Alessio (The Guzzi Legacy Book 2)

by Bethany-Kris

  “No,” he said.

  “Will you try?”

  Corrado sighed.

  Ginevra frowned. “Please? I haven’t tried to leave, or use the phones or your laptop to contact anyone. I’ve followed all the rules, haven’t I?”

  Jesus.

  Why did she think he would say no?

  That it depended on her behavior?

  He would do it because he cared—he had been doing it because of that. Nothing else.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  Quickly, she leaned down and pressed another quick kiss to his lips, winking before she turned away from his desk, and headed out of the office without a look back over her shoulder. She was gone all of four seconds before someone else came to stand in the doorway.

  Alessio.

  “Were you spying?” Corrado asked, never looking up from the papers on his desk. He had things to do. “Because you know, you’re more than welcome to join the conversation, Les.”

  “And if I was?”

  Corrado chuckled. “The door is open. I leave it like that for a reason.”

  He met Alessio’s gaze.

  Questions stared back.

  Curiosity.

  How much had he heard?

  Corrado didn’t mind waiting to find out.

  “Give Ma my love, yeah?”

  Chris nodded at his twin where he stood next to a waiting Ginevra. “I will.” Then, the man’s gaze lifted over Corrado’s shoulder, drifting to where Alessio stood leaning against the wall further down the hall. “Les, it’s been a while.”

  Had it?

  A little more than a month, he supposed, since he sat with the man in that café.

  “Chris,” Alessio replied. “Get her there safely, yes?”

  He hadn’t meant for the statement to sound threatening, and yet somehow, it did. Except there wasn’t anything he could do about the looks coming his way now because the damn words were already out of his mouth.

  Ah, well.

  Corrado cleared his throat, passing a pointed look over his shoulder at Alessio. A quiet, hey, now, that’s family. Alessio only shrugged back.

  “No worries,” Chris said, shaking his head as he turned to offer a hand to a grinning Ginevra. “She’ll come back in one piece.”

  She better.

  At least, that time, Alessio kept the thoughts inside his head. It wasn’t lost on him that his sudden protectiveness over Ginevra was for more than just him. He also felt protective of her for Corrado, and he didn’t want to get into it.

  Not yet.

  Once Ginevra and Chris had exited the apartment, Corrado turned to face Alessio with a raised brow. “You don’t need to go full-on asshole to Chris, right? It’s Chris, Les.”

  “Gotta make an example out of everybody, or nobody will care, huh?”

  It reminded him of that whole saying if you stand for nothing, then you’ll fall for everything. In a way …

  “It’s still Chris,” Corrado said, laughing under his breath.

  Yeah, yeah.

  Alessio didn’t need his nonsense pointed out to him when he was glaring at him right in the face every time he looked in the fucking mirror. He changed the conversation, because all too soon, the two of them would go right back to shit that had them snapping at one another’s throats again.

  Wasn’t that the way, lately?

  Well …

  “I’ve been here a little more than a month,” Alessio said.

  Partially passing him in the hallway, Corrado’s walk came to an abrupt halt. He looked over at Alessio and nodded. “Yeah, I figured that out yesterday. Passed quickly, didn’t it?”

  He hadn’t realized he had been here with Corrado and Ginevra that long, and he’d barely left other than to take his morning jog, and pick up a coffee from that place he liked down the street.

  He took a second.

  And then another.

  Alessio couldn’t remember a time when he had stayed in one place for longer than a month. Or rather, two weeks. The longest was for a job, and he had been alone on that one. He stayed home for a while, and then he took off again. And sure, he recognized why he did that, but it was still the urge he had.

  Well, the urge he didn’t have.

  Not here.

  With them.

  He didn’t want to run like he’d been doing for years—trying to out run his problems, their issues, and just life because it worried him what might happen when it caught up to him. He wanted to be here with them, even if it meant pain and facing his own baggage because God knew he’d been throwing Corrado’s at him for so long, now.

  Alessio wanted to be here.

  Even if it wouldn’t be easy.

  Even if it didn’t end well.

  He still wanted to be here.

  “Les,” Corrado said.

  He lifted his gaze from the top button on Corrado’s dress shirt he’d been using as a focal point to ignore the man’s stare. There, in his lover’s eyes, he found an understanding reflecting at him.

  Corrado always had known Alessio better than anyone, and he wasn’t fucking perfect … that was one thing about Corrado that Alessio had never denied.

  This man in front of him wasn’t perfect.

  He was flawed.

  So difficult.

  Selfish, sometimes.

  But he was still Alessio’s.

  And he loved him, regardless.

  He always would.

  “Are you going to call Andino for her?” Alessio asked.

  Corrado smirked a bit. “So, you’re admitting you spied yesterday on our conversation instead of joining?”

  “Are you going to answer the question?”

  “I have been calling. Three times this last week, in fact. He ignored my calls and messages. You’re informed on how Andino Marcello can be.”

  “Rivals you for the biggest asshole, doesn’t he?”

