Bitterness cut through my chest, and I moved to get up and leave but an iron grip wrapped around my wrist.
Slowly, I glanced at the man who lay like a freshly fucked king next to me. I bet his heartbeats were satisfied that he’d finally laid his easy fiancée. But as soon as I looked at him, the resentment faded into a different kind of ache. When had he become so handsome it hurt? I fought not to rub at the pang in my chest.
He didn’t say a word, just watched me with a lazy stare while inhaling rough breaths. It’d been only moments since we’d had sex again. But in my head, it’d felt like an eternity as the seconds mocked me with the inevitable that he would soon hold another like he had me.
I was ruining a moment I’d wanted badly enough it felt like a need. But now I couldn’t stop myself from analyzing everything—the possibilities and outcomes—and it didn’t look to be in my favor.
When the eye contact began to burn, I tried to pull my wrist away, but he wouldn’t let me go. His expression didn’t show a hint of emotion, as though he could hold me here effortlessly. As though he might hold me here forever.
A moment later, his grip slid from my wrist, releasing me. Something dipped in my chest, though I pushed it away before I could analyze it. I got off the bed and, as I took a step toward the door, something dug into the bottom of my foot. I halted and glanced down. The ring sat there, forgotten, like the sweet boy who’d given it to me. My stomach twisted.
Without a thought, I picked it up. A wave of tension brushed my back, evoking a prickling sensation that ran down my spine. The silence was an antagonistic one, the kind that doesn’t contain words but says everything.
Nico hated this ring, and I could only ascertain he knew it was connected to a man—or believed it was. Nobody knew about the ring but Adriana, and even then, the only thing I’d told her about the incident was that he’d given it to me.
My promise remained with or without the fifty-cent piece of jewelry, but . . . I hesitated.
I would never be with another man but the one in this room. We both knew it, and that removed any type of advantage I would’ve had in the Outside world. If a man knew you’d give it up to him and no one else and that you couldn’t even leave him, what would ever encourage him to be faithful?
He had the upper hand in every aspect of this relationship. Maybe the only thing that would save face was that Nico didn’t know the man who’d given this ring to me hadn’t meant anything. I imagined believing one’s fiancée was in love with another man would cut any boss’s ego in half, especially Nico’s giant one.
I could tell him everything. Bare my soul and be honest. Be an open person and hope that good would win.
But maybe I’d always been as manipulative as him.
Maybe this was the only way I’d survive him.
I slid the ring onto my finger and walked out of the room.
I’d never hated a thing in my life.
I resented the Zanettis, who killed my father and uncle in that shooting five years ago, and while I might have shot them in the goddamn heads like they’d deserved, I hadn’t hated them.
Like regret, there wasn’t room for hate.
Hate changed someone’s make-up. It made them reckless. Hate killed its host.
I never let myself hate because I loved to live.
But right now, I could say I hated something. Two things. That goddamn ring and the man who gave it to her.
Hatred fucking burned, like inhaling mace, getting punched in the throat, and being stabbed simultaneously. That was my comparison gathered from trial and error as a Made Man. Add in a dose of poison that eats you from the inside out, and that’s hatred.
Fuck.
My chest tightened, each breath a burn in my lungs.
I stood, and before I even knew it was in my hand, I chucked a lamp at the wall. The porcelain shattered with a crash that would wake the entire fucking neighborhood. I took a deep breath and shook my head. She definitely heard that. She always did say I was a psychopath—might as well show her one.
My gaze paused on her clothes still lying on the floor. They sat there, hers, probably smelling like her and shit. I picked them up and dropped them in my top dresser drawer right next to her white bikini top. If she wanted them back she could fucking ask me nicely.
I sent Luca a text and got dressed. A suit as black as my mood. I had to get out of this goddamned house before I did something stupid, like demand she forget every man she’d ever met but me.
Instead of taking one cigarette from my nightstand, I grabbed the whole pack. I was going to smoke every last one of them.
