Damian lowered his weapon, and the trust that took didn’t escape my attention. “Ren…”
Monica took the opportunity to run, and Bastian started after her.
Ariana shook her head. “Don’t. She has an ankle bracelet. What she knows, I can… I can figure out a way to explain to my boss.”
I cocked my gun, though I didn’t plan on using it. “Your boss. And who would that be?”
Damian took a step forward. “Renata—”
“Didn’t you hear her? She’s in the FBI.” I may have distanced myself from this world, but it didn’t change my blood. I was a Vitali. The utmost governing authority in the mafia world. I rarely exercised my power, but I wouldn’t hesitate to do so now if it threatened Damian. “This can be a Vitali matter if I make it one. Choose your words wisely.”
Bastian dropped his gun to his side. I stared at him until he secured it in his holster.
“What do you want?” He cocked his head, then shook it. “What's the Vitali position here?”
If Papà were in my position, he would place a bullet in Ariana’s temple and be done with it.
I wasn’t my dad.
I lowered my gun. “We’ll be watching from afar, so long as you can deal with this internally.”
The Romano family could shoot Ariana, lock her up in one of the private prisons they owned, or recruit her. Whatever it took to preserve their secrecy. But I suspected Bastian would deal with this himself—without involving his family.
“What’s the catch?”
Honestly? I didn’t really care, but I knew my family would. I also knew that Damian could get caught in the crossfire if it wasn’t handled right, but I needed to trust my gut and let Bastian handle this. “There will be consequences should you mishandle this.”
Bastian nodded and left with Ariana, leaving me alone with Damian.
I almost wish they hadn’t left.
Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.
Homer
I took a step toward Ren, my eyes narrowed and throat bobbing. “You were here for me. To have my back.”
I would never get used to having someone who I could count on to always look out for me. We could be best friends or worst enemies, and I knew Ren would have my back. It should have been nice instead of bittersweet, but we’d never had a cookie cutter life.
Ren holstered her handgun and shook her head, and I wasn’t sure if her denial pissed me off or excited me. “How do you figure?”
“You held the gun to Ariana, threatened to shoot her, then threatened to shoot Bastian. But not me.”
My anger at her for leaving me ten years ago eased, and fuck, I wanted her all over again. Call it daddy issues, but I had a soft spot for people with pure hearts like hers. This was the girl I fell in love with. The one who came in guns blazing, eyes calculated, always defending me, even when I didn’t need it. How could I not want her? Find me a man who could resist her, and I’d find you a beachfront property in Oklahoma.
She shrugged, such a pretty little liar. “And?”
She wanted to avert her eyes. I could see the urge in the strained edges of her glare. But I had always had the ability to bulldoze past her barriers, and she had another thing coming for her if she thought I wasn’t prepared to do so now.
Ren lifted her chin. “You weren’t a threat.”
“But I am, Princess.” One more step and I’d have her backed up against the wall. “I’m the biggest threat you’ve ever met.”
“How so?”
“Because you care enough to save me.”
“You didn’t need saving.”
“No.” I took that last step, moving her against the bricks. She could have left, but she didn’t even try, so I raised my hands to either side of her face until my palms touched the abrasive surface and caged her in. “But you did it anyway.”
“I’m the knight in shining armor, remember?” She could hide behind her bravado all she wanted. It didn’t fool me. Hell, her eyes dipped to my lips. Needy. Hungry. Impatient. I could rest easy knowing her desire for me would never waver.
I shook my head. “Don’t do that.”
Earlier today, I had been prepared to hate her. But she was here, and I saw the same girl I fell in love with. The fearless girl who had always had my back. I didn’t hate her. In fact, I couldn't help but want her.
She leaned into me, and I suspected she didn’t even realize what she’d done. “What?”
“Don’t make this a joke. It isn’t one.”
“You’re supposed to be mad at me.” Her brows furrowed, and those full lips parted.
I wanted to bite it.
But I glanced down at her hand, and that damned ring taunted me. “I am.”
“I’m supposed to go to bed with my ‘hands itching to pleasure myself to the memory of you.’ Remember?”
“You will.”
I leaned in and inhaled her vanilla scent. She still used the same shampoo. It made no sense, but it felt like victory, and I took the opportunity to memorize her scent all over again.
She tilted her chin up and met my eyes. “So, why are you so close I can feel your breath against my lips?”
Good question.
Two could play the evasion game.
“Are you going to tell me why you’re here?”
“In New York or this alley?”
“Both.”
“To represent—”
“Princess.”
She infuriated me, yet I still needed her. If it were lust, I could have walked away. It wasn’t. It was nearly a decade of repressed pain, a flash of history, and the future we never had because she’d run away. I couldn’t say no, because the second I saw her again, I knew I still cared.
Her calm façade began to crumble. “I’m here to represent the Vi—”
“Knight. Cut the bullshit.”
She closed her eyes, but I knew she couldn’t fight the memories, because I couldn’t either. They surrounded us, trapping us until we suffocated in our past. “Stop asking me these questions.”
“Just answer this one: why did you save me tonight?”
