Page 88 of Pitiful Lies

I am being dramatic, but I can’t help it. I finally admitted I am in love with the man. Even if only to myself.

And I get it. It’s my fault. My baggage. Completely on me.

My brain knows better than to love him. But my heart, well, my heart is a free spirit and loving him is the only thing that makes sense.

But the thing is, I wish, well, foolish as it is, I wish I was something more to him than a temporary thing.

“Okay. Well, it’s nice to meet you, Giselle. And let me say, wow, that dress looks stunning on you! Come on, let’s go say hello to Maggie,” she says, ignoring Angel and taking my hand.

I step out of Angel’s protective embrace to shake hers, but she starts dragging me along with her instead. I turn and see Angel frown, but I can’t just pull away from this woman.

It would be rude. And I think she must be a friend of the Vipers, or at least the other woman, Maggie, is. So, I just go with her.

Angel is following us, so I don’t worry too much about it. His expression is thunderous, but since that is his default, I have no idea what he’s upset about.

I walk along with Giovanna as she passes through throngs of people eating appetizers and drinking frosted shot glasses of dark liquid.

Whiskey, I believe.

I take one as I pass a server and toss it back. Giovanna shouts in approval and I giggle.

I don’t usually drink in strange places. But I’m with Angel. And really, I need some liquid courage.

I don’t really know what tonight is about, but it looks like my cousin’s wedding did a couple of years ago. There’s a bunch of people I don’t know, lots of food, drinks, and questionable music.

Everyone is decked out in their best, and I am glad to see I match the vibe. Angel, of course, is better looking than anyone else there. But that’s to be expected.

“Well, Giselle, are you ready to meet the guest of honor?” Giovanna asks, winking at me.

I don’t know why my hackles are raised, but they are. Still, I smile and nod at her. What choice do I have?

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT-ANGEL

My name is Angel Fury. Emphasis on my surname.

Yeah. It’s mine.

Some people think we made it up, Nico and me. But we didn’t.

Our family has a long history, and one of our great-aunts or something spent years tracing our roots back all the way to ancient Rome. She wrote a whole book about it, but it’s in Greek and I never got around to getting it translated.

Yiayia, our paternal grandmother, was born in Athens. She came to the states like most people during World War II from Greece.

Yiayia was quite the lady. She raised me after my parents died.

Oh, she was tough and loving. When Nico’s mother died of an overdose, how she wept for her daughter-in-law.

I am older than Nico, and maybe I remember things a little differently. Like the way she spoke Greek more often than not. It didn’t matter my mother was a mix of Italian, Irish, and Puerto Rican.

I was just like a million other people in this neck of the woods. The son of immigrants. A mix of all the rich cultures and ethnicities in this part of the world.

But to Yiayia, I was hers, and that was all that mattered.

She told me stories of where the name Fury came from. And I ate them up. Nico did, too.

The original three Furies are, of course, the daughters of the goddess Gaea. They deliver divine retribution, vengeance, raining justice on those who displease the gods.

It’s something we talked about often when he, Luc, and I started the Vipers. If you believed the stories, then our heritage is soaked in violence and vengefulness.

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