Her door was shut and the light was off as I passed her room. Annoyance flared in me that she hadn’t even come out to see the damage. The last time I’d thrown something at the wall was when I was young enough to be kicked in the ribs for it. Maybe she should take responsibility for how crazy she made me.
I opened the garage door and leaned against the worktable, taking a deep drag on a cigarette. I could still smell her on my hands, and every time I brought the smoke to my mouth a memory of fucking her rushed in.
Fuck, she was the best lay I’d ever had. A chill ran down my back from the thought of it. I gritted my teeth and tried to shake the strange feeling off. Nonetheless, my body was alive like she was still touching me—her pink little fingernails digging into my biceps, her hand wrapped around my cock, her smell all over me. So damn sweet. I braced my hands on the table and hung my head.
I should have taken Salvatore’s other offer when we’d found out Adriana was pregnant—a corner of his territory that would’ve filled my pockets, and one I’d wanted for a while—because Elena fucked with my head, made me destroy the furniture and smoke more than I should. And I had a bad, bad feeling that if this girl used the word please, I would give her anything she wanted.
I’d fucked her raw, so fucking raw.
I was twenty-nine and had never been stupid enough to fuck without a condom until today. Now I was ruined—with my little fiancée, anyway. I didn’t think I’d ever slept with a woman who I hadn’t found out my cousins were fucking as well, or even better—Tony. No chance I was trusting the lot of them to be clean, so I’d always wrapped it up. My jaw tightened as I wondered about Elena’s sexual history. I wanted to know how many men there’d been, their names, and everything they did to her, so I could do it twice as hard and make her forget they existed.
I wondered if she was on the pill, and in a disturbing way kind of hoped she wasn’t. I wanted an irrevocable tie to this woman. I wanted to write my name on her skin, to do all kinds of fucked-up shit so she knew she was mine. Like lock her in my room and hand-feed her. With indifference, I finished my cigarette and contemplated the logistics of that.
Luca’s headlights pulled into the drive. He tucked his shirt in and fixed his cuffs as he got out of his car. “I’m gonna take a wild guess. It was the little pink princess that pissed you off and ruined my night.”
I shook my head at his stupid nickname for her and lit another cigarette. “Surprising you could even find someone to fuck that ugly face of yours.”
A smile pulled on his lips, and he rubbed a hand across his mouth like there might still be something on it.
“Did you have to pay her?” I asked, listening to the city in the background. Sirens, tire noise, the neighbor John’s TV playing endless ballgame highlights through an open window. He was an enforcer of mine, and I considered giving him a raise to fix his goddamn air-conditioner. If I wanted to listen to MLB all day I would’ve turned it on.
Luca walked to the fridge and grabbed a beer. “Might’ve been better if I had.” He cracked the can and took a seat in a lawn chair. “She fucking talked about you the whole time.”
“Interesting.” Inhaling deeply to get Elena’s scent out of my nose, it smelled like the end of summer. Like fresh-cut grass, motor oil, dying heat, and the urban sometimes bitter smell of the city.
A corner of his lips lifted. “Isabel.”
> “Ah. If you think I know how to shut her up, you’re out of luck.”
He laughed.
I actually knew of a few ways, but I didn’t want to talk about Isabel. Agitation still rolled under my skin, and I stepped out of the garage and leaned against my Mustang in the drive.
The brief thought of Isabel reminded me that she would be here in the morning. She was just my cook and, to be honest, a shitty maid, though she used to be a regular fuck. Well, Mondays and Thursdays when she was here, anyway. She’d been a convenience, but then she fucked Tony and came with unwanted drama. I hadn’t touched her in a year and had only run into her a few times.
I considered what I should do about her. Not even a man in the Cosa Nostra would parade a mistress or ex-lover in front of his fiancée. And knowing Isabel, she would go out of her way to try and make Elena uncomfortable about our brief past. Would Elena even care? A burn radiated throughout my chest at the thought that she wouldn’t.
“Your pink princess is going to meet her tomorrow,” Luca said, though it was more a question about how he should handle it.
