He's a Brute (Tough Love Book 1)

by Chloe Liese

  She slipped her leg between mine. “Your uncle? Is he here in Boston, too?”

  I lifted her foot and rubbed gently along the arch. She sighed and her eyes drifted shut for a moment. “Not anymore. He coached me most of my teenage soccer career before I went professional, though. After he retired, he stayed for a few years while Mom was really sick. But mostly he’s in Genoa now. That’s where he and Dad grew up. Until Dad was sent over here…” I let that thought die off and took a bite of food.

  “Zed.” Nairne dropped her foot from me and propped her elbows on the table. She held her wine glass with the tips of her long, slim fingers. “What are your ties to the mafia? It was one thing to have a few dinners and a bathroom tryst, but if we’re going to be exclusive to each other, even for a brief time, I need to know the truth. That is, if you want exclusivity.”

  I leaned toward her, my voice quiet. “That whole part outside Lupo’s where I said I don’t share? Neither do you. Ever. Only us.”

  She nodded and hid her smile behind her wine. “Right then. So, onto the whole organized crime question?”

  I didn’t want to lie to her. But hell if I was going to fold her into it either. “It’s complicated.”

  Her eyes flickered with irritation. Nairne liked direct speech, honesty. I thought in general that she saw me as a straight shooter and respected me for it. I couldn’t stand the idea of losing her respect by lying to her, but I was guaranteed to lose it if I told her the truth.

  “Not good enough, Zed. I need more than that.”

  I glared at my plate and forked my meatball to a decimated heap. “I’m a part of it, in an…unconventional capacity.”

  “You’re in it.” She sipped her wine and set it down, then leaned back in her chair. “And it’s unconventional? Meaning what? You can’t condone their criminality, I know you. You’re no angel, but you don’t delight in evil. So, what are you doing?”

  I wanted to laugh. If she only knew all that I’d permitted, the foul doings that soured my stomach. Perhaps she’d view it charitably, give me the benefit of the doubt. But most days even I barely could. I just held onto hope that she’d never find out in the first place.

  But Nairne liked puzzles. No, liked was inadequate. She lived for them. She spun thousands of pieces of observations around in her labs and research until they clicked and snapped into clarity. I was fucked, because she’d set her mind to figuring this out, and there was no telling her otherwise. I cleared my throat and drained my glass of wine. When I set it down, her eyes were drilling into me.

  “Jesus, man. You’re two-timing, aren’t you?” She smacked her hand against the table and stared up at the ceiling. “Lighting the bloody house on fire while you’re standing in it.”

  “It’s more complex than that, but more or less. That said, I need you to understand right now, you cannot—”

  “Zed, I wouldn’t—”

  “Damn it, Nairne,” I snapped. “Listen to me. Don’t interrupt.” This was life or death. I was pissed she’d seen through me, pissed that I was relieved that she knew, and pissed that I was endangering her, when I already spun my wheels plenty about how best to keep her safe. “You have to stay far away from any of this shit. Never talk about it. Never refer to it. That part of my life doesn’t exist with us.”

  She stared at me, then nodded solemnly. “I won’t, Zed. I’ll be prudent.”

  An exhale of relief left me. “Thank you. Now let’s move the conversation along to less unappetizing topics.”

  Nairne’s gears were turning, and she ignored me. “Right then… What about Zio Gianno then? Your father was made to come over, you’ve said. Why not Gianno. How was he safe?”

  I scrubbed my face. “We were changing topics.”

  “You were,” she corrected.

  I sighed and started picking up plates and silverware to dump in the sink. “He was never on their radar. He played soccer for Juventus, a striker.”

  Nairne whistled, momentarily distracted. “Now there’s a worthy club. You should be playing for the likes of them.”

  I froze, hands full of dishes, then went into the kitchen.

  “Why don’t you, Zed?” she pressed. “Why not get away from it all? If you left, what could they do, an ocean between you?”

