by Bethany-Kris
Evelina’s spine straightened. “I’m … sorry. That was a private conversation, and I had no right to bring it up.”
Tommas softened in his stance, but barely. “She was angry and hurt. We’ve always had a different relationship behind closed doors than most people do. That, what you heard, is just a small part of it.”
“Oh. I don’t understand.”
“I don’t expect you to. However, tonight made Abriella feel like I brought that private side of us into a very public forum, even if no one knows what we are. And when that word, or others like it, gets brought out—whore, slut, whatever—I get defensive and so does she. As you said, you don’t understand. It’s not something that can be explained.”
“I won’t bring it up again.”
“Thank you,” Tommas said, sighing. “Now, your face is fixed and we’ve got a few things straightened out.”
Had they?
“I guess,” Evelina replied.
“Well, I got a few things figured out. Smile pretty, Eve, and put your worries away for the evening.”
“That’s kind of hard to do, isn’t it?”
“Why is that?”
“I rarely feel safe with these people anymore. After the shootings, this nonsense with my father, and now my car being burned last week? People like my father and Joel Trentini are using Theo as a scapegoat for what has happened these last few weeks while I’m the only one who knows the truth that it couldn’t possibly be him.”
Tommas’ face remained impassive. “I’m aware of that now.”
“It’s starting to feel personal, Tommas.”
Hell, it felt personal the moment her mother was shot in the head.
Tommas smirked. “With me, Eve, you’ll have nothing to worry about.”
“Forgive me, but I doubt it.”
“Don’t.”
Why did she feel like he was telling the truth?
“You can’t possibly promise me that, Tommas.”
“I just did.”
“Stay,” Riley told Adriano. “For the night, at least. Your old room is open, son. It’s been a long night, no need to drive across town if you can stay here.”
Indecision wavered in Adriano’s face as he passed a look to Alessa. She said nothing, but Evelina wasn’t surprised. Alessa rarely spoke up in front of Riley. The man made her as uncomfortable as he made everyone else.
“Lissa?” Adriano asked.
Riley waved a hand. “Oh, I’m sure she doesn’t mind.”
“We can stay,” Alessa said. “But we have breakfast with my parents in the morning. I don’t want to miss that, Adriano.”
“We won’t.”
“Good.” Riley clapped his hands together and smiled. “All my children under our roof for Christmas. This is nice.”
Riley’s genuine joy felt all wrong to Evelina. Lately, her father hadn’t shown much compassion or care toward his children or their happiness. The party had gone off well enough, sure, and Riley’s announcement regarding Tommas and Evelina had been received well. Surely that wasn’t enough to make her father seem like he’d taken a few happy pills.
Where had this man come from?
“I have a guest upstairs to deal with,” Riley said, “but make yourselves at home for the evening. Maybe Courtney and I will join you later.”
“Actually, I think I’ll just head straight to a shower and bed if we’re going to stay,” Evelina said. She had no intention of spending time with Courtney. The two women would never be friends.
Riley frowned. “Eve, you could at least try with my new wife.”
“No, Dad, I can’t.”
Even Adriano coughed out a laugh at that, but managed to hide it quickly with the palm of his hand.
“You’re honest, I suppose,” Riley said heavily. “I do like that about you, Eve.”
“Goodnight,” Evelina replied, not wanting to keep the conversation going.
Riley let her go.
Upstairs in her old bedroom, Evelina slipped out of the dress she’d chosen for the Christmas party and kicked her heels off. Standing in front of the full-length mirror, she couldn’t help but run the tips of her fingers over her waist and hips where Theo had grabbed her. There was nothing to see there. He’d left no marks behind other than the tiny love bite on her neck, the one on her right breast that was hidden by her bra, and the one on her pubic bone that was covered by her lace panties.
But she still felt him.
An ache settled between her thighs.
Lovely. Heady. Deep.
She didn’t need to see him to feel him.
Quickly, Evelina grabbed the old robe hanging off the back of the mirror and made her way out of the room to the bathroom down the hall. After showering, returning to her room and changing into something suitable to sleep in, she had a craving for tea or something hot to drink before bed.
Stepping out of her old bedroom, quiet murmurs down the hall drew her in that direction instead of the opposite way that would lead downstairs.
“She won’t pick up my calls,” Alessa said, sadness coloring her every word.
“Give her a night, babe. Maybe she’s just … cooling off.”
“Abriella’s cooling off period never ends well, Adriano.”
“She’s a big girl, Lissa.”
“I know that,” Alessa snapped.
“Hey. Don’t be pissed at me. I didn’t do anything wrong here.”
“Sorry, I know. I’m just … not here right now, Adriano.”
“Come here.” Quiet shuffles followed Adriano’s order before he said, “I don’t think anyone knew, Alessa. Not until the very last minute, anyway. You know how Riley is. He likes the shock factor, and he certainly got that tonight.”
“Your sister must have known.”
Evelina flinched at the anger in Alessa’s tone.
“I asked Riley. He said she knew nothing until right before the party.”
“Oh,” Alessa mumbled.