A movement in the window upstairs caught my attention.
I took a deep drag and met Elena’s gaze behind the glass. Soft lamp light lit her reflection. Messy black hair and soft eyes. My heart rate picked up an awkward rhythm.
I’d gotten what I wanted, what I thought I needed to end this obsession with Elena so I could stop fixating on her and get back to my life. But as I looked at her now, a throb ached in my chest, right behind the breastbone. Like her gaze had bruised me with a mere look.
My eyes narrowed on her as I blew out a breath of smoke.
“Let her.”
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
—Confucius
BIRDS CHIRPED. SUNLIGHT STREAMED IN pleasant rays through the window. And it felt like I’d been ridden hard and put up wet. A twinge of soreness ached between my legs, and my skin felt tender, as though Nico’s rough hands and scruff had rubbed me raw.
The reminder made me warm everywhere, though I knew it shouldn’t. My feelings toward him were flighty and annoying to even myself. I wanted a straight path to follow, with maturity and thoughtfulness, but I couldn’t seem to find that with him. He made me hot and then he made me cold. He was soft and then he was intense. He was rude and then he killed a man so he could have me.
I wasn’t using my brain when I thought of him, but another organ entirely.
One with a pulse.
I’d fallen asleep to still smelling him on my skin, in my hair, everywhere, and contentment had filled my chest. Though, there was a prickling sense of unease as well—at the crash that had come from his room shortly after I left, and the animosity seeping under the door. The violence was a normal staple in my life, but it was the cause of it that worried me.
Maybe Nico was finally realizing I came with baggage I wasn’t ready to give up. And I could only imagine he was regretting not getting a virgin wife. He didn’t like to share—that much was obvious.
Maybe I wasn’t what he thought he wanted.
Maybe he would return me now that he’d gotten me in his bed.
My papà would surely kill him if he tried that, but Nico never did seem afraid of breaking the rules. However, if my father wasn’t happy with the match, as I’d heard, maybe he would be glad Nico changed his mind?
My throat tightened. I’d believed that’s what I wanted—not to marry Nico—but, now that I thought about it . . . something wrapped around my lungs and squeezed. And it wasn’t because it would obliterate my already marred reputation.
With a little pang in my chest, I pulled myself out of bed and padded down the hall. I took a long, hot shower. My arms and legs were sore, and I hadn’t even done any of the work last night. I wondered if he still felt me somewhere. I wondered if he thought about me as much as I thought about him.
I hadn’t seen him after he left late the night before, and I wasn’t sure he’d even come home. If he had, he’d already gone to work. I didn’t believe he was here; it was too quiet and neither did it smell like bacon.
I slipped out of the shower, dried off, and wrapped a towel around myself. As I reached for the door handle, it opened, and a body that reeked of cherry blossom bumped into me. It was a collision, my skull hitting hers before I fell back a few steps.
“Ow.”
“What the hell?” a feminine voice muttered.
A woman’s narrowed gaze centered on me. I rubbed my forehead with a grimace, but then that fruity scent hit my nose again.
Cherry blossom.
My throat closed up.
The shampoo.
I’d known there would be another woman in the picture, but I hadn’t thought I’d have to stand face to face with her in a towel.
“Who the hell are you?” she snapped, rubbing her forehead as well.
My gaze swept downward and so did hers. Our eyes took in the other like we were at a public function and realized we wore the same dress. In this case, we happened to be screwing the same man.
She kind of looked like me. Her hair was medium-length and dark brown, but her features were soft and her body shape similar. Lovely. Nico had a type, and I’d been added to his group of hookups.
“Do you talk?” she bit out. “Or are you mute?” She put her hands on her hips and ran a condescending gaze down my body. “Would make the most sense for why Ace brought you home.”
I blinked.
I’d never had to respond to such a catty statement before. Had never even heard one come out of a woman’s mouth that wasn’t on TV. If any of my male relatives had heard, they would’ve lost it. Evil eyes and narrowed gazes? Of course, but only because men were oblivious to that sort of thing.
