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I give a curt nod. “I heard,” my words are terse. I might not like the Guidice family, but I wouldn’t want a woman to end up with Martinez in some horrible arrangement. No one deserves such a fate. Massimo opens his mouth and I hold up a hand to stop the tirade I know he’ll go on if I let him. “I don’t disagree, but he approached me about inventory we have, and his money is just as good as anyone else’s.”
Marco looks a little surprised, “He heard about the deal we made with Orlov?”
“Apparently,” I confirm. “I’m not sure how he found out, but I’m not surprised either. Martinez knows all the cockroaches in the city. We need to move what we acquired. If he is the buyer, so be it. We need to make plays in the city, and this is a good step. If we don’t, we’ll never climb to the place we deserve to be.”
“Martinez is not the type of man we want to be in business with,” Massimo warns.
“One deal doesn’t mean we’re in bed with him. It’s only business,” I insist.
I refuse to admit how much the idea of being aligned with Martinez makes me want to run the other way. Showing weakness, even to my brothers, won’t do me any good. They expect me to lead them in our bid to gain the power we deserve in this city. I have to stand strong.
“As long as he doesn’t expect our help with other areas of his business dealings, I’m in,” Marco chimes in as his eyes drift to Viola again.
I’ve been fighting my need to take the woman in while we’ve been talking. It’s difficult. I swear all the light wants to attach to the woman, making her look luminous even in the low lighting of the room. She looks like she belongs here—the lounge screaming old money and class.
She’s out of our league and the thought is both humbling and infuriating. Our family has been pushed around and excluded from the major dealings of the city for far too long. Our father did what he could, but never got farther than having a thriving bookie business while working as a middleman in certain situations. The Falsini name has never been given what it was owed.
A man approaches Viola and Fleur and my body goes rigid. He’s smiling at them, and it makes me want to beat him until he’s a bloody mess. My hand clenches into a fist and I barely hide it under the table in time.
What the fuck is going on with me?
It’s not as if Viola is mine. I want to use her and nothing more. Still, I won’t allow some pretty boy to stand in the way of my goal.
That must be why it’s bothering me.
Nothing more.
When I look up, Massimo is watching me and I sneer at him, hoping to wipe the knowing look off his face. The look of possession which washes over Marco’s features as he takes in the man flirting with Viola and Fleur is a little surprising.
“Maybe we should have approached sooner,” Marco muses under his breath and I have to hold myself back from exploding.
He’s always been happy to go along with my plan and rarely questions me. The fact that this woman is at the core of him questioning my actions makes me want to destroy her even more. So what if I have to push my conscience to the side to do it? It wouldn’t be the first time.
When the man reaches out to Fleur and she slides her small hand into his before he leads her away and toward the club’s rooms, I breathe a sigh of relief. Viola smiles after her friend for a moment before turning toward the bar and taking a sip of her drink.
I’m not sure if I can put this off for much longer. With one look around the room, I can see she has caught the attention of more than one man. I certainly won’t be allowing anyone else to touch her tonight. I can’t do it and the reason why doesn’t matter.
While Marco is chuckling at the look of relief on Massimo’s face, I nod toward our youngest brother. “I think you should be the one to arrange for her to meet us in the room. You know which one.”
While we haven’t shared a woman in a long time, we all know the kind of play we enjoy. Our power and position can be an inconvenience. When the woman we’re with can’t see, she can only feel. She’s not caught up in who we are, only what we make her experience. It’s intoxicating for something as intrinsic and simple as identity to be stripped away.
We are all skin and blood and need when nothing else matters.
Marco teases our brother while his question is pointed at me, “You don’t think he could get her in the room on his charm alone?”
“I’m sure he could, but I’m not going to underestimate the woman and assume she doesn’t know who we are.”
Massimo doesn’t say a word as he stands and walks away from the table. I have no doubt he’ll set up some sort of invite for Viola to join us in Room Five. It’s the room I’ve always preferred. I wasn’t surprised to find out my brothers felt the same way when we’ve enjoyed a little fun, even if we weren’t doing so together.
I’m not sure why we stopped sharing a woman between us. We’ve always worked well together and giving a woman pleasure was a way for us to strengthen the bond between us. As we started focusing on our goal to make more of our name than we’ve ever had before, we started spending more time apart than together.
Maybe that was a mistake.
I look at Viola one more time before standing and heading toward the stairs so we can head up to Room Five. I know Marco will follow me and Massimo won’t be far behind.
Now we wait. I’ve never been a man known for patience, but I think it’ll be worth it.
Viola has no idea that she’s wrapped herself up in a bow to be delivered at our feet.
