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“It’s merely an observation. I’ve seen how you two look at each other. There’s something there, and there can’t be. Do you hear me?”
“Dad—”
“Do you understand?”
I sat back in the chair and turned away from him. Understanding didn’t mean I had to agree. I was a grown woman, after all. The library door clicked shut behind me and drew my attention. Ro walked in and plopped down on the overstuffed chair.
“So we got nothin’?” Ro asked as he leaned forward and put his hands on his knees. I shrugged. “How do we know you didn’t tell him about our work? Gia, you can’t let dic—”
“Watch yourself,” I bit back. “Tread very lightly, little brother. Who I sleep with is none of your business.”
“It’s our business when you fuck with the only other family that could destroy us,” Ro said. “Lying with the goddamn enemy!”
“Jesus Christ, come on. You’ve had your own share of forbidden romances,” I said, making Ro’s cheeks flush.
He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Now what?” Ro asked our father.
“We wait and see if they retaliate, which may happen. We got the fucking boss killed. It wasn’t our bullet, but our presence is enough to cause a goddamn war.”
* * *
Enzo
“This means war,”my not-so-little brother said. He pounded his fist on the table.
“Eh, hold on now,” I began. Sammy was a carbon copy of Silvio—a big man with an equally large attitude. Marco, my other brother, was on my level—quietly dangerous.
“No, Enzo, goddamn it, get your mind off the broad and pay attention to what has happened! They killed our father!”
I chewed the insides of my cheeks. I couldn’t admit it was my gun that killed Silvio. It would mean death for me. But lying could mean death for Gia. In the same breath, the thought of her made my blood run hot, burning my veins.How dare she? How could she do this to me?I wasn’t always the best toward her, but I had been honest. I was me. She was pretending and lying all along.Was any of it real?
A whooshing in my ears, like the initial break of an ocean’s wave, drowned out my brothers’ voices. My fingers tapped on the table as I thought about Gia. The softness of her face, unshakeable, pretty much only showing emotion when I fucked her. Whenever I fucked her, she felt like an extension of me, a part of my own flesh. Being inside her, making her come on my cock, was a hauntingly incredible memory. I could nearly feel how she squeezed me. How much we trusted each other as I released deep within her.Goddamn it, Gia.I ached for her. But also, Ineededto hate her.
“Enzo?” My brother’s voice rang out, but it sounded so far away. I was drowning in the current of my memory. The tide pulled me under. “Enzo!” His harshness snapped me back into the moment, placing my feet on dry land.
“What?” I looked at them, my eyes darting from one to the other.
“Did you listen to a word we said?”
“Sammy, I have a lot on my mind right now,” I snapped. Even aside from Gia, I had a lot on my mind. With Silvio gone, I was next in line. I would have to take over the jobs I never agreed with in the first place. I had to handle the colossal mistakes and fuck-ups of my father and his father before him. But I would not run this family with Silvio’s heavy hand. If I had a son, I wouldn’t torment and abuse him and use him to fulfill voyeuristic fantasies. Silvio did everything he did under the guise of making a man out of me, but that wasn’t what it was about. He cared about control and molding me into whathewanted me to be.
“You’re being a puss—” Marco began.
I interrupted him by standing and slamming my fist on the table. The sound echoed through the large kitchen. “Enough! Both of you! We can talk about this later, but right now, I have a lot of shit to figure out!” I turned and left the kitchen, refusing to give them the opportunity to grace me with even one more word.
I walked through the empty halls toward my bedroom. My heart ached from the loss of Gia, though I could never trust her again. She betrayed me. Not only that, she put my family in danger.Shewas the reason Silvio was dead.Fucking bitch.
That yo-yo of emotions was getting to my head. When I inhaled, I longed for her. When I exhaled, I despised her.She probably handed the recording off to her parents, fully loaded ammunition for them to use against us.She saw and heard so much.I never should have brought her along. I knew better. She wasn’t one of us. I forgot she was a lioness, not a sweet little house cat.Gia growled, not purred. She would hunt before she ever became the hunted. She was stronger than me in some ways, which made her that much more dangerous.
Once in my room, Atheist leapt from his bed, limping slightly as he walked toward me. He pushed his body against my leg and shook his mighty head. Stitches poked from the shaved skin in his armpit. That was another matter to deal with, but it would have to wait. For now, I was just glad to see his big, stupid face back at home.
With a sigh, I slipped off my shoes and sat on the couch, my body heavy and tired. I looked around the room, at reminders of Gia’s presence. Her oversized t-shirt on my bed, her brush on the nightstand, and her bag on the floor.Her bag!I stood and grabbed the bag off the floor, lifting it onto the bed. I rifled through the main compartment, pulling out clothing and girly shit. Powder from her makeup bag shook onto my bed as I turned it upside down and emptied.Damn it,I thought as I tried to wipe it off my comforter, smearing it and staining the white fabric. Just another reminder of Gia etched into my life.
I threw the bag onto the bed and groaned, knowing she’d taken whatever recorder she had with her. She was going to destroy my life.Fucking Gia!
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a little zipper on the front of the bag. There was a small tent in the fabric, hardly noticeable unless you were looking for it. I grabbed the bag and opened the zipper, feeling around with my fingers. The pocket was so small that my hand couldn’t fit inside it. I gripped something and pulled it out. It was a dismantled and destroyed recorder. At least, what used to be a recorder. It was smashed to bits. My heart sank at the sight of it, knowing Gia had told the truth. I should have checked her stuff before I let the rage boil through my veins.Does it change anything, though? Really?I threw the recorder onto the ground, and it skipped across the carpet.Gia still came into my home under false pretenses. She cozied up to me for intel, and I’ll never trust her again.Fractured webbing stretched across the surface of my heart. The thought of never knowing how she really felt about me made me sick to my stomach. How much I poured onto her and inside her.Was any of it real?
ChapterThirty-One