  If it were anyone else talking, I would bark at her to drop it, bite the hand that was trying to lovingly coax me toward reevaluating my life. Everybody was telling me the same thing—Dad, Teo, Gianno, even Lucas, though he didn’t know the details of why I really stayed. Bottom line, I couldn’t leave them. I was needed. I kept shit in line with our families and their underhanded dealings. I got Teo out of scrapes. I held Dad when he cried and missed Mom so badly, he sounded like his heart had been ripped out of his chest. How could I possibly extricate myself from any of that?

  “Because getting out isn’t simple, Nairne. This is where I belong.”

  Nairne quirked her head to the side with an expression of polite curiosity. I didn’t like that look, because when Nairne played it cool, it meant inside her head was a hot engine of analysis. Nairne was up to something.

  Twenty-Three

  Nairne

  Two things: One, I was surprised Zed hadn’t deflected more about his role in the mafia. I’d brought it together gradually, and when I’d snapped the last puzzle piece into place over dinner, he hadn’t denied it. He’d trusted me. We might not have longevity or dispositional compatibility or even the capacity to speak longer than ten minutes without arguing, but we had trust.

  Two, my life was surreal. I’d crossed an ocean to get away from the sexually assertive strain of men and poor choices, to heal and keep to the straight and narrow for a few years while I got a world-class education. Yet I’d managed to find the one kinky bastard in the city who not only brought out my old proclivities, but cranked them up to a whole new, albeit highly pleasurable, level.

  “Mac.” My head turned Rob’s way. I got my physiotherapist’s usual smile with an added quirk of an eyebrow. “Little distracted today?”

  “Sorry, yes.” Typically, I was ruthless in therapy, but I couldn’t keep my mind off what had happened. How different I felt. And unsettlingly the same.

  “It’s all right.” He looked me over and frowned. “We can sit. Take five.”

  I shook my head and gripped the parallel bars tighter. “No. I’m ready.”

  I focused on each step, moved steadily while Rob rolled backward on his stool, guiding my knees as needed. I had enough sensation that I didn’t feel like I was floating, but it was odd, knowing my feet were striking down and there wasn’t much I could perceive as I moved. Months of standing in a sling, watching my legs snap up and down along a treadmill, teaching my body to do something I’d done since I was eleven-months-old. I couldn’t think about it too long or I got fucking pissed.

  Rob was kind and friendly. I think he liked our appointments because I came with a brutal determination to walk again that made his job easier. He could concentrate on the mechanics and lay aside the motivational speaker role that other patients seemed to require. I’d been on the mat plenty of times, working on crawling or other such infuriatingly fundamental exercises, and I’d overhear him trying to convince a patient they could try at all. That they were capable.

  No one had to tell me I was capable. I knew I could do anything I set my mind to. Even after I’d woken up, all sensation south of my navel was weird fuzzy disorientation of half-touch, blinding pain, and intermittent perceptions of pressure and heat. It didn’t progress as rapidly as I wanted. I couldn’t do everything I hoped yet. But I wouldn’t give up one single goal. My new normal required patience, but I held to the potential of my ability, one slow step at a time.

  “Want to talk about it?” said Rob.

  “Not really. I just…” I rolled my shoulders and took a few good steps “Have you ever realized something about yourself, but not known what to make of it?”

  Rob gave it some thought. “Can’t say I have. I’m a simple guy,
though.” He laughed and continued guiding me. “Why?”

  I shook my head and sensed my hips tilting back. Pulling them forward, I fought to find my center of gravity, but they swung back again. Rob pressed my arse and brought it forward. He touched me more than pretty much any man had except for Zed, but it was clinical and completely practical. I finally found my balance and continued. Left. Right.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Your anniversary’s soon. It have something to do with that?”

  I froze. “I completely lost track of time. It is coming. That’s why I’m emotional about everything right now.”

  Rob’s hand stilled on my knee, then gripped my thigh as it spasmed. “It’s okay to have feelings, Mac. Your life got turned upside down three years ago. Anyone who’s experienced what you have has feelings about that, and it’s not for lack of strength or resilience.”

  Tears pricked and I dabbed my nose on my shoulder. “Thanks, Robbie.” I pushed forward and did a double take when I glanced toward the hallway.