“Evelina is good at this nonsense, Lissa. She’s good at turning on for the crowd. That’s exactly what we saw tonight. But I can bet she’s not happy. Not at all.”
“Does this whole thing feel motivated to you?”
“The marriage?” Adriano asked.
“Yes.”
“It does. It’s got to be. I don’t think Riley was telling the entire truth when he announced the engagement. Not everyone was happy.”
“My brother certainly wasn’t,” Alessa said.
Evelina wasn’t the only person who noticed Joel’s anger over the proposed marriage, then. That was all she needed to hear. Turning away, she left the quiet couple alone and made her way downstairs for tea. Unfortunately, she found Courtney sitting at the kitchen island with a cup of her own coffee in hand.
Crap.
Before she could make a beeline back for the upstairs, Courtney noticed Evelina’s presence.
“Hi,” the young woman said softly.
Evelina forced herself to smile. “Hi.”
“Your father is busy. Even I can’t drive him out of that office. The last time I tried tonight, he shouted at me. I’d had enough.”
Courtney didn’t sound all too pleased about that.
“Riley does that sometimes,” Evelina explained, giving her new stepmother an olive branch. She wouldn’t offer the woman much more. She couldn’t do that without feeling like she was betraying her dead mother. “I’ve seen him stay in there for five days before he rejoined the real world.”
“He does have the attached bathroom, I suppose.”
“The cook leaves him a plate of food outside the door.”
Courtney frowned. “I didn’t realize he was so intense like he is.”
“Demanding. Controlling. Obsessive. Introverted. That kind of intense?”
“I—”
“You don’t have to make some excuse for him,” Evelina interjected quickly. “I know what my father is like, Courtney. I grew up watching my mother at his side for twenty-two years before
she died and was free from it.”
“But she loved him, didn’t she?”
Yes.
“Eve?” Courtney asked when Evelina stayed quiet.
“I think she loved him enough.”
“Enough?”
“Enough to handle his craziness.”
Courtney laughed. “Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? We simply have to love them enough.”
“I would rather love a man entirely. Hidden monsters, scars, secrets and all. Enough isn’t just good enough for me. The whole point of giving your heart to someone is getting theirs in return. I don’t want a piece of some man’s heart. I want his whole heart, even if that means holding the pieces of it together.”
Evelina almost wished she could have stopped herself from blurting those inner thoughts out, but she couldn’t find it inside to regret the statement. It was true.
Courtney cleared her throat and glanced away. “That’s … a very mature way of looking at things, Eve.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
“I know you don’t approve of me.”
“I really don’t.” Evelina sighed. “And you’ve not given me a lot of reasons to try, Courtney.”
“No, I suppose I haven’t.”
“If we’re being honest here, I don’t like where you came from or how this all started between you and my father, either.”
Courtney’s cheeks pinked at Evelina’s blatant statement. “I hear the whispers about me just as well as you do, Eve. And the saddest part of it all is that I can’t deny any of them. I do love your father.”
“I hope so. Because otherwise, you’re in way over your head with him.”
“I’m still drowning no matter what way we look at it.” Courtney stood from the stool and pushed her tea cup aside. “My intention is not to replace the hole your mother left. I couldn’t do that anyway. Mia was a pretty amazing woman.”
Anger trickled down Evelina’s spine in a hot drip. “You didn’t know my mother. Not well, anyway.”
“Actually, I did. Riley is a bastard, to be sure, but he was always upfront about the kind of bastard he could be. Your mother knew very well who I was, and what I was doing with her husband.”
Evelina could only stare dumbly at Courtney. “You’re serious.”
“I have no reason to lie, Eve. But your mother? She never once treated me like anything other than a young woman who deserved a kind hand and respect. So yes, I know exactly the kind of woman your mother was, and I also know there is no way I could ever be like she was. I don’t plan on trying, either.”
“Huh.”
“This is new information to you, I take it?”
“Very new.”
Courtney shrugged. “She raised you and your brother well. Tonight was the perfect example of that. You didn’t even bat an eye at the engagement.”
“It’s not my place to,” Evelina said honestly.
“But you want to,” Courtney replied just as fast. “Because as you said, you want a man’s whole heart. You can’t have that when he’s the one you’ve been dictated to marry, right?”
“Something like that.”
Courtney grinned slyly. “You and I are the same in a lot of ways, Eve. We’re not particularly friendly with one another, but we don’t have a lot of allies outside of our homes, either. In this life, women have to stick together or they’re stuck depending on the men around them to do everything for them.”
She had a point.
“What are you looking for from me?” Evelina asked.
“Nothing more than another ally, Eve. Someone who doesn’t whisper behind my back and who gives me respect when I ask for it. You don’t have to like me, I’m only asking for you to accept my place here.”
“Don’t you worry that you’re just a fill-in until he finds another willing hole?”
“He already has,” Courtney said quietly. “And she’s a year younger than I am. Chloe Belli was here tonight with her father, actually.”
“Oh.”
“Riley doesn’t hide the kind of bastard he is to his women.”
