Page 75 of Tide of Treason
I flipped her a glare and flagged down the bartender. “One ginger ale, please. No booze.”
She shot me a look of mild surprise and leaned in, asking quietly, “You on the wagon?”
I wasn’t yet, but I might as well get a head start.
“Something like that.”
Viviana tugged me through the crowd. Her lips moved, words buried under the drum in my ears. Across the floor, Lucius was being mauled by Maya and Amara, the Brazilian sisters who’d made a sport out of testing my patience. Amara’s hand slid over his chest, and something ugly twisted in my jaw. A flashfire burn crawled up my spine, shameful and sour. I pulled out my phone, found Vito’s name, stabbed the call with my thumb.
“Yeah?” his gruff voice rumbled.
“Get those two off him. Now.” I didn’t bother with pleasantries. Sicilian required none. I hung up before he could ask why.
After peeling herself off Lucius’s chest long enough to adjust her boobs, Amara slunk back into the fray. The relief was a mirage when, mid-twirl, her stiletto wobbled and she slipped, skidding a foot down his thigh before catching herself on his belt buckle. Vito grabbed her wrist and yanked her upright, shoving her toward the bar with a scowl that said he’d rather be doing anything else.
The cake came out around midnight. Three tiers, blackand gold, adorned with intricate sugar roses. Candles flickered against the low lighting, a halo of warmth I didn’t deserve. I stared at them for a beat longer than necessary, stomach twisting. The usual make a wish was implied and expected, but my only wish was already imprinted in my body, growing like a secret I’d have to carry until it either killed me or set me free.
I blew them out anyway.
Applause echoed. Someone muttered a remark about me not looking thirty, which was nice of them. I sliced into the cake, handed the first piece to Sophia, who squealed and smeared frosting on Francesco’s cheek. Lola was playing the saintly mother card hard tonight. Impossible to picture her hustling on my club’s stage until her daughter came along and turned her into someone who could soothe a sugar-crazed kid into submission. A good mother, sure, except for those hallway blowjobs I’d walked in on one too many times. But hey, we all have our coping mechanisms in this family.
The bassline faded to a dull pulse, and I slipped away when the attention waned, heels clicking a sharp retreat across the marble, past the grand staircase, toward a quieter place where I could think.
Thinking didn’t happen.
Lucius happened.
He sat on the steps leading to the raised platform where the musicians played earlier. The man was too much to look at when he was like this. A study in contradictions; an open book with no clear ending, written in a language I’d only half-learned. He was staring at the floor, rubbing an absent hand upand down the curls at the back of his head, lost in thought, his thumb catching on a tangle every few passes. A small tic of frustration flitted across his face, just for a second, before he exhaled, slow and measured.
I recognised that sigh.
Back on the pills, then.
“Did Elara tell you to take them?”
A beat. Then, his eyes flicked up, locking onto mine. The blue of a war-torn ocean.
“She told me if I kept going the way I was, I’d be dead before I hit thirty.” A humorless smile