by Bethany-Kris
“It didn’t need two people on it.”
He just wanted to go with Les.
Things changed sometimes.
It couldn’t be helped.
Dare cleared his throat, asking, “Things are fine, aren’t they? You’re not ... having trouble with anything, are you?”
Corrado almost laughed.
That was about as deep as Dare cared to get with one of his people. He didn’t care if they had personal shit going on in their lives as long as it didn’t mess with The League, and what the organization was doing. On the opposite end of the coin, Dare and Cree were some of the few people who knew the complexities of Alessio and Corrado’s relationship.
So, when Dare asked something like that, he was really asking about Alessio and Corrado without outright saying it. Corrado wasn’t stupid.
“Why, so you could send Cree to set me straight?” Corrado asked.
The man had the decency—or gall—to laugh.
“I only send Cree when you give me no other choice.”
“Right,” Corrado murmured. “And no, nothing is wrong. I just need a break. Other things to handle for a bit, and then I’ll be back to work.”
“Noted.” Keys clicked on the other end before Dare said, “That’s it, then. Call me if you need to change something, yeah?”
“Will do.”
Corrado lingered in the library, that also doubled as his office, for a while longer after he ended the call. Staring out at the busy city below, one of the only rooms in the penthouse that didn’t have full floor to ceiling windows, he found a strange comfort in this space.
Designed to be useful to him—he liked the office area—and to Alessio, who needed a million and one books because he could never find enough shit to read, the two of them often found themselves in here more often than anywhere else in the penthouse when they were in the city. It wasn’t lost on Corrado how Ginevra also seemed to favor this room since her arrival here. More often than not, she gravitated to the books, and settled into one of the sitting areas to crack it open for hours on end.
Alessio would enjoy that. Someone to entertain his need for words and knowledge until long after the fucking sun set, and the rest of the world was sleeping ...
Not that Corrado needed to be thinking about that at all.
Yep.
Quite enough of that.
Spinning on his heel, he left the office library before he could think better of it. He didn’t need to be thinking about shit that didn’t matter, anyway. Strolling through the penthouse, he rounded the corner at the end of the hallway, and came to an abrupt stop in the entryway that led to the sitting room.
The hint of a smile curved his lips as he found Ginevra standing in front of a television screen that was as tall as her, and as wide as the entire wall. With a game controller in her hands, she pressed a button and laughed when her tank on the screen blew up her opponent behind enemy lines.
For the most part, he tried to give her space. He liked his own, after all, and figured most people were the same. Since she didn’t try to seek him out, he offered her the same respect.
Like now, he would usually walk away.
He should walk away.
Instead, he stood there in the entryway, watching her from the side as she fiddled with the game, and her features lit up each time she succeeded in doing something right. He was reminded again, then, as her bow-shaped lips curved with her happiness, and her brown eyes widened with joy, that she was an exceptionally beautiful woman.
If not innocent ...
It was a silly thing, really. Simple, and not at all something that he would find amusement in any other time. That was a game he liked to play to chill a few years back, but he hadn’t touched it in a long while. It had been too long since he and Alessio came back to Toronto for a visit, anyway.
He shouldn’t be watching her at all, or caring. Not that she found happiness in his games, or that she enjoyed spending her time with Alessio’s books.
That didn’t mean anything.
Right?
Except, Corrado wasn’t that simple, and neither was his mind. He was detail-oriented. He liked to know all the things about people, and what made them tick. Ginevra wasn’t an exception to that rule, and if anything, he found himself more curious about her than he had anyone. How did she feel to be twenty-one, and in the position she now was? Who had she left back in New York? What had she wanted to be or do before this?
All those questions, and no answers.
Unless he talked to her.
That could be a problem.
“Do you want to play, or are you going to keep standing there watching me?”
Corrado found Ginevra staring at him from the side, unbothered by his presence. “It’s my home, Ginevra.”
“I prefer Ginny.” She smiled brightly—sweetly. “That’s what my mom used to call me, and my sisters.”
Corrado dragged in a heavy breath, feeling the sense of time he had never been able to forget because it was seared into his brain coming back in a flash. That time, and that man, it melted together in his brain with this woman.
He saw her face.
He heard her words.
And he also saw Alessio—heard him, too.
I prefer Les.
That memory hit him hard.
All at once.
Like a punch to the gut.
He’d been this curious once a long time ago. He remembered that day vividly—that knife room, and those few words he shared with a man that would change his whole life. This felt different in ways, and in others, the same.
Because the curiosity was there. God knew it was going to be his curiosity that got him in trouble. It always did.
Like fucking déjà vu.
Yeah, a problem.
That’s what this woman was for him.
Corrado knew it right then.
Because he had interest.
Nothing was ever simple when he found interest in something, but especially because nothing interested him anymore. Nothing but the man back in Vegas, and apparently, this woman standing in front of him.
