“Stefano?”
“Yes.” My jaw ticked as I recalled every goddamn second. “That’s when Enzio told me they had everything on tape. His father had been in the room next door watching and taping while Enzio took from me what I can never get back.”
“Motherfucker!” Another fist against Dante’s Audi, but I didn’t even flinch. I was too caught up in the memory, in the pain and the embarrassment of what they stole from me that day. My soul, my dignity…my virginity.
Antonio bolted upright. “I’m going to kill that son of a bitch! I swear to fucking God, that motherfucker will pay with his goddamn blood. Fuck!”
While Antonio continued to lose his shit, and rightfully so, I stayed flat on my ass on the ground, exactly where I deserved to be. I was feeling every ounce of pain all over again, experiencing that bone deep betrayal that crushed every last bit of hope I ever had. I loved Enzio with all my heart back then, and I had convinced myself he was the one. There were days I constantly daydreamed about sharing a life with him. We would have the house, the white picket fence, a little girl running around in the garden. It was all there in my dreams, my heart’s desires crammed into a big box labeledKarina Mancuso.Insane, I knew. But I was convinced there was no one for me but him. I believed with my entire heart we would get married and be together forever.
Stupid, naïve little lamb.
Antonio crouched in front of me, took my face in his palms, and stared at me, resolve beaming from his dark eyes. “That tape. He’s blackmailing you, isn’t he?”
“No, not yet.”
Antonio narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean, not yet?”
“Enzio said there would come a day when he would collect, when he would use the tape to get what he needed from me.” I swallowed the bile as it crept up my throat, my stomach twisted in knots of nausea.
“And what, exactly, is it he’ll need from you?”
I studied Antonio’s face, witnessing how I had just made my heartache my brother’s burden. All I could do was shrug as I answered him, completely defeated. “I don’t know…yet.”
Chapter 15
LORIK
Sitting at the dinner table with my parents, one would never guess I had been at a gruesome murder scene just that morning. The reason I was currently picking at my food wasn’t because of the images of Gio’s brain splattered all over the green garbage bin behind him. It was partly because of a certain Italian woman who somehow managed to engrave herself in my fucking cerebral cortex.
And then there was the fact that her family was now linked to Gio’s murder. The wolf symbol carved on Gio’s chest looked exactly like the tattoos all the Valenti men sported on their hands.Coincidence? I think not.
“Lorik, stop picking at your food.”
I glanced up at my mother while she scowled at me. Even though I was a grown-ass man, she still had the ability to make me feel like I was ten years old.
“I’m sorry,nënë. I’m just not that hungry tonight.”
Immediately, my mother leaned over the table and placed her hand against my forehead. “Are you ill?”
“No, I’m not ill.” I gently pushed her hand away from my face. “I just had a very big breakfast.” That was if you counted being buried to the hilt in Italian pussy as breakfast.
My mom leaned back in her chair. “Breakfast was hours ago.”
Don’t remind me. My cock was doing a swell job already reminding me it had been hours since I fucked Karina, and that I really, really wanted to do it again.
“Nënë, I’m really not that hungry.” I turned to Dad, whose plate was already empty. But everyone knew he just chowed down everything so he could get to dessert. Mom always made dessert on Sunday. It was his little reward for being good in avoiding sugar during the week, with his diabetes and all.
“So, Dad, did you watch the football game?”
“You lost weight,” my mom chimed in, ignoring the conversation I was trying to have with my dad.
I frowned. “No, I haven’t.”
“You haven’t been eating well, have you? I don’t know why you don’t visit more often. At least come for a decent meal twice a week.”
I loved my mother. But, dear God, this woman could fuss. She was a menace when it came to smothering her children.
“Nënë—” I heard the message tone of my phone, and immediately my cock shot his ugly head up. That tone was the very distinct sound of my Facebook messenger app, which I installed right after Karina left that morning. Completely forgetting what I was about to say, I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and swiped the screen. Here was the part where my cock would be doing backflips if he had been detached from my body…because there was that little pop-up head of Karina’s beautiful face, right there at the side of the screen.