  Sox ball cap pulled low. Black jacket. Olive skin. Burning tiger eyes. And a scowl as sinister as the blizzard that was brewing outside.

  Zed.

  He whipped open the door. Strolled in. Smacked up his ball cap enough that he could kiss me, controlled and chaste. Turning toward Rob, Zed shot a hand forward and Rob shook it. “Zed Salvatore.” He turned to me. “We should go soon. Weather’s getting shitty.”

  Rob glanced between us. “So, you two…? Wow. She’s discrete.” He patted my leg, coaxed my knee forward, and Zed’s eyes burned into Rob’s clinical touch. “Hasn’t said a word about you.”

  Zed shoved his hands in his pockets, which was his tell for irritation. He looked calm as he watched me walk. “She’s a class act.”

  “She’s also here,” I said, “and you’re talking about her like she’s not. Zed, I’ll be done in five minutes.”

  A nasty winter storm was coming, and he’d insisted on driving me back. I hadn’t felt like fighting him. After one spinal injury, if someone wanted to drive me in a tank of a car with four-wheel drive and give me the safest ride home possible in this mess, I wasn’t going to argue.

  “I’ll bring her out,” Rob said. “We’re going to practice with the arm crutches, right, Mac?” He smiled up at me and coaxed my knee forward again.

  Zed’s jaw ticked as he nodded once. “I’ll be at the front.”

  The door slammed and Rob whistled. “That dude is even more intense than I’ve heard. Jesus.” He shook his head and handed me an arm crutch for each hand.

  I steadied myself, then took a few slow steps.

  “He’s a good person.”

  Rob glanced toward the door where Zed had left. “Seems like a real ray of sunshine.”

  I laughed. Because to me, oddly enough, he was.

  The blizzard that began while I was in physiotherapy ran through Boston and was quickly tidied up by an infrastructure built for snow. Trivia night went ahead as planned since it was turning into a bit of a ritual, and this time Lucas and some of the team had joined.

  “Zed won’t shut up about you.” Lucas smiled at me over his beer and shook his head. “The man’s wrecked. Though I’ll grant him, you’re as lovely as he said you were.”

  I laughed and had a sip of my whiskey. “I don’t know how to take that kind of a compliment from a man whose poster I had in my bedroom as a girl.”

  Lucas blushed and looked toward the bar. “Don’t let Zeddy hear you say that. He’ll castrate me in a heartbeat.”

  My whiskey caught in my throat and I coughed. Lucas patted me gently on the back.

  Zed stood cornered by someone at the bar and glanced regularly toward us. Hunger raged in his tiger eyes, maybe even a little jealousy. It wasn’t a trait I’d expected in him. He seemed too controlled for such an impulsive emotion.

  I turned back to Lucas, who was incredibly handsome in person with those Nordic looks some English fellows have. Ridiculously tall. Dirty blond hair, eyes that danced between slate and sage. He was all easy banter and warmth, self-deprecating humor, and sweet compliments. He was also a fucking star in the footie world, and I was having a little moment.

  I cleared my throat again and set down my whiskey. “When did you come to the States? You were with United for an eternity, if I remember.”

  He nodded and swallowed. “Yes, over a decade. Then I came here three years ago, is it? Yes. Three years. Met that hothead, and a few other lads.” He gestured around the table where a few teammates sat and enjoyed abundant female attention. “And now I’m thinking of returning home. Calling it quits on footie finally.”

  I leaned forward. “You’re a bit young for that, aren’t you? You can’t be past thirty.”

  Lucas snorted into his beer and shook his head. “Flattery will get you nowhere. I’m thirty-five, dearest. Old as god in the football world, and you know it.”

  I shrugged. “I wish Zed would go with you. He’s in his prime. He’s incredible. He could have the time of his life abroad.”

  Lucas nodded. “I wholeheartedly agree, but you know the man’s stubborn, and he has reasons for staying that I’m not privy to.”

  I was just as confused and frustrated with Zed’s intractability, but Lucas and I weren’t going to solve that mystery any time soon.

