Scarless & Sacred (The Chicago War #3)

by Bethany-Kris

  Theo plucked a brown stir stick from the stack in the middle and dipped it into the mug, spinning the liquid around and around until it was a creamy beige.

  “You’re welcome,” Theo said, pushing the cup back to Evelina.

  Unsure, Evelina didn’t touch the mug. She had never liked the taste of coffee and because of that, never went as far as using milk, cream or sugar as a way to sweeten it up. She just figured it was one less unhealthy thing she was putting into her body. No dependence and all that good stuff.

  Besides, she was already addicted to caffeine through the other coffee-like drinks she enjoyed.

  “Try it,” Theo urged.

  Picking up the coffee, Evelina smiled before taking a hesitant sip. It wasn’t bad at all. Sweeter thanks to the sugar and smoother thanks to the creamers. The heavy taste of coffee was still there but lessened.

  “It’s good,” Evelina said.

  “I know.”

  Laughing, Evelina took another drink of her coffee. Theo let her enjoy the drink in silence as he occasionally lifted his own mug to his lips and drank while they passed looks across the table. Before Evelina realized it, half of her cup was gone and Theo’s knowing grin had grown into a full blown smile.

  “I get it,” Evelina said.

  “Hmm, what is that?”

  “The princess thing. Or … some of it.”

  “Do tell,” Theo said.

  “It’s about everything, right? Not like how everyone treats me, but how I am about everything and everyone else. Proper. Appropriate. Respectful. Correct.”

  “Follow the rules, chin up, smile for the crowd, and be a good girl,” Theo added when Evelina grew silent. “It’s not your fault, really. We’re all made some way, Eve. This just happens to be the way you were made. Sometimes, I don’t even think you know you’re doing it.”

  “Breaking the mold is good.”

  “Sometimes.”

  Evelina grinned down at her mug. “I don’t always follow the rules.”

  “Nothing wrong with that, either,” Theo muttered around the rim of his cup.

  “According to my father, there’s a lot wrong with it.”

  Theo shrugged. “Only because your good behavior benefits him, and believe me when I say, Riley Conti has been waiting for his moment in the Outfit for a long damn time. What he doesn’t need right now is an unruly daughter that he has to chase after when he’s trying to settle the conflict inside the Outfit.”

  Evelina wanted to get off the topic and fast before it got too deep. “I saw you at the wedding.”

  “Outside,” Theo corrected. “I didn’t actually go.”

  “It was enough.”

  “I like to keep an eye on things.”

  “Like what?” she asked.

  “Everything. My family, most importantly.”

  That was kind of sweet, even if his frown didn’t give off the impression he meant it that way.

  “Lily, you mean?”

  “The Outfit,” Theo replied simply. “But she’s a part of the Outfit, so yes, she gets put in that category as well.”

  “Oh.”

  “What?”

  Evelina lifted a shoulder in explanation, saying, “I guess I just thought with everything that happened lately, I figured family would be the last thing you considered the Outfit to be.”

  Theo chuckled. “The people and the Outfit aren’t the same thing. Two different entities. Maybe once they were, but now it’s just four families throwing stones at each other’s glass houses whenever they get the chance.”

  Sad but true.

  “And I’ve been caught in the crossfire enough,” Theo added darkly.

  Evelina cringed. “You mean with your uncle and brother being killed.”

  “Brother, mostly. My uncle isn’t all that much of a loss. Trust me.”

  “You always seemed close to Ben.”

  At least, that’s how Evelina remembered it. Whenever she had seen Theo with his uncle before the man’s death, the two seemed to have a better relationship than any of the other siblings had with their uncle.

  Evelina waited for Theo to respond to her statement, but he offered nothing at first. Actually, he just stilled and rubbed his right wrist as he rotated it against his palm like it was hurting or something.

  “Ben was fond of me,” Theo said finally.