Say it, Ren. I can’t, so say it for me.
“I didn’t save you.” Her eyes flickered open, and I was met by amber. The sight was nearly enough to catch my hope as it sank to my stomach. “I have no doubt you could handle yourself. It’s them I worried for.”
She was doing it again. Trying to make this less of a big deal than it was. But her words echoed like a distant memory I shouldn’t have forgotten.
I cocked a brow. “Really.”
“They’re weak… but that’s not who you are. Is it, Damsel?”
Jesus.
She’d gone there.
She’d gone to the words of our past.
They were as good as proof that some part of her still wanted me, and I could work with that.
But I wanted to walk away. I wanted to fly to the opposite end of the earth and live somewhere that hadn’t been touched by Ren and our memories. I also wanted to scale the rocks. To climb the canyon between us, despite its jagged, suicidal ridges, and reach the other side. The side where I could lean forward and capture her lips between mine, and she’d thaw under my touch like she had all those years ago.
I wanted to kiss her, and be with her, and love her.
And I swore, by the end of this trip, Renata Vitali would be mine again.
Nothing is more common on earth than to deceive and be deceived.
Johann G. Seume
Seventeen Years Old
“I think it’s unrealistic. Impossible, even.”
Who knew, between the two of us, Princess would be the pessimist and I, the idealist?
I eyed the article of great-great-grandfather Ludovico on the wall, careful to keep my eyes off of Ren. I was well aware that I enjoyed our nightly literary debates way too much. “You don’t think people have the innate goodness in them to rally for a common goal?�
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The magazine felt heavy in my hand. Not because it was an issue of Playboy, nor because it was a limited edition 1984 run, but because it was the only thing keeping me from striding across the library’s timber floors and kissing Princess. Vitali blood or not, I wanted her. Craved her in ways I’d never allow myself to pursue. She was, after all, a Vitali. And I was, after all, a lowly De Luca prince.
“Think about it like this. Decent people don’t commit hardcore crimes, nor do they always follow the rules. They sneak into the carpool lane or speed when they shouldn’t, but they’re not out there murdering people. They don’t go out of their way to donate all their non-basic essentials, but every once in a while, they’ll volunteer at the local animal shelter. They’re just… normal. Balanced. Trying to live their lives as best as they can, but sometimes their best isn’t the best.” She sat on the divan across from me and set her copy of The Toynbee Convector down.
Her eyes darted to my Playboy, which held the original copy of the short story we were discussing. “Say there’s a normal distribution of goodness in the world, and the average person, at 50%, is a decent person. That would mean there are 34% of less-than-decent people, 13.5% of bad people, and 2.5% of awful people. That’s billions of people that aren’t even decent. You think they could muster up all that gushy goodness to create a utopia based on the crazy rantings of a self-proclaimed time traveler?”
“Fucking hell.” I shook my head, ignoring how hot her arguing made me. I wanted to pry that paperback from her hands and replace it with my body. “Did you really just ruin Ray Bradbury for me?”
“Maybe you should learn to debate better.”
“Maybe you should learn to—”
My dad’s voice rang in the hallway as he yelled at one of the maids. Ren’s disappointed eyes met mine before we both scanned the room. She scrambled upward and slipped behind the nearest floor-to-ceiling drape, hiding like we were doing something wrong by spending time with each other. Maybe we were, but it didn’t feel wrong until someone invaded our bubble.
“Ah, there you are, my prodigious son.”
I turned to Angelo as he swung the double doors open, and they struck the doorstoppers. “Obviously.” I paused a beat, a carefree smirk I didn’t feel curving my lips. “I didn’t think you knew what ‘prodigious’ meant, but hey, I didn’t think you could find the library either.”
“Shut your fucking mouth or your biggest life accomplishment will be cleaning toilets at The Landing Strip.”
My dad owned The Landing Strip, the one and only strip club in Devils Ridge, but he didn’t know I frequented the place. Not for enjoyment, but to network. To show the De Luca soldiers and caporegimes how they could be treated if they supported me.
And I had cleaned the toilets there. I helped the staff, got my fucking hands dirty, made jokes with them on their breaks, asked them about their sons and daughters, and showed them just how much more I cared for them than my father did. Just one of my many steps to dethroning Angelo.
I dipped a hand into my pocket and leaned a hip on one of the divans. “What do you want?”
“You see the Vitali girl lately?” He sneered and whistled at the same time, which was kind of impressive if you thought about it. “She’s growing.”
I leaned further against the cushion and forced myself to remain impassive. “You’re sick.”
Angelo took a seat on the divan closest to where Ren hid. “There’s an opening at The Landing Strip.”
“And?”
“And it’s time we made that Vitali girl earn her keep.” Behind my dad, the drape shifted. Ren must have been pissed, or creeped out, or both.
“Earn her keep? You’ve been cooped up in this town too long, old man.” I eyed Ren’s copy of The Toynbee Collector beside him. “That idiom no longer refers to room and board.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” I ran a hand down my face and contemplated the millions of things that could be running through Ren’s mind right now. “Seriously, what do you want?”
“The Vitali girl working at The Landing Strip.”