“Well?” she asked. “Do you want to play?”
“I don’t think I should,” he replied, honestly.
Her smile fell. “Oh. Okay.”
“Don’t let me stop you from enjoying it, though.”
She didn’t reply.
He didn’t mind.
Corrado left Ginevra to her game, and he went back to Alessio’s library. Shit felt easier there. He could breathe better in that space, further away from her, and the confusion he now felt.
Except that was a lie, too.
Nothing was easier.
• • •
“Fuck.”
Corrado glared at the digital clock on the nightstand that displayed a time way too early for his fucking phone to be ringing. Even if the sun was up, it didn’t matter. Nobody needed to wake his ass up before seven-thirty.
Unless someone was dead.
And even then, it depended on who died.
“What?” he snarled into the phone.
“Woke you up, did I?”
Corrado’s brow knotted as he took in the familiar voice, and then eyed the clock again. Seven o’clock in Toronto meant it was four in the morning in Las Vegas. “Why aren’t you sleeping, Les?”
The man on the other end of the phone made a grunt. A good sign he didn’t want to answer the question, but he was probably going to do it anyway simply because Corrado asked. So was their way.
“Well?” Corrado pressed.
Pushing over in the bed, Corrado rolled to his back while keeping the phone at his ear. He waited for whatever it was Alessio had to tell him as he sat up, and used the black velvet of the headboard as a place to rest his back.
He needed to wake up.
Alessio was still quiet on the phone.
Across the hall from his master bedroom—without Alessio, Corrado rarely closed his bedroom door—he found a familiar for
m sleeping. Apparently, Ginevra also didn’t know how to close her door when she went to bed, although this was the first time Corrado had woken up before her in the week that they had been staying together in this penthouse. Usually, he had found other ways to distract himself when the woman was around, so then they both had their space.
He didn’t know why he did that.
She didn’t upset him ...
He just felt odd around her. Like when she’d started crying in the car when he drove them to Toronto, and his first reaction was to be rude. And then just as quickly, he found he needed to fix that and her because he didn’t want to see her cry.
He shouldn’t care at all.
She was a fucking job.
“Corrado, are you listening?”
“Yeah,” he muttered, coming back to the conversation at hand. Although, he was still staring across the hall even as he said it, half amused by the fact Ginevra slept on top of the blankets, and also slightly bothered by it at the same time. Not because he thought she might be cold—the penthouse was warm—but more because he noticed at all. Like he noticed the shape of her thighs, and the way her legs looked under the pair of cotton shorts she’d pulled on. Fuck. He needed to get back to Les. Now. “What’s going on?”
“You asked for time off from The League?”
Corrado stiffened in the bed, scrubbing a hand over his face at the same time. “Who told you that?”
“Who do you think?”
“Dare, likely. Cree doesn’t pay attention to that shit.”
“You’re not wrong,” Alessio grumbled.
Across the hall, Ginevra rolled over in the bed, a soft sound escaping her at the same time. It almost sounded like a moan. Add that onto the fact that Corrado was still admiring the swells and curves of her body, not to mention, the fact he was quite aware that she was a beautiful woman, and he suddenly needed to ignore a raging erection under his own sheets.
Great.
That’s just fucking perfect.
Another woman, under entirely different circumstances, and Corrado might have acted on his attraction. He would have let Alessio know the shit he was feeling, that he was attracted to the chick, and it would have been done.
That was their rule.
It was fine.
Except this was different. He wasn’t just attracted to Ginevra—he was also interested in her, and what brought her here to him. Things he had no business feeling, and he didn’t know how that factored into the way he and Alessio had always done things when it came to women. Not to mention, he gave his word about the job with Ginevra; he wasn’t to tell people where she came from, or who she was. Including Alessio.
It was a fucking mess.
This was trouble.
That woman was trouble.
Why, or for what reason, or even how ... Corrado didn’t know those things, but he knew this. He could tell already, one week into watching Ginevra, that she was going to be an issue for him. For more reasons than he cared to admit, if he were being honest. Sometimes, Corrado just got a feeling about something or someone, and he was rarely wrong.
He’d had that same feeling about The League.
Or Alessio.
Different jobs.
He didn’t ignore it now.
“It’s for that favor, right?” Alessio asked. “Andino Marcello?”
Corrado cleared his throat and forced himself to avert his eyes from the figure across the hall. As it was, the guilt had already started to compound in his chest. “Yeah, that’s what it is.”
“And you still can’t tell me what it is?”
“Not really. I gave my word, that’s all.”
Although, Corrado was starting to think that was probably a lame fucking excuse. There was no one he trusted more than Alessio. Life had taught him that, and Alessio only proved it time and time again.
He could, at the very least, explain the gist of the job, and the fact that he had a woman here with him. Except, then he was wading into dangerous fucking territory with that—he would still be omitting important details to Alessio.
Like his interest in her.
The attraction.
So, no.
