Renata Vitali

by Huntington, Parker S.

  My pulse was erratic.

  Damn it, Heart.

  My throat closed up.

  Not you, too, Throat.

  My knees buckled.

  I give up, Body.

  I kissed him.

  Our lips pressed together, and instinct latched onto me as I explored his mouth. His tongue traced my lips. I parted them, and he slipped inside. His tongue stroked the roof of my mouth, and he took a step into me, backing me into the bookcase behind me.

  The musty scent of books, and characters, and worlds mixed with his scent of bergamot and blackcurrant. I needed him closer, but I didn’t know how to ask. My hands slid down his shoulders and pulled at the tucked edges of his dress shirt underneath his vest. I dipped my fingers under the shirt and explored the hard edges of his stomach muscles.

  His mouth drifted from my lips to my jaw and down my neck. I cried out when his tongue traced my collarbone, then bit down. My right hand wrapped around his body and squeezed his butt cheek, but the phone in his pocket blocked my movement.

  As if someone had dumped a bucket of water on my head, I lurched out of the lust fog. What had I done? We were… I didn’t know what we were. Natural born enemies? Accidental friends? Neither felt right.

  Maman hadn’t contacted me yet, but I knew she would. I’d been eighteen for a week now. When she contacted me, I could leave. Damian only complicated things. He must have felt my waning enthusiasm because he backed up, giving me space.

  My heart warred between feeling grateful and wounded.

  It’s not the first time he’s hurt you, Heart. Remember when you first came here?

  My heart wasn’t having any of my logic.

  He may have hurt me, but he heals so much better.

  Damian’s brows furrowed. “Knight?”

  Panic lodged itself in my throat, and I forced some words out. Any words. “This means nothing.”

  Frustration flashed within his eyes. “Keep telling yourself that, Princess."

  The lust fog may have eased, but I still felt heavy. Like layers of secrets and history weighed me down as I stood mere feet from the first boy I’d ever kissed. “I need air.”

  It took a moment, but he finally nodded. “I can take you home.”

  I agreed, grabbed the empty water bottle I’d chugged earlier, and forced myself to take steps toward the gym to get my coat from the coat check. A rivulet of sweat trailed down my cheek. I swiped at it with a hand that felt like lead.

  My body swayed into Damian’s as we entered the gym.

  He caught me and steadied me just as he returned. “You okay?” When I nodded, his hand still on my elbow squeezed. “Stay here. I’ll go get your coat.”

  I stumbled to the refreshments table a foot away, my dry mouth begging for a water bottle.

  Laura met me at the table, a smirk pasted on her cherry-red lips. “Still thirsty?” She looked at the empty bottle in my hand, then the row of water bottles with one missing. Mine.

  It took me a moment too long to piece it together. That fog in my head pressed down with each second. She’d put something in the water bottles, water bottles only I drank from. Everyone was in on it.

  Was Damian?

  I shook my head and swayed again.

  Like earlier, Damian caught me. “Ren?” When I didn’t answer, he turned to Laura, his arms still around me. “Laura? Care to explain?” The hardness in his tone eased my worries.

  He didn’t know.

  I let myself check out as they talked.

  Laura crossed her arms. “I-I…We were just having fun.”

  Damian’s head brushed my cheek as he turned to look at the water bottles. “You drugged her? What if I’d drunk from a water bottle? Would you have drugged me?”

  “One of us would have stopped you!”

  “Are you insane? She’s a Vitali, Laura. Her family could have us all wiped from existence!” The gym had quieted, and Damian’s shouts rang across the gym as he addressed the entire student body. “Have you all gone fucking insane?! Why would any of you go through with this?!”

  Silence.

  “Someone better fucking answer me. Now!”

  “Laura said it was your idea.”

  I didn’t know who spoke up, but he sounded like a chipmunk. I’d never loved chipmunks, but I’d always loved animals. Why didn’t I love chipmunks?

