Page 8 of Corrupted Heart

I’ll deal with the fact that she and Irena left me there later.

That, and the last text she sent me last night that I never replied to:

Alicia

What about the duffle bag

I have no idea how much money seven bricks of cocaine is worth. But I feel like it might be a lot. That’s between Alicia and Grisha, though.

“What are you all doing here?”

Carmy shrugs. “I was nearby this morning.”

I roll my eyes. “Did you catch her name at any point?”

“Har, har, har,” he drawls. “I was nearby on business, brat. Besides,” he grins. “You know I never actually sleep over.”

“Such a gentleman.”

Carmy snickers as he turns to Dad. “Back me up here, Pop.”

Vito lifts his shoulders. “I mean, sometimes, the ladies… They want you to stay over, you know? A little cuddling, a little pillow talk…”

I make a face and cover my ears. “Oh my God, I am not listening to this.”

Nico laughs and nods his chin at Dante. “I was with this guy. He wanted to show dad the new online portal for Venom.”

Dante is the owner and operator of Club Venom, an ultra-exclusive, members-only club that caters mostly to New York’s most dangerous and elite…and, frankly, most deviant. On the surface, it’s an ultra-cool club decorated somewhere between the glamor of the roaring twenties and the sultriness of Eyes Wide Shut.

It also happens to be a place where its members can act out different, usually fairly aggressive kinks. Names are discouraged, everyone wears these sort of Venetian carnival masks, and members sport different colored wristbands advertising what they’re into.

Or…so I’ve been told. Obviously, I’ve never been. Not because I don’t want to go, but because Dante is a tyrant and the world’s most over-protective older brother in the universe who still treats me like I’m seven. Which means I’m forbidden from entering Club Venom.

I’ve heard of this online portal thing before, though. Dante and Tempest had this idea a few months ago to make some kinks available to…off-site participation.

My skin tingles as I rake my teeth over my bottom lip.

By “some kinks” I mean “my kink”. One of them, anyway. The biggest one.

Primal play.

Being chased and caught. Being forced down and taken, roughly, with or without consent.

There might be more than a few things wrong with me, but I digress.

“Getting your rocks off via the internet,” Vito sighs, shaking his head ruefully. “Hell of a time we live in.”

Nico shakes his head. “Dad apparently has never heard of Tinder.”

“Wanna bet?”

Even my brothers blanch this time, gagging as they laugh. Vito and his wife, Giada Barone, were never exactly a normal couple. They were either at each other’s throats, or in bed with each other—or, more frequently, in other people’s beds. I honestly don’t need to know the specifics of their relationship at all.

But given all that, Giada was pretty frequently out of the picture, sometimes for months on end. When I say Vito raised Claudia, Dante, and I alongside his sons, I really do mean that Vito did. I loved Giada, and of course I mourned when she died six years ago. But she and I were not nearly as close as I am with my dad.

Vito laughs, waving us all off before patting his chest. “Hey, I’m old, not dead. And if there’s still lead in the pencil?—”

“Jesus Christ, Pop,” Nico makes a gagging face. “Let’s never mention the fucking lead in your pencil ever again, yeah?”

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