Page 109 of Dance of Ruin

The headline is bad enough. The photos beneath it are ten times worse.

Nico and I, pressed against the brick wall in the alley next to Doomsday last night, his mouth on mine and my thigh pulled up to his hip.

Another of him leading me to his car, his hand on my lower back. The next of usmaking outin the car. The ones after that are him carrying me into his building, my legs around his waist, my arms around his neck.

Suddenly, I flick back to the group text and scroll up, scanning the messages in a panic.

Bianca’s not replying.

* * *

My heart is still slammingin my chest as I jump out of the Uber literally before it comes to a stop outside Bianca and Kratos’ East Village brownstone.

Fuck. She’s going to hate me.

That’s a cardinal friend rule, right? No hooking up with your friends’ siblings?

It’sabsolutelya rule, and I stomped all over it.

Lyra getting together with Carmine was different. Sort of. Carmine needed a wife in order to take over the throne from Vito and become don of the Barone family. Lyra needed money, so she crashed the “audition” that Carmine was holding to find someone that he’d pay to be said wife.

I’ve spent the cab ride over here trying to convince myself that’swayworse than my situation with Nico.Thatwas outright bamboozlement, and Bianca’s only worry was for Lyra, since Carmine is…well,Carmine.

I.e., a fucking psychopath.

Nico and I aren’t like that. Sure, there are some…darkerelements to it: the blackmail. The video. All of it.

Crap.

That opens up so many other cans of worms, and I quite honestly don’t know if I’ll ever be able to tell anyone about them all.

But without those mitigating circumstances, this is just me sneaking around with Bianca’s fucking brother behind her back.

Which officially makes me the worst friend on the planet.

I’m halfway up the steps to the brownstone’s front entrance when it opens.

Kratos fills the doorway as he stands there, barefoot in dark jeans and a gray henley shirt, smirking as I stumble to a breathless stop in front of him.

“Naomi,” he says, like he’s been expecting me.

“I—” I stammer. “I didn’t mean to—God, I didn’t even know—the pictures?—”

He holds up a hand.

“Relax,” he says. “She’s not upset.”

I blink. “She’snot?”

He chuckles—actuallychuckles—and leans against the doorframe.

“I think she just has some…questions.”

He gives me a pointed look.

“Ido, too. But talk to Bianca first.”

He steps aside, nodding toward the stairs.

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