  My knees buckled again, and Damian all but carried me now. “Your punishment will be given tomorrow, Laura.” He raised his voice. “As for the rest of you, you’re all fucking idiots.”

  I looked up at him. “I’m an idiot?”

  He closed his eyes, sighed, and opened them again. “No. Now let’s get you home.” He bent down and carried me bridal style.

  My head lolled back. “I feel like a princess.”

  “You are a princess.”

  “But I’m a Knight. I do the saving, not you.”

  “Consider me a fellow knight. We’re in a battle together. I’m doing what any knight would do and helping a fellow knight.”

  “Damian?”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t know what we’re talking about.”

  His lips turned upward before abruptly shifting downward. “Rest, Knight. We’ll be home soon.”

  The driver opened the door. Damian slid us into the car, and I closed my eyes as I sat on his lap, my head resting on his shoulder. When I opened them again, I was on my bed, and the room began to spin. Damian stood at the foot of the bed, an oversized shirt of his in one hand.

  He followed me as I ran across the hall and heaved into the bathroom toilet. I took the shirt he offered, and he turned away as I changed out of my dress and into the shirt, which fell down to my thighs. It smelled like him. His scent eased the dizziness and caused tingles to spread across my flushed skin.

  I blinked a few times until his face became clearer. “What’s happening?”

  “Laura gave you GHB.” He helped me back to my room and onto my bed.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you’ll be drowsy, dizzy, nauseous, sweaty, and tired. But you’ll be okay.” He hesitated as he tucked me into bed and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “You probably won’t remember a thing.”

  I remembered that we weren’t friends. “Why are you helping me?”

  His jaw ticked, and he swung his gaze to the side for a moment. “Earlier, you said the only real people in this world are the ones in books. But you’re real, too, and when I’m around you, you make me real. You make me alive.” He took my hand. “It’s the only time I don’t feel like I’m just going through the motions.”

  A lopsided smile grew on my face. “I think I like you.”

  “I think I more than like you. If things weren’t so complicated, I could see myself with you forever.”

  “Like when a princess and prince marry and live happily ever after?” I yawned and closed my eyes.

  “Yes. Just like that.”

  “I’d need a ring.” I snuggled deeper into the covers. “The princess always has a ring when she lives happily ever after.”

  Some shuffling interrupted my near slumber, and when a hand touched mine, I opened my eyes. The edges of my vision blurred, but I could see Damian crystal clear.

  With the Sharpie in his hand, he drew a ring around my wedding ring finger. “And we lived happily ever after.” He popped the cap closed, blew cold air onto my finger, then kissed the top of it. “Sweet dreams, Princess.”

  When I woke up, a thin black line drawn across my finger caught my eyes. I didn’t know how it got there, but it felt important.

  Trust starts with a truth and ends with a truth.

  Santosh Kalwar

  The seat pulled out across from me, and I swung my gaze up to Damian. We studied each other. He quirked a brow up, daring me to tell him not to sit.

  I rolled my eyes. “Go ahead.”

  Two freshmen giggled as they passed our table in the corner of the school library. Usually, I ate near the center bookshe
lves during lunch period, but I couldn’t sit there without flushing at the memory of Damian kissing me against them.

  “We’re in public,” I pointed out.

  “Way to go, Nancy Drew.”

  “What happened to not being able to be near me in public?”

  “I think that no longer applies after I very publicly stood up for you at prom and we left together.”

  Yeah. That.

  I scratched at my shoulder, stared at anything but him, before finally giving him the attention he deserved. “Thank you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Thank you,” I repeated louder, and what did you know? It didn’t kill me. “Why’d you do it?”

  His eyes flicked up and down my face. “What do you remember about last night?”

  “I remember…” I cleared my throat. “I remember the library.”

  “That’s it?”

  Gosh, he was going to make me say it.

  “I remember the kiss. I remember the gym. You took down Laura and everyone else. Then, you drove me home.”

  “And then?”

  “And then, it gets fuzzy. You helped me to bed, and—” It occurred to me that he hadn’t answered my question. “Are you going to tell you why you helped me?”