  Evelina’s brow furrowed. “And he wasn’t fond of Lily or Dino?”

  Theo scoffed. “Lily maybe, but that was only because she wasn’t around a lot. Dino, on the other hand, didn’t follow the rules very well, so no, Ben wasn’t all that fond of him.”

  Unsure of what to say to that, because she didn’t have the first clue about what it meant, Evelina chose to stay quiet. Theo rubbed his wrist once more as he glanced down at his coffee.

  “Did you hurt your wrist?” she asked.

  Just like that, Theo’s cool demeanor was back in a blink. He dropped his hand to the table and moved his right arm underneath where she couldn’t see it.

  “No,” he said, “I didn’t hurt it.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Theo smiled a charming sight. “Nothing.”

  Deflection.

  Evelina could recognize that shit from a mile away.

  “Theo—”

  “I like my coffee black,” he interrupted smoothly.

  Evelina lifted a brow, confused. “I can see that. I can’t imagine why. It tastes disgusting.”

  “No, it tastes bitter. It’s dark, it’s heady, and it leaves a thick taste on my tongue. And I like the harshness of fresh black coffee, because I like the way it feels when I drink it down. A little pain is a good thing, as the saying goes. After a while, you don’t even notice the taste anymore because you learn to like the bite it leaves behind and how it wakes you up.”

  Something wicked settled in Evelina’s stomach like a heavy weight pressing her down. Maybe it was the way Theo’s mouth curved with a sensual flair or how his gaze caught hers and held it, completely unashamed.

  It was coffee, for fuck’s sake.

  He was talking about coffee!

  So why did she feel like he was talking about something else entirely?

  “The only thing that reminds me of what it feels like when I drink coffee is sex,” Theo said.

  Christ.

  There it was.

  Evelina wasn’t even surprised.

  “And why is that?”

  “Because I like my coffee how I like my sex. Harsh, hot, and with a little bite of pain lingering behind. So I drink it black, Eve. I don’t need the sweetness or the cream. I just need the feeling.”

  Evelina let out a slow breath. “Huh.”

  “You should have called me after your mother was killed,” Theo said, changing the conversation altogether.

  She was feeling far too hot to want to get into that discussion. Evelina guessed Theo probably wasn’t going to give her a choice.

  “I would have, but you, like everyone else, had a front row seat to Riley’s mess after it all happened, Theo. He was crazy as hell and getting worse every day.”

  “So?”

  “So I didn’t want to push his buttons. Blatantly dating someone without his approval certainly would have pushed my father in the wrong direction. Just showing up at Lily’s wedding left me with bruises that lasted for a week.”

  Heat flashed in Theo’s gaze.

  “He hit you for that?”

  “No, Adriano stepped in.”

  Theo sucked in a hard breath. “Well, at least your brother is finally learning to fill his own boots.”

  “I think so,” she agreed.

  “I’m not a second chance kind of guy,” Theo told her.

  Evelina shrugged. “That’s too bad.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I was thinking maybe it was time to stop acting like a princess.”

  Theo’s gaze narrowed briefly. “This is a bad idea, Eve.”

  “Maybe.”

  “No, it’
s a bad idea,” Theo said. “Not because it’s a bad time, or there’s unresolved shit between our families. It’s bad because you’re an opening and I might use it.”

  Evelina didn’t have the first clue about what he meant.

  Theo pointed at her face, likely seeing the confusion written across her crumpled brow. “And that right there tells me it’d be goddamn easy, Eve. I don’t know if I want to be that guy.”

  What guy?

  Evelina didn’t get the chance to ask.

  Theo stood from the table and pulled out his wallet before dropping a few one-dollar bills to the table.

  “That’s it?” Evelina asked. “We’re done talking?”

  “My coffee is gone and I have business to do.”

  His cup was empty.

  Evelina’s was almost gone, too.

  “I imagine I’ll see you around,” Theo said.

  “Probably,” Evelina agreed.