It was clear to me that Nico didn’t share the same values in regard to respecting the women in his life. If he had, he wouldn’t have even allowed her to be here. My chest tightened. And it began. He was going to parade girls in front of me like I was nothing. Maybe he thought that because I wasn’t a virgin I didn’t deserve his respect.
My palms grew clammy, my heartbeats icing over. However, something hot and bitter crept through me. Anger. He was upset enough about a fifty-cent ring that he threw something at the wall, and I had to share a bathroom with his whore?
My gaze found the other woman’s with indifference, and then I responded to the question regarding whether I spoke. “Sometimes.” Lifting a shoulder, I said, “Though I choose not to converse with spiteful shrews until after nine a.m.” I glanced at the clock on the wall that showed it was five minutes till.
Her mouth dropped open. “Well, you’re a real bitch, aren’t you?”
“And you’re in my way.”
Her eyes narrowed, but she stepped to the side so I could get through. “You know,” she said a little too saccharine, “I was curious why Luca is downstairs. Must be here to help you with your walk of shame.”
“I think I’ll stay for a while,” I responded as I passed her.
“You’ll stay?” she repeated, like I was a bit crazy.
“That’s what I said.” Frustration had infiltrated my heart, burning a hole in my chest as I walked down the hall. Before I knew what I was doing, I stopped in front of Nico’s room. “And by the way”—I turned to look at her before opening my fiancé’s door—“you’re almost out of shampoo. Do you think you can get some more?”
Red crept into her cheeks just before I shut the door behind me.
I stood in Nico’s room for a moment, leaning against the door and staring at the wall. My chest constricted. I didn’t think I’d ever felt this frustrated. Maybe resentful regarding how my papà chose to handle my past transgressions, but not pure anger. This feeling that seared with a bitter, cutting flame. My eyes burned, and I blinked to keep the tears at bay. Nicolas Russo was not going to make me cry.
I’d prepared for this my entire life. Had told myself lies and prayed that when the time came I would believe them—that
I didn’t need love or fidelity.
I put up walls. And he’d somehow knocked them down in a laughable amount of time.
I wanted to turn back the clock and never step into Nico’s room last night. A few moments ago, the memory of his hands had been warm, pleasurable impressions. Now, they were stains I couldn’t wash away.
From the exaggerated banging and clatter of pans downstairs, it was safe to say Isabel and I hadn’t hit it off. I’d realized shortly after shutting the door that it was Monday and the cook was supposed to be here.
Isabel comes Mondays and Thursdays, Nico had said. And then something about her cleaning too, though that was either code for “She fucks me too,” or she was the worst maid I’d ever seen. My gaze coasted Nico’s messy bedroom, taking in the shattered lamp with detachment.
Ever since I’d met him I’d resorted to immature games that put me in awkward situations. Like now, as I stood in a towel in his room to spite his mistress. I banged my head on the door. He made me do stupid things and I hated it.
I crossed the hall and put on my nicest maxi dress. A pretty outfit always made me feel better, though it didn’t seem to help today. I did my makeup, all the while hearing Isabel clanging around until a “Jesus Christ, woman. Shut up,” came from a disgruntled Luca.
I made my way down the stairs, and relief hit me when I found the kitchen and living room to be empty. I didn’t want to be unkind anymore; it was exhausting.
The office door was cracked, and Luca and Isabel’s hushed voices came from within as I got the coffee started. I checked my phone that had been charging on the counter. I had a text from my mamma about some wedding details but nothing else. I wanted to speak with Adriana, but I knew she wouldn’t have gotten her phone back. I was about to call the landline when the talking in the other room stopped, and now sounded suspiciously like . . . kissing.
A grimace pulled on my lips.
It felt like I was trapped in a Gabriella situation, though this time I was on the opposite side of the scenario: the girlfriend instead of the relative. I didn’t like this new angle at all.
The Sweetest Oblivion Page 27