I couldn’t be related to Angelo.
Just fucking couldn’t be.
He was the sperm that should have been swallowed.
And I was his offspring.
What did that make me?
The muscles in my neck tightened. “She’s a minor, and she’s a Vitali. Either of those reasons alone should be enough to dissuade a rational person fit for the position of De Luca mafia boss.”
He ignored my dig—just barely, I suspected. “The Vitali need to know their place.”
“What do you think happens when a minnow picks a fight with sharks?”
My dad stood up, his fists clenched at his sides. “Watch your mouth, son.”
I had been.
For eighteen fucking years, I had been.
But I felt my plan coming to fruition, and I needed him to lose control for it to work. I needed him to take a swing at me and make contact. Somewhere visible, where the physical proof couldn’t be missed. A black eye, perhaps.
“Oh, Angelo. You don’t get it, do you?” I shook my head and tsked. “You’re the minnow. The Vitali are the sharks. And they will eat you alive.” I rose from the divan until we stood eye-to-eye, arms width apart. “Feel free to facilitate your own death, but leave the De Luca name out of your mess.”
“You will not disrespect me like this.”
“I already have.” I’d always taken his abuse without a word, and maybe he’d gotten used to it because his eyes expanded before forming angry slits. Still, he needed more provocation. I let loose a deep, disrespectful chuckle. “Or what, Dad? You gonna kill me like Great-great-grandfather Ludo killed his son? I dare you to fucking try.”
Hatred brimmed in me, such a contrast from my time spent with Ren, and with her mere feet away, I wanted to stand up for myself. I didn’t want her to see me like this. Didn’t want the patience I needed to take over the syndicate to coerce me into taking the emotional abuse my dad had been spewing my way since childhood. Didn’t want to wait for this damned plan to work before I destroyed him.
But I needed him to punch me. I needed there to be physical proof of him losing control for the soldiers and capos to see. An inkling of doubt lurked in my conscience. Ren didn’t need to hear this.
Too late.
Dad swung at me, his form all brute and no finesse. I feigned a dodge to maintain appearances of a fight but let his fist connect with my face. It connected hard enough to leave a bruise. He adjusted his suit while I fell to the floor. As he towered over me, a sharp laugh struck the air before he walked away.
I leaned my head back onto the floor, thinking about the million times he had dished a similar punishment to me. Usually with a belt on my back. This time around, the marks would be visible. This was what I wanted, wasn’t it?
Self-pity clogged my throat, making the breaths I forced myself to take sluggish. A few seconds after the door clicked shut, Ren emerged from behind the drape and stared at me. She moved a step closer, and a lock of hair loosened from her bun and covered her right eye. Didn’t matter. I had the color memorized.
She looked particularly angelic in that moment, though. The light blonde hair. Pale skin. Eyes an inhuman shade of amber. But I preferred her naughty side. The one that argued with me—all strength, backbone, and sass. I wondered which side she’d give me now.
I waited for her to say something. The more time passed, the more I convinced myself she’d rub what had happened in my face. Self-pity didn’t flatter me, but I did nothing to stop it from building.
I could have curled my lips up into a smirk. Made a witty remark. Told her how hot she looked from this angle. But that would make a mockery of our friendship—and we were friends, even if she didn’t know it yet. Hell, sometimes it was even hard to admit our friendship to myself.
She opened her mouth, and I braced myself for her words. “Pick yourself up, Damsel.” My eyes hardened at the n
ickname, the context striking me harder than I would ever let on. I opened my mouth to retaliate, but she beat me to it. “Angelo De Luca is weak, and when you dwell on the punishment he dishes, so are you.” She brushed the hair out of her eyes, giving me half a second to absorb her words. “But that’s not who you are. Is it, Day?”
One day, when I didn’t have my head so far up my ass, I would look back at this moment and realize it was precisely the moment I fell for Knight.
You can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.
Abraham Lincoln
Seventeen Years Old
Girl power. Noun. Power exercised by girls, specifically in the context of supporting oneself and fellow women. Origin: coined by American punk band Bikini Kill. Alternative spelling: grrrl power.
Antonym: Laura Willis.
Laura had supporting herself down to a T. I would give her that. But when it came to empowering other women, she fell as flat as a slashed tire. It had taken me five seconds at Devils Ridge High to realize exactly the type of obstacle she would pose for me, and months later, I could confirm the accuracy of my initial assessment.
Which was probably why pickpocketing her phone wasn’t the best idea I had ever had, but other than my nightly forays with Damian in his home library, boredom had become a sibling of mine. Plus, I needed a phone to contact Maman.
Devils Ridge, like other small towns, possessed more gossip than a lifetime subscription of Us Weekly magazines. Only, nearly everyone in this town had mafia ties, turning it into an incestuous community of shared dirty little secrets.
One of which was the ban that had been placed on phones for me.
My teachers kept me away from tablets, phones, and laptops. No one would lend me anything, Angelo had cleared the household of stray electronics, and I’d never ask Damian for a phone because I didn’t want to break the tentative truce he and I shared by reminding him of how we’d met in the first place.
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