  She sipped from her cup, wanting to hide the hurt she felt over his rejection. Around the rim, a dusting of sugar crystals scratched her bottom lip. She licked the sugar off before draining the remaining contents from her cup.

  Theo’s gaze caught hers out of the corner of her eye. She’d still licked the damn rim and there wasn’t a bit of froth in sight. Evelina laughed when Theo shook his head.

  “I know you didn’t do that on purpose,” he said.

  Evelina grinned. “Well, as far as you know.”

  “Where is your car parked?” he asked.

  “Just down the block.”

  “I’ll walk you to it if you’re done in here.”

  Always the gentleman, even when he was rejecting a woman.

  Evelina wanted to decline and save a bit of her pride, but when he held his hand out to help her from the booth, she took it.

  Theo tucked Evelina’s hand into his elbow as they walked down the street, keeping a firm hold on her as people swarmed around them going to wherever they were going.

  “I can stay upright on my own two feet, you know,” she told him.

  That, and being close to Theo made her body react in ways she would rather it didn’t.

  Theo shrugged. “So you say, but your earlier mess says differently.”

  “I told you, I was looking at my phone.”

  “And now, you’re looking at me. Imagine that.”

  Evelina scowled. “You’re incredibly difficult.”

  “Funny, I’ve been told I’m incredibly charming.”

  “Until someone gets too close. And then you bite them—”

  “Like a snake?” he interrupted.

  Evelina made a face. “Bad choice of words.”

  “I’d say so.” Theo glanced around the street as they got closer to the parking lot where Evelina had taken her car earlier when she had some shopping to do. “Where are your enforcers?”

  “Somewhere.”

  “Don’t they stay close enough so that you can see them?”

  Evelina laughed bitterly. “Why would they do that? Then they can’t report back to Riley about all the bad shit I might be doing.”

  Even Theo laughed at that. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Well, it’s either that, or sometimes they just can’t keep up.”

  Theo’s grin was downright sinful. “Best thing about having that BMW of yours is the horsepower in the engine.”

  “And I do favor the highways.”

  “Do you ever notice when you lose them?” he asked quietly.

  “If I don’t see their cars every so often, then yeah, I pretty much know. Sometimes I get a call from one of them, but I don’t answer. It doesn’t matter, really.”

  “Why?”

  “GPS on my car,” Evelina informed frankly. “Dad has his ways.”

  “That only works if you’re actually in the car when someone comes searching for you, Eve.”

  She hadn’t thought of that.

  Theo bumped his shoulder with hers in a playful manner as he added, “I’m being a bad influence, aren’t I?”

  “Is that what you’re concerned about?”

  “Not really.”

  Pointing at her car in the parking lot across the road, Evelina let Theo direct her through traffic once they had the chance. He only let her go once she was standing beside her BMW and was searching for the keys in her messenger bag.

  “Thanks for having coffee with me,” Theo said.

  His voice turned uncharacteristically quiet. The distance on his face, like he was somewhere else entirely, said that maybe he had something on his mind.

  “Thanks for asking me,” Evelina replied. “What were you doing around here, anyway?”

  Theo cleared his throat and tossed his hands in his pockets. A fond smile took over his features. “I had some business to do. Someone to see.”

  A heat flashed in Evelina’s gut. She didn’t recognize the feeling at first, but it didn’t take long for her to clue in to what was wrong. She didn’t like how he smiled about the person he visited like they were important. Like maybe he cared about them.

  What in the hell was wrong with her?

  She had no claim on Theo DeLuca and the attraction she felt was entirely unfed. She had no reason to be jealous of someone she didn’t even know.

  No claim.

  None.

  “Oh,” Evelina said.

  Theo glanced around the parking lot. Evelina had parked her car close to the exit of the road, so they had a view of the cars going back and forth down the street.

  “What were you doing around here?” Theo flashed his charming smile again. “Seeing as how you asked me, it’s only fair.”

