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 neededto 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.”
ELENA
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 thehell?” 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.