“Just to everyone else, huh?” Evelina asked.
“People see what they want to see.” Courtney pushed the stool in. “What would you like from me, Eve?”
“I don’t think I need anything from you.”
“We all need something.”
Evelina crossed her arms, considering the woman’s words. “I don’t trust my father and since you’re close to him, I don’t trust you, either.”
“You’re more like your father than you think, Eve. He also doesn’t trust anyone. In fact, he’s so paranoid about the people around him right now that he’s got his closest men fighting amongst themselves for a prize that Riley doesn’t even plan to give them.”
“Pardon?”
Courtney flashed a smile. “Tommas and Joel. Riley has something they both want, but he has no intention of giving it to them.”
Evelina took that in for a moment before speaking again. “The only thing my father has that those men don’t is a boss’s seat.”
“So it seems.”
“He trusts them so little that he’s willing to turn them against one another just to keep them from taking his seat?”
“They’re more likely to kill each other than him,” Courtney explained.
A heavy realization settled in Evelina’s gut.
The drive-by shooting …
Someone burned down her car …
Engagement talk to more than one man …
Had Riley done all of that, including putting his daughter at risk, just to keep his right and left hand men in line? Had he been willing to let someone else—someone like Theo—take the blame for those things in hopes that either Tommas or Joel would lose their life in another street war between the families?
Why?
It didn’t entirely make sense. Not if Riley intended for Evelina to marry Tommas. Was tonight Riley’s way of showing which man he was more likely to protect between Joel and Tommas?
Nothing felt right or true to Evelina.
“Anyone else is just a sacrifice,” Evelina said quietly.
Courtney patted Evelina’s arm as she passed her in the entryway.
Evelina turned fast on her heel. “Wait.”
“What?” Courtney asked.
“Why are you telling me this? We’re not … We haven’t exactly been friends, Courtney.”
“Because, Eve, should there ever come a day when I need an ally, I expect to find one in you.”
The week following the Christmas party and engagement announcement passed Evelina by in a blur of time.
“You ready?”
Evelina glanced up from the spot on the floor that she’d been staring at for the last hour to see her brother leaning in the entryway to the apartment’s living room.
“Uh …”
Adriano cocked a brow. “Are you all right? You seem out of it this week.”
“I’m okay.”
The last thing she wanted was for her brother to be worrying about her.
“You sure?” Adriano asked. “Because ever since the party, I don’t think you’ve said more than ten words to me or Alessa.”
“I don’t know if Alessa wants me to, honestly.”
Adriano frowned. “Because of Abriella and Tommas.”
“Is there any other reason?”
“No. Listen, you don’t get to choose what Dad wants. Alessa knows that. Hell, she was in that same position just a couple of months ago.”
“And now she’s marrying you, Adriano. Not exactly the same thing.”
“Yeah, but—”
“It’s nothing, Adriano,” Evelina cut in quickly. “But there was something I wanted to talk to you about.”
“What is that?”
“Me moving out.”
Adriano opened his mouth, a refusal right on the tip of his tongue.
“Before you start telling me no,” Evelina said before her brother could get a word ou
t, “… think about this, Adriano. You’re getting married next week. You’re having a baby in May. It’s time for you to start your life with Alessa and by me being here, it’s only holding you two back from moving forward. You don’t need to be worrying about me or watching after me, okay. I’m a big girl. Besides, isn’t that Tommas’ job to keep an eye on me now that we’re engaged?”
“I don’t have a choice but to look after you, Eve. You’re my sister. I’m going to keep an eye on you regardless if you’re twenty-two or eighty-eight. That’s what family does.”
Evelina’s heart melted a little. “All right. But I still think it’s time for me to get out of your way.”
“And what, go back to Dad’s?”
“I don’t think Courtney wants to share her home. I don’t blame her. Plus, Dad knows you’re house shopping and whatnot, so he’s probably been expecting me to say I was ready to move out. He might even have something lined up for me.”
Adriano scowled. “Or he’ll ship you off to live with Tommas.”
Evelina shrugged. “Don’t worry about me.”
“I already told you.”
“Yeah, yeah. You can’t.”
Adriano sighed heavily. “Is this really what you want?”
“Yes. I’ll come stay with you for a week or something after you bring the baby home. God knows you two are going to need all the help you can get. Especially if that baby is anything like you, Adriano.”
Light laughter echoed from outside in the hallway. Apparently, Alessa had been listening in. Evelina’s soon-to-be sister-in-law poked her head in the doorway.
“Thanks,” Alessa said with a smile.
“Yeah, ha fucking ha,” Adriano grumbled. “I’m the easy target. I see how this works.”
“As long as you know, little brother.”
Evelina pushed up from the couch and smoothed the skirt of her body-con style dress down “I am ready.”
“Should be a fun night,” Alessa said.
Should being the key word.
“Tommas always did know how to throw a good New Year’s party,” Evelina agreed.
Adriano scoffed. “As long as nobody fucking kills anyone, that is.”
Well, there was that little problem, too.
“Looks like you won’t be driving with us after all,” Adriano said.