  Corrado flashed his teeth when he laughed. “Yeah, a bit. I asked Chris to see what he might find for her, and about her sisters, though. I figured …”

  “Cosa Nostra, made … connections to New York, yeah,” Alessio said, “I get it.”

  “It’s the best I can do right now.”

  “Is it?”

  Because if Corrado really wanted to, he would make a trip to New York himself, pay a visit to Andino, and get business done. Like Alessio had done when he wanted details about what in the hell Corrado had gotten himself into here.

  It’s who they were.

  Rules be damned.

  Corrado sighed and glanced away. “For once, my pride isn’t playing a part here, Les. She needs to be safe more than she needs to be informed on what’s happening there … doesn’t she? Yeah, I could go there, get what she wants, and come back, but it’s a risk. I don’t take risks with people I love.”

  Alessio blinked.

  Corrado stared back, silent.

  Alessio thought hearing Corrado say those words would have more impact when they hit him with their reality—their blinding truth. Though he had been watching this man fall in love with that woman for an entire month … a month after Corrado had already spent time alone with Ginevra before Alessio even showed up, he still hadn’t allowed himself to think Corrado loved her.

  He didn’t want to think it.

  Not when he wanted to hear Corrado say it.

  “I expected a different reaction when I told you that,” Corrado murmured, “something other than … silence.”

  “I already knew because I saw it coming, and I understand why.”

  Corrado nodded. “And you’re not hurt or—”

  “Was I the first person you told? Not her?”

  “Of course, you were.”

  Alessio’s brow dipped. “Why?”

  “Because that’s what we do, Les. That’s what we’re supposed to do, and I didn’t do that before. I’m sorry. So yes, you were the first person I told. Anything else you want to hear me say right now? A
nything else you want to ask about that conversation I had with her yesterday, or no?”

  A lot.

  But he was still trying to unpack all that shit he’d compartmentalized over the years. One thing at a time, and he was trying to handle this thing in the present. He couldn’t go back to the past.

  “I want to talk about now, really talk,” Alessio said.

  “Her, you mean?”

  “Why you did this, yeah. You said when you told me, there would be no going back. That it would change everything. I want to know—so talk.”

  “Koi no yokan.”

  “I have no idea what that is.”

  Corrado smiled, staring down the hall. “You wouldn’t unless you favored Japanese writings, and you don’t.”

  “Because I can’t understand the language.”

  “Anyway … I learned what the phrase meant days before I came to The League with my father and brother; when I met you.”

  “That doesn’t tell me what it means.”

  “It is the knowledge upon meeting someone that, eventually, you will fall in love with them.”

  “Sounds like bull—”

  “Except I felt it with you,” Corrado interjected, his gaze snapping back to Alessio’s in an instant. The truth he found staring back kept Alessio from saying anything more. “And somehow, I believed you would change everything for me. You did, by the way.”

  Alessio dragged in a hard breath. “And you mean to tell me … what, you felt it with her, too?”

  “Almost instantly.”

  Huh.

  Alessio ran his tongue along the seam of his lips, considering and unsure of what to say. Mostly because yes, he was still angry this had happened. He became so attached to this thing they had created between only them; he didn’t know what it would be like after.

  Because this would change.

  Corrado’s feelings, even if Alessio’s were not there yet, determined that for them. Would the rest come along, too?

  That was yet to be determined.

  “You get she’s not like us, right?” Alessio asked in a murmur. “She hasn’t been in this kind of relationship, Corrado. This poly—”

  “Or are you scared she might be perfect for us, but then that leaves you vulnerable again, Les?”

  “Unfair.”

  Not everything boiled down to Alessio’s issues.

  Sometimes, shit just was.

  “Why, because I understand your baggage like you get mine? Is it only okay when you want to throw my baggage at my feet for us to unpack together, but not when I throw yours back at you to do the same?”

  “All of this still doesn’t change you didn’t tell me from the start about her, Corrado. The one thing I asked for with us, and you abused my trust.”

  “I understand. I’m trying to fix it.”

  “It’s still hard for me.”

  “I didn’t assume otherwise.”

  “As long as you’re aware.”

  Corrado laughed huskily. “And nice deflection—you still haven’t answered my question. Anything else you want to ask me about my conversation with Ginevra?”

  “Good catch.”

  Because the man wasn’t wrong.

  Alessio just figured this was something he should work out on his own, but especially his darker urges that seemed to want to come out to play more often. It’d been too long since he’d fucked, and he sat on an edge like never before. It was strange how something like sex could drive him up the wall, becoming a focal point in his thoughts.

  “I get you—you already have me. Despite all of this, that hasn’t changed. I swear, we won’t ever fucking change, Les.”

  Seemed not.

  “Okay,” Alessio said. “Did you mean that when you told her it didn’t bother you at all to think of me being with her—fucking her, Corrado, or having her with me?” Corrado opened his mouth to speak, but Alessio was quick to jump in with, “She’s not the same as when we shared women before. This is different. Feelings are at play here—emotions. She’s not the same to you.”

  Corrado remained quiet.

  Alessio continued on with, “Can you mean what you said knowing that?”

