Beautiful bastardo.
Uncle Toni smiles and claps his hand on Matteo’s shoulder. “Help me congratulate Matteo on his engagement to my beautiful daughter, Alessandra. Welcome to the family, son.”
What the fuck?
Chapter3
Gemma
I’ve never wanted to kill anyone in my life, always thought the violence that seems to flow through each family member’s veins might have skipped me. Looks like I was wrong and I just never had the right target in sight.
My fingers are twitching from the sheer effort it takes not to grab someone’s gun as Matteo saunters over to Ally and me. Swaggers, even. That fucking asshole. Forget the gun. I want to gouge his eyes out with a fork and make him eat them.
My rage is a living, breathing thing, and I must be a witch or something else supernatural because the fact that I can pull myself together enough to survive the next minute is nothing short of otherworldly.
Matteo reaches us with Uncle Toni and my dad, and the three men are smiling like they’re children having a blast at the fair. Ridiculous. The man of the hour embraces a still stunned Ally with a side hug, placing his hand firmly on her lower back, and that’s all I can stomach.
He’s touching her.
He’s crushing her against his body like he wasn’t just devouring me less than half an hour ago.
Right here in front of me.
“Scusa.” I turn and walk to the bar. I need something stronger than wine. Pronto.
The bartender is cleaning glasses when I slide onto a stool. I raise two fingers. “Sambuca, please.”
He gives me a curious once-over but does as I ask. I watch him while he fills the two shot glasses with the clear liquid and adds three toasted coffee beans each. He’s getting his lighter from the counter, but I stop him before he sets the liquid on fire.
Normally I love watching the blue flames dance across the top, but today, I’m not patient enough for that.
I place one of the smooth glasses against my lips and tip it back. The liquid burns down my throat, the anise flavor strong on my tongue, turning slightly spicy when I chew the coffee beans. A tiny shudder runs through my body as the alcohol sets in, and I reach for the second glass.
“No coffee with it?” Matteo’s voice comes from behind me.
I stiffen at his words. It’s a normal question, and a valid one too since I sometimes prefer drinking my Sambuca in coffee rather than straight up, but anything that comes out of this man’s mouth would drive me up the wall right now. So I ignore him.
Instead of sitting next to me, like a normal, polite person who’s not supposed to know me intimately would, he squeezes between me and the barstool. His suit jacket brushes my naked forearm, eliciting goosebumps all over my skin.
Apparently, this man has never heard of a personal bubble before.
Trying my best to ignore him, I lift the shot glass and down it too, sending a tight-lipped grimace his way and crunching loudly on my coffee beans.
He lifts his eyebrows. “Ah, don’t be like that.”
A noise vibrates in my throat, and I’m slightly horrified that it sounds like a growl. Considering I’m about to rip his head off, it’s more than fitting, though.
It appears that he likes his stupid face on his shoulders because he doesn’t comment on the close resemblance to my feline spirit animal.
After a quick chat with the bartender, he grabs the tumbler of amber liquid he’s handed and takes a sip. “Just out of curiosity, is there something wrong with your cousin that you don’t want me to marry her?”
Wow.
The nerve of this man.
I snap my head around to look at him. No, I’m incapable of simply looking at him. I glare at him with such an intensity, he should wither under it.
Aware of the bartender and possibly other ears close by, I keep my voice low. “What the hell is wrong with you?”