Corrado refused to say anything.
Because he didn’t plan to act on it.
None of it.
Simple.
Or that was the lie he was going to tell himself. He’d fucked up here. From the moment Ginevra got inside his car at that church, the first thing Corrado should have done the second he could was call Alessio.
Been honest.
Gave every detail.
But he didn’t.
And now here he was, a week into this thing ... and he was just digging the hole deeper. It wouldn’t be as simple, now. He couldn’t just tell Alessio the truth, and the man shrug it off. That wasn’t how they worked.
That’s not how their thing worked.
The fact that he didn’t tell Alessio from the start would be a nail in the coffin. Corrado didn’t need confirmation from Alessio to know it was true—it was their goddamn rule. Except he hadn’t done anything, and as long as he continued on that path, then there was nothing to tell.
Right?
Yeah.
The guilt compounded deeper.
Fuck.
So, yeah. He was going to say nothing. Do nothing. He wouldn’t act on a damn thing—not his attraction, or his interest. He was going to get this fucking job done, and go back home to Alessio like he’d planned to from the start before he looked at Ginevra after she got in his car, and got that feeling.
That same feeling he had when he met Alessio for the first time. A feeling that said this is going to change everything for you. Because what else could he do? He’d already dug this fucking hole, he might as well keep digging until he was out of it, too.
“I’m just saying that I don’t like finding out shit from Dare instead of you,” Alessio said on the phone, bringing Corrado back to the conversation again. “And you know how Andino Marcello is—he doesn’t care what shit you step in for him, so are you sure this job is even on the up and up with him?”
“Les—”
“Since when do you hide shit from me, Corrado?”
Yeah.
Shit.
“I’m not hiding anything,” he said.
There was just nothing to tell.
Not yet.
Across the hall, Ginevra made another noise before she rolled to her back. He saw her eyes flutter open, and she stared up at the canopy above the four-poster bed.
“Corrado—”
“I have to let you go,” he said quickly. “I’ll call you back.”
He hung up the phone, and tossed it to the bedsheets without waiting for a goodbye from Alessio. His chest became tighter—that pain, growing sharper.
But he probably wouldn’t call back. Not when it meant needing to hide things from Alessio because now, Corrado just didn’t want to lie. That guilt was a killer.
Corrado still wasn’t sure how he got to this point simply by taking a goddamn job to pay back a favor. All he had to do was open up his fucking mouth. Tell Alessio the job was a woman. And because it wasn’t as simple as it seemed, his dick decided to get involved, and maybe his curiosity, too.
That was it.
That’s all he needed to do.
He was making it more complicated than it actually was, but he didn’t know how to fix it. Nothing was ever simple with him and Les, even if on the surface, it might seem like it. Those were lies, too. They’d made this complicated.
Corrado blamed himself for that, too.
20.
Ginevra
Ginevra eyed the landline cordless phone charging on the counter as she stirred the sugar into her steaming coffee. It’d been a week, and not once had she considered using any one of the many phones throughout the penthouse to call out.
Except she was doing that now.
Maybe it was because she woke up, and realized this was the longest she had ever gone wit
hout speaking to her siblings. Even after she turned eighteen, and moved out of the house to begin classes at a community college, she still called them every single day. And her mama, too.
She’d made an effort not to think about it since coming here. She knew it was dangerous, and calls could easily be tracked. This morning, it was all she could think about.
Funny how that worked.
What was happening in New York, now?
Were her sisters safe?
Had Siena kept her promise?
What was happening?
Nothing could drive a person to do crazy things more than the unknown. She’d spent the last week acquainting herself with the penthouse, and the different things to do inside it. She bet Corrado paid a good amount for this place.
Ten rooms.
Three bathrooms.
A few thousand square feet.
There were lots to do, too. Like the gaming systems in the sitting room, or the library. There was also a small gym with the same floor to ceiling windows that overlooked the heart of Toronto. A hot tub on a balcony that was enclosed with more glass walls.
Despite the fact a maid came three times during the week to clean, and bring in groceries, she also had a whole stack of takeout menus for restaurants she could order from. Corrado had also taken her into the city to shop, and grab whatever she needed by way of clothing or personal items.
Mostly, she tried to stay busy because then, she didn’t focus on those unknowns back in New York nearly as much.
And still ...
Here she was, eyeing that damn phone.
Ginevra sighed, and forced her damn gaze away from the phone so that she could focus on something else. It didn’t matter how much she wanted to call, the rules were clear—she couldn’t. Not until she knew it was safe.
Because that was the thing, right?
It was more than just her.
It was her sisters, too.
She had to be smart—and strong—for them. She was sure they were terrified and wondering what in the hell happened to her. She highly doubted their half-brothers were treating the young girls well, but at the same time ... they couldn’t hurt them, either. Greta and Giulia were literally Kev and Darren’s last thing to use to reach for the top, right?