  Why you kissed me…

  “You don’t remember what we talked about?” He looked like he wanted to say more, but he chose not to.

  My brows dipped together. He was acting weird, not his typical, put-together self. His behavior made me antsy. I traced the marker ring around my finger, a nervous tick I’d developed over the duration of this conversation. I didn’t even know where it had come from, but I drew comfort from it.

  Damian’s eyes dipped down and studied my movements. “What’s with the ring?”

  “I…” I faltered for something to say. Truthfully, I went to wash it off, but I couldn’t bring myself to. It defied logic. “The marker wouldn’t wash off.”

  He must have liked that answer because his toned changed. Brighter than it’d been. “It’s marker, not a tattoo.”

  I changed the subject. “You haven’t answered my question. Why did you help me last night?”

  His eyes flicked to my ring again and lingered. “I helped you because this is happening, Renata. When we walk out the doors of this library, it’ll be together. I’ve been working towards a goal for the past few years, and I achieved it prom night. I should have been happy, but I wasn’t because I need you. You’ve given me a piece of myself I didn’t even know was missing.”

  The bell rung, and neither of us moved.

  Damian pulled his chair back, stood, and reached out a hand. “I’m going to leave right now, and if you leave with me, I’ll know I’ve given you a piece of yourself, too.”

  This was Damian—the most guarded man I knew—putting himself out there. If I were being honest, his feelings mirrored mine.

  I stared at his outstretched hand.

  And then, I took it.

  Deception is one of the quickest ways to gain little things and lose big things.

  Thomas Sowell

  Post-prom bliss.

  It was a real thing. Not just something made up in movies. I knew this, because I felt it. Was I angry about Laura? Furious. But prom was my first real high school memory, and I wanted to cherish the things I remembered about that night. Like dancing in the library with Damian and my first kiss.

  We’d shifted that night. Our nightly library dates turned into heated make-out sessions until the sun started to rise. We’d spend lunch at school in the library, reading beside one another and stealing kisses, because not a damn teacher or librarian would dare say anything to me or Damian. And we drove his Range Rover instead of being chauffeured, so we could spend car rides to school alone together.

  We didn’t put labels on our relationship, but the school year had already ended; as an adult, I could leave without legal repercussions; and it occurred to me that, if Maman were to finally find a way to reach out to me, I didn’t want to leave.

  I grabbed my henna pen and touched up the line I had woken up with the day after prom. I’d been doing this regularly since, and I couldn’t explain it. The henna didn’t feel permanent enough, but the next step would be a tattoo.

  How could I tattoo something I didn’t remember to my body just because I felt an inexplicable connection to it?

  Answer: I couldn’t.

  I slipped a ring over the henna to cover it up. Though it looked ridiculous, I added rings on all of my fingers because I didn’t want to explain the henna.

  Angelo cornered me when I left my bedroom to meet Damian in his room.

  I eyed Damian’s door, urging it to open, before flicking an unfazed glare at Angelo. “Yes?”

  He rested a hip against the wall and leaned closer to me. “You and my son seem close lately.”

  “Hmm…” I examined my nails. “When I last dined with the Romano boss, he had more important things to deal with than who his son chose to spend time with.” Snapping my gaze to him, I smiled. “When was the last time you were invited to dinner with the Romano boss?” I laughed. “… or any syndicate head?”

  His beady eyes narrowed, and the way he towered over me could easily be construed as a threat. “Have you heard of my grandfather, Ludovico De Luca?”

  Who hadn’t?

  Crazy ran in the De Luca family, and it started with a man who’d kill his own child. In a world where loyalty and honor knew no bounds, the De Luca family held no place. Damian’s sanity was nothing short of a miracle.

  I measured his unspoken threat. “I know infanticide gets you off, but if not for dignity, try to have some self-preservation in that witless skull of yours. When you run this family to the ground, the only person in this town capable of rebuilding it is in that room behind you.”