  “So, you’ll go back to…where do you hail from?” I asked. “Outside London, is that it?”

  He nodded. “Exactly. My family owns a financial consultancy that’s branched into strategy, mergers, that sort of dull nonsense. Dad’s an old man now and ready to be done, wants to pass it on to me. I figure it’ll give me something to do. Keep my brain sharp while my body declines.” He winked but there seemed something grim underneath it.

  “Declines? Even if you are thirty-five, you’re still a little young for that talk.”

  He shrugged. “You know us Brits. We joke about death, sex, and government. An unoriginal lot.”

  I laughed.

  “I tried to do a little reading on you,” he continued. “Madam striker. You were rather hard to find anything on.”

  I glanced down at my whiskey. “Yes, I…I wanted privacy, so I used my middle name and my Nan’s maiden name when I played. My actual name isn’t connected to my career.”

  Lucas’ face softened. “I’m sorry, I’ve made you uncomfortable.”

  “No,” I said. I smiled up at him. “It’s just…part of the past, and I haven’t talked with Zed about it. Could you—”

  “My lips are sealed, dove.” Lucas shouldered me genially.

  “Back off.” Zed set down a handful of drinks on the table and dragged his chair practically on top of me.

  Lucas rolled his eyes. “You’re more territorial than my old Labrador.”

  Zed smiled and stared at me as he answered. “Loud and proud, baby.”

  Live music played in the background until trivia began. I glanced around at my company. A bunch of professionals from my old world, while I sat in a wheelchair and held only faint memories of my footie days that were fast collecting dust, softening around the edges, and dimming.

  “You’re quiet tonight,” Zed said. His thumb stroked along my arm. “Talk.”

  I set my head on his shoulder. “Some days you’re just melancholy, Zed.”

  He nodded and his chin grazed my head. “Yeah, but that’s not all there is to it. I don’t beg for information, fragolina. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”

  I sighed. Like he could help with any of my problems. My disappointments and challenges. Disability was isolating. And some days you just couldn’t shake yourself out of that feeling that shit was hard, and you were on your own with it.

  I patted his hand as I sipped my whiskey. “I know.”

  Twenty-Four

  Zed

  I screeched a right onto Carlton from Beacon Street and gunned it until I ripped a left over to Churchill. She lived on a quiet street with a bunch of families, but it was winter, so I had no worries about kid
s riding their bikes in the middle of the road. I wasn’t going to hit anybody, but I wanted to hit something, that was for sure. It was all thanks to the woman who’d gone MIA on me in the past forty-eight hours.

  She’d seemed off at trivia, and even before at PT. I’d been too distracted by her handsy therapist—goddamn, I’d had to restrain myself when he gripped her ass—who of course had to be a hunk. My door didn’t swing that way, but I knew how women worked, what turned them on. He was built kind of like me, and I knew Nairne liked that. He had a friendly face. And he smiled at her. A lot.

  Fucking pissed me off. I took my irritation out on slamming my car door and tromped up her walkway.

  I didn’t do jealousy. My exclusivity with my partner was only for our time together, and unquestionable. It didn’t matter who they were with or how. I didn’t socialize with subs. We met, scened, and got off. Socially, I took non-fuck buddy females out for the occasional dinner because they were friends, or to do requisite PR. Otherwise, I went out with the guys or hung out with Teo and the Italian conglomerate over in the North End.

  Then Lucas, leaning toward her. Talking to her. I knew he’d never try a thing, but he was tender in ways I wasn’t—older and gentler with a woman’s feelings. He seemed to read something in her that I couldn’t, and that was bullshit. She was mine. To cherish and understand, to protect and take care of.

  To love.

  I shook it off. Not love. She was leaving, I was staying. Loving her would be a disaster.

  Doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.

  “Shut up,” I snapped at myself. Then I banged a fist on her door.

  I counted to five and told myself to breathe. Banged three times.

  “Who is it?” Her voice sounded like a croak. Unused. Clogged with emotion.

  “Innamorata, open up.” My dominant voice. I wanted obedience, damn it.

  I heard her forehead thump softly against the door. “Not today, Zed.”