Page 13 of As the World Falls

Her eyes blink quickly as her nose scrunches up. “Your place?”

“My place. As in the club that I own.”

“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me,” she huffs out. “You own this club?”

I tilt my head curiously as I look at her. “If you didn’t know I owned the club, why are you here? I assumed you were spying on me.”

She rolls her eyes, and the act makes me want to latch onto her chin and force them to stay locked with mine. “As if I wanted to spend my night watching you. I came here to see my brother.”

“But your brother doesn’t know you’re here, does he?”

She shrugs. “I like to surprise him. It’s what sisters do.”

“Well, not in my place of business. I thought I told you that before.”

“What kind of business is this place? I thought it looked like a strange private matter was going down upstairs. And here I thought people only came to party and act foolish.”

“I assure you the only person acting like a fool here is you. What I do in my club is none of your business.”

“But what my brother does is, and whatever was happening upstairs seemed suspicious. In fact, I’m going to get my brother now,” she challenges, hopping off the stool. Something in my stomach flips, burning like acid, and I latch onto her wrist, yanking her back to me.

Her breath escapes her in a gasp as she flies towards me, her hands bracing herself against my chest. Something in my throat feels constricted as her small hands touch me. I couldn’tremember the last time I’d been touched in such an intimate spot by a woman, and the fact that she was now gripping my shirt sent a charge through me that consisted of a mixture of irritation and desperation. The latter being a feeling I wasn’t used to. I chalked it up to the fact that she wasn’t the usual kind of woman who would try to have her hands on me, nor was I used to having to restrain women from interfering with my business. It felt…startling—another foreign feeling.

Her fingers uncurl from my shirt and fan out over my chest as she steadies herself, and I keep my glare fixed on her, looking down at her like she was a pest in my club. “Let me make something clear to you,” I growl. “This is my world, Cecilia, and you don’t fit into it. It doesn’t matter if your brother does. You don’t. My world is a maze not meant for people like you to get lost in. So, I suggest you turn back while you’re ahead, or you won’t like what you find inside.”

She rips her hands from me, and I grin down at her as I let go of her wrist with a little more vigor than I intended. “You see, when you say things like that, it makes me want to keep going. I don’t want my brother to get tied up in whatever dangers lie within your world.”

“Despite your belief, your brother can handle himself, and I keep him close. You may not like me, which is fine because I don’t like you, but I care about your brother and do my best to ensure he doesn’t come into harm’s way.”

“Why would he come into harm’s way if you’re just a simple jewelry business?” she fires back, and I’ll admit, I’ve said too much that has probably made her more suspicious. She was making my head burn, and I was losing my usual resolve around her, and it was pissing me off.

I step closer to her, my chest nearly touching hers, and she doesn’t move this time, only looks back up at me, matching my frustration. “Money brings a lot of enemies. Now, leave mybusiness alone. You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into. I don’t have patience for people who defy me. Keep that in mind.”

“I think…” she taunts, pretending to think hard about it, “I think I’m going to go dance,” she finishes, giving me one last smile before turning back into the crowd and disappearing into it.

I snatch my drink off the bar and swallow it whole as I watch her enter the center of the dance floor and begin dancing alone, although I feel it won’t be long before someone tries to fill that space.

Her hair whips around her like an enticing tornado, and her hips begin sashaying to the rhythm of the music. I can’t help but stare as she lights up the dance floor, noticing everyone else’s gaze is on her, too, because she is so out of place yet undeniably alluring. I think for the first time in my life that I’ve met a witch because I’ve never met someone so suddenly infuriating and enthralling all at once.

I spot Alessandro leaving the club, and the next thing I know, Tobias is at my side after grabbing a drink from the bar and blowing out a hard breath. “That guy is intense,” he tells me.

“You’ll never meet a made man that isn’t,” I tell him truthfully, still never taking my gaze away from his sister.

“What are you looking at?”

“An infestation,” I say, nodding toward Cecilia, satisfaction brewing in my gut. I knew she was about to be roasted by her brother the second he saw her.

He follows my line of sight and slams his drink aggressively onto the bar countertop. “Mother fucker,” he snarls, a particular irritation in his tone I’ve never heard before. It sounded tired and annoyed, and I could highly relate to it at the moment.

He barrels into the crowd toward her, and I watch, amused, as he shoves a man away from her who tried to dance with her,and then she shoves him in the chest despite it not moving him an inch. They seem to be in a screaming match now, but I can’t hear anything over the music. The dynamic between them was interesting to me, and I found myself becoming more curious about them. I tend to have a possessive streak and always liked having Tobias to myself, considering we spent most of our days every day together. I assumed he’d had no one else as I did, but it turns out he does have someone, and it makes me wonder now how much of his thoughts she takes up and what’s more important to him.

Labyrinth Crystals or her.

If there was one thing that I knew, it was that Cecilia was worried about her brother. Although I can’t relate to that feeling or begin to describe how it feels to worry over someone, I figured she had every right to feel that way. We did have a hand in dangerous work, but we’ve always managed to avoid life-or-death situations, although there have been a couple of close calls. The last thing I wanted was for her to come here and ruin everything he and I have built together.

Later, when I arrive home, I’m only inside my apartment for less than ten minutes before I get a knock on the door. I glance at the clock, finding it to be after midnight. I walk to my kitchen, pulling my gun from a hidden compartment under the kitchen island and holstering it into the back waistband of my pants. Late-night visitors weren’t a common thing for me. Life without enemies wasn’t common for me either, so I cautiously went to the door and braced one hand behind me as I opened it.

Tobias’s eyes lock with mine the second he comes into view, and I relax, opening the door wider now as he walks past me.

---