  “Don’t test me, Vitali. Don’t be stupid.” He leaned into my face, and his rancid breath seeped into my nostrils. “You should fear me.”

  I laughed, harsh and in his face. “You’re unworthy of my fear.”

  It was true. But when Angelo pushed past me, and my hand connected with Damian’s doorknob, I froze as Angelo’s crazed laughter sent chills through my body. The frequent threats. The back whipping. The unhinged behavior. I shook my head and cleared all the ugliness out of my mind.

  Angelo wouldn’t kill his own son if I stayed.

  Would he?

  You can tell so much about a person by the way they leave you.

  Redverse Bailey

  “Knight?” I waited a beat as Ren stared into space, her hand raised like she’d been about to open my door. “Princess?” Another beat. “Ren?”

  She lifted her head and lowered her hand. “Oh. Sorry. I spaced out.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” She moved around me and into my room.

  I peeked into the hallway, but it was empty, so I closed the door behind us. “I heard my dad talking to you. What was that about?”

  “Nothing.” She laughed as she laid on my bed and closed her eyes. “Has he always been a crazy rambler?”

  I crawled onto the bed beside her and grabbed her hand. “For as long as I can remember.”

  That was an understatement.

  She skimmed her eyes across the room while I toyed with the rings on her right hand. She’d been wearing a dozen or so rings for nearly a week now. It was weird, but she didn’t exactly have the style of a runway model. One of my favorite quirks, actually.

  “What’s that?” She tipped her chin to the left.

  A facedown picture frame sat on the nightstand beside us. I’d knocked it down as soon as I’d seen it. She took her hand from mine, leaned over, and stood the frame upright. Ludovico De Luca stared back at us. Creepy fucker.

  I shrugged, and it shifted the mattress. “My dad put it there a few weeks ago, after prom. Probably to fuck with my head. Who knows why he does what he does?” But he’d be gone soon, and that’d be one less thing for us to worry about. I laughed
and leaned over Ren, dwarfing her body as I moved the picture frame facedown again. “I know we’re related, but Ludo was one ugly motherfucker.”

  She rested her head on the pillow beneath her and bit her lip. So hot, I felt a jolt straight to my cock. Still hovered above her, I reached a thumb up to part her lips until her teeth no longer dug into them. “What’s up?”

  “Let’s have sex!” she blurted. Her face brightened. It was cute if not wildly out of character.

  Then again, she’d been like this lately. She was wild and reckless and crazy and so damned unexpected, I had no idea how to handle her.

  I arched a brow. “I didn’t know talking about Ludo was such an aphrodisiac.”

  She tugged at the bottom of my shirt, her greedy hands eager and frantic in their movements. “Ludo? God, no. But your body is over mine, and you smell good, and you look like you do, and you talk like you do, and you act like you do, and I just want you.” Her tipsy eyes sparkled, drunk with what looked like lust and felt like trouble.

  I buried my nose in her neck and grinned against her skin. “You know, I used to think you were like a robot. No emotions. Just articulate words delivered with no expression. Look what I’ve turned you into.”

  “Shush.” She closed her eyes.

  My mouth trailed up her neck to her jawline, which I peppered with kisses. She tilted her head and met my lips. We’d done this over the last few weeks. School ended. Angelo became more and more unhinged. The De Luca syndicate was falling apart at the seams, and I waited for my father to fall. My only constant nowadays was Ren, and I could do this—be with her—all day.

  I could feel it rising in my throat, like an invisible liquid spouting from deep within me. Drowning me. I knew it wasn’t there. I knew it was in my head. But it, like the annoying pounding of my heart, was tangible when Ren was around. She was drowning me, and I didn’t want to be saved.

  I deepened our kiss. My tongue stroked the roof of her mouth. She bucked her hips against me, grinding along my erection. Her fingers raked through my hair and tugged. I groaned into her mouth, and she reached between us and slid a hand underneath my jogger sweats and Calvin Kleins.