in my bed.”
Vinicius raises one eyebrow and smiles. “Did you…?”
I nod. “She’s…” Words fail me, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve seen her with Vinicius and Scava. They already know. “It’s not going to work like this.”
“It’s not going to work at all,” Scava growls.
Vinicius takes a sip of vodka and shakes his head. “Great attitude, Lorenzo.”
“I’m right. There’s no point in trying to make her ours when she hates our fucking guts.”
“Yourguts,” Vinicius counters. “Maybe this would have worked if you hadn’t taken things too far just so you could fuck her first.”
Scava’s lips press into a white, angry line. He knows when his brothers are right.
“She doesn’t hate us,” I say. The other two turn to look at me. My lips are still tingling from Chiara’s soft kisses. “Not even you, Scava. She’s told me she’s been having arguments with an old friend inside her head about us and what we’re doing with her. She’s conflicted and, most of all, she’s still stuck on the night of her seventeenth birthday, watching her mother die.”
“Yeah, that’ll fuck you up,” Scava mutters.
Vinicius nods. “She’s as damaged as the rest of us. That’s actually the reason I don’t want to give her up.”
Which is exactly what I’ve been thinking.
Scava rubs his eyes with his thumb and fingers, muttering to himself.
“What was that?” I ask.
“Neither. Do. I,” he says through gritted teeth.
“Good. We’re agreed. So, what are we going to do about it?”
18
Chiara
The morning light is glimmering behind my eyes when I feel the bed sink beside me. I smile, remembering that I’m in Cassius’ bed. I reach out without opening my eyes and feel a large warm hand slip my fingers into his.