  “Yes.”

  There was the truth again.

  Staring him right in the face.

  Corrado grinned in his way—cocky and dark. The sight alone was enough to get Alessio’s cock perking to life. How long had it been since Corrado leveled the look on him, and fuck, he’d missed it.

  The man inched closer to Alessio, closing the bit of small space between them until they were eye to eye, one with his hands in his pockets, and one with his arms folded across his chest. Corrado looked calm with his easy, arrogant stance, and Alessio was trying to keep a wall built up around him with his.

  They were hard to let down.

  “What do you want to hear, huh?” Corrado asked. “About her, Les. What she tastes like after she’s come a few times? The sound of her screams in the morning when she’s still hoarse and raw? The way she looks on her knees when she’s got you buried down her throat?”

  Fuck.

  “Ask,” Corrado added, his tone dropping, “and I will tell you.”

  He could ask a lot.

  So many fucking things.

  He fantasized far more than he should. To punish himself, and because he wanted it. Wanted her, wanted her with Corrado, and wanted her between them. Everything else was hard.

  That would be easy.

  “Well?” Corrado asked.

  “What does she look like when you’re fucking her?”

  Corrado flashed a smirk. “Of course, that’s what you ask.”

  “You’ve always known what I like.”

  “Watching me work.”

  Alessio shrugged a shoulder.

  Why deny it?

  “She looks like art,” Corrado said, “she always looks like art.”

  A centimeter closer, and he’d be able to taste the lust right from Corrado’s mouth. He was a breath away from closing the distance, but the ringing in his pocket broke their staring contest, and the conversation.

  A familiar ringtone.

  Dare.

  The League.

  Corrado dropped his stare, and so did Alessio. “You should get that, yeah?”

  Alessio nodded.

  He needed to breathe.

  To reflect again.

  Corrado’s presence made those things hard.

  Even when it hurt.

  “I have calls to make,” Corrado said, stepping back as Alessio fished the phone out of his jeans pocket. “Say hello for me.”

  “Probably not.”

  “Yeah, Dare is likely in a mood, anyway.”

  Where was the lie?

  Alessio answered the call as Corrado disappeared down the hall. Not that he sensed the man’s loss, because it was still imprinted on Alessio’s entire soul. Corrado never left, even when he wasn’t seen.

  “Dare,” Alessio greeted, putting the phone to his ear.

  “Les, how are things?”

  “Better.”

  It wasn’t a lie.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s … good,” Dare replied.

  Didn’t sound like he meant his statement, though.

  “I have information, or rather, confirmation,” Dare said.

  “On what?”

  “The upcoming Albanian job. We were waiting for the call, the right time, as the client said. They’re nearly ready to give the okay, and it should come up anytime over the next few weeks. You need to be ready to pick up whatever and leave. All right?”

  Shit.

  This hit had been years in the making, according to the client. Alessio had taken the job a few months back even though the client wasn’t ready to see it through back then. Semantics, and details wouldn’t line up quite right.

  “Any way we can change the member for the job?”

  “Not possible,” Dare said, “I have signed the contract to you. Those
are rules I don’t bend or break, not even for you, Les.”

  Right.

  “Got it, Dare.”

  “Are you sure everything is well?”

  “Yes.”

  Or it would be.

  Soon.

  “Oh, and Les?”

  “Yeah?” he asked.

  “I need the contract for the auctions signed and faxed over soon to include your portfolio for the potential buyers.”

  Yeah, damn.

  “I, uh … I’m not going to the auctions, actually.”

  Dare was silent for a moment. “Because of him?”

  “It doesn’t matter why.”

  “Whether I want you to do the auctions is not important, but I don’t want you not doing something you’ve wanted to do because Corrado Guzzi has more control of your life than he should, Alessio.”

  “Dare—”

  “You seem to forget you’re not an extension of him, Les. You’re not his shadow. Don’t forget you were somebody long before you even knew he existed.”

  Yeah, but Alessio liked life better now.

  He could never go back to then.

  “Ma,” Chris greeted, leaning over the table to kiss a waiting, smiling Cara on her pinked cheek. Ginevra, standing next to the man, wasn’t offended that he said hello to his mother before he even considered pulling a chair out for her at the table. “Corrado sends his love.”

  “I bet he does.” Cara’s gaze turned on Ginevra and lit up even more. “And I managed to get you away from that penthouse, hmm?”

  A laugh escaped her.

  “Thank you for asking me to lunch.”

  Cara waved a hand. “Oh, it’s a little thing. Chris, help her sit.”

  “Right, right.”

  Chris pulled the chair across from Cara at the table out for Ginevra, and she made herself comfortable at the table. Once he was sure she and his mother were fine, he said his goodbyes, and said he would be back later before disappearing around the partition wall keeping them hidden from the rest of the restaurant.

  And what a place it was.

  Gold draperies, matching tablecloths, napkins, and dark-colored rugs under each modernly decorated table. Large golden chandeliers hung above every table, making Ginevra think she was underdressed in the simple black dress she had thrown on for the lunch date with Cara Guzzi.