  “Shopping. I needed a break after …”

  “After what?” he pressed.

  She didn’t want to admit how much she disliked her father’s new bride, or say how having the woman as her stepmother was literally vomit-inducing.

  “It doesn’t mat—”

  Theo’s gaze cut into hers fast, stopping her words up. Evelina knew what he was going to say. It was right on the tip of her own tongue. Princess.

  She was still acting like the proper little Conti princess. Protecting her family, even if it hurt her and she was lying about her own feelings. Making sure her father wasn’t shamed and doing exactly what Riley wanted and needed from his daughter.

  Yeah, the proper Mafioso principessa.

  “Eve?” Theo asked quietly.

  The truth could set you free, after all.

  “I needed a break after the wedding. Something to get my mind off my power hungry father and his sugar baby bride.”

  Theo snorted. “Sugar baby. Now there’s one I haven’t heard used yet.”

  “I bet you’ve heard everything else.”

  “Pretty much,” he admitted, not even looking the least bit ashamed.

  “It’s all true,” Evelina said, sighing.

  Everything they heard whispered about her new stepmother was true.

  Theo eyed Evelina silently. She fidgeted under his heavy regard.

  “You asked,” she said before he could say anything.

  “I did. Honesty is the best policy, too. I kind of warned you earlier, right?” he asked. “Bad thing with us and all.”

  “Yeah, you warned me.”

  What did it matter?

  Evelina didn’t need to be told again.

  Theo nodded. “As long as you know.”

  Evelina laughed under her breath. “I got it, Theo.”

  “Good. But I wouldn’t be opposed to doing this again.”

  Wait … what?

  “Are you saying—”

  Theo held up a hand, stopping Evelina from saying any more. Once again, his gaze was drawn to the road where cars were still zooming on past. Evelina didn’t notice anything particularly odd as a black car with tinted windows slowed down like it was going to turn into the parking lot.

  Except it didn’t turn.

  Theo moved so fast he was a blink. His arms encircled Evelina with enough force to hurt
as he took her thrashing to the ground. At the same time they hit the pavement, she heard the rain start.

  No, not water.

  Bullets.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Theo wrapped a wide-eyed Evelina into his embrace, tucked her head into his chest, and rolled them both as close as he could get to the car. The BMW was too low to the ground for them to roll under it completely, but Theo had Evelina firmly tucked between the tiny gap, the ground, and his body. His back faced the onslaught of bullets shredding the air.

  Not a single one hit him.

  Evelina shook like a leaf in Theo’s strong hold, but he refused to let her go. He couldn’t afford to turn his head and get a look at the vehicle, either. Maybe, if they were lucky, whoever the shooter—or shooters—was might think they had hit their target with the two being prone on the pavement.

  “Stop moving,” Theo hissed into Evelina’s hair.

  She whimpered. “I’m trying.”

  Just before he’d left the coffee shop, Theo had an odd feeling that raised all the hair on the back of his neck. He’d only experienced that twice before. Once, when his parents were murdered and then again on the day of Dino’s bombing.

  Those had been two entirely different days, years apart, but they’d imprinted their memory inside his mind and soul. They had, essentially, changed his life in their own ways. Stained with violence and grief, they were moments Theo didn’t want to relive. So, when he felt that again, he took note of it.

  Theo asked Evelina to let him walk her to her car, despite wanting to get on with his day and not feed the curiosity he felt about her. It was only liable to get him into trouble, anyway.

  And then he’d noticed it.

  Once, the black car passed the coffee shop as they were coming out. Again, it came from the opposite direction as they hit the first block. The final time he’d noticed it was when it passed them again from the opposite direction as they walked into the parking lot.

  A black car was easily overlooked. There was probably hundreds of thousands of black vehicles in the city. Theo probably would not have given the car any mind either had he not felt odd and noticed the black car driving a little slower than the rest down the busy street.