When the eye contact began to burn, I tried to pull my wrist away, but he wouldn’t let me go. His expression didn’t show a hint of emotion, as though he could hold me here effortlessly. As though he might hold me here forever.
A moment later, his grip slid from my wrist, releasing me. Something dipped in my chest, though I pushed it away before I could analyze it. I got off the bed and, as I took a step toward the door, something dug into the bottom of my foot. I halted and glanced down. The ring sat there, forgotten, like the sweet boy who’d given it to me. My stomach twisted.
Without a thought, I picked it up. A wave of tension brushed my back, evoking a prickling sensation that ran down my spine. The silence was an antagonistic one, the kind that doesn’t contain words but says everything.
Nico hated this ring, and I could only ascertain he knew it was connected to a man—or believed it was. Nobody knew about the ring but Adriana, and even then, the only thing I’d told her about the incident was that he’d given it to me.
My promise remained with or without the fifty-cent piece of jewelry, but . . . I hesitated.
I would never be with another man but the one in this room. We both knew it, and that removed any type of advantage I would’ve had in the Outside world. If a man knew you’d give it up to him and no one else and that you couldn’t even leave him, what would ever encourage him to be faithful?
He had the upper hand in every aspect of this relationship. Maybe the only thing that would save face was that Nico didn’t know the man who’d given this ring to me hadn’t meant anything. I imagined believing one’s fiancée was in love with another man would cut any boss’s ego in half, especially Nico’s giant one.
I could tell him everything. Bare my soul and be honest. Be an open person and hope that good would win.
But maybe I’d always been as manipulative as him.
Maybe this was the only way I’d survive him.
I slid the ring onto my finger and walked out of the room.
I’d never hated a thing in my life.
I resented the Zanettis, who killed my father and uncle in that shooting five years ago, and while I might have shot them in the goddamn heads like they’d deserved, I hadn’t hated them.
Like regret, there wasn’t room for hate.
Hate changed someone’s make-up. It made them reckless. Hate killed its host.
I never let myself hate because I loved to live.
But right now, I could say I hated something. Two things. That goddamn ring and the man who gave it to her.
Hatred fucking burned, like inhaling mace, getting punched in the throat, and being stabbed simultaneously. That was my comparison gathered from trial and error as a Made Man. Add in a dose of poison that eats you from the inside out, and that’s hatred.
Fuck.
My chest tightened, each breath a burn in my lungs.
I stood, and before I even knew it was in my hand, I chucked a lamp at the wall. The porcelain shattered with a crash that would wake the entire fucking neighborhood. I took a deep breath and shook my head. She definitely heard that. She always did say I was a psychopath—might as well show her one.
My gaze paused on her clothes still lying on the floor. They sat there, hers, probably smelling like her and shit. I picked them up and dropped them in my top dresser drawer right next to her white bikini top. If she wanted them back she could fucking ask me nicely.
I sent Luca a text and got dressed. A suit as black as my mood. I had to get out of this goddamned house before I did something stupid, like demand she forget every man she’d ever met but me.
Instead of taking one cigarette from my nightstand, I grabbed the whole pack. I was going to smoke every last one of them.
Her door was shut and the light was off as I passed her room. Annoyance flared in me that she hadn’t even come out to see the damage. The last time I’d thrown something at the wall was when I was young enough to be kicked in the ribs for it. Maybe she should take responsibility for how crazy she made me.
I opened the garage door and leaned against the worktable, taking a deep drag on a cigarette. I could still smell her on my hands, and every time I brought the smoke to my mouth a memory of fucking her rushed in.
Fuck, she was the best lay I’d ever had. A chill ran down my back from the thought of it. I gritted my teeth and tried to shake the strange feeling off. Nonetheless, my body was alive like she was still touching me—her pink little fingernails digging into my biceps, her hand wrapped around my cock, her smell all over me. So damn sweet. I braced my hands on the table and hung my head.
I should have taken Salvatore’s other offer when we’d found out Adriana was pregnant—a corner of his territory that would’ve filled my pockets, and one I’d wanted for a while—because Elena fucked with my head, made me destroy the furniture and smoke more than I should. And I had a bad, bad feeling that if this girl used the word please, I would give her anything she wanted.
I’d fucked her raw, so fucking raw.
I was twenty-nine and had never been stupid enough to fuck without a condom until today. Now I was ruined—with my little fiancée, anyway. I didn’t think I’d ever slept with a woman who I hadn’t found out my cousins were fucking as well, or even better—Tony. No chance I was trusting the lot of them to be clean, so I’d always wrapped it up. My jaw tightened as I wondered about Elena’s sexual history. I wanted to know how many men there’d been, their names, and everything they did to her, so I could do it twice as hard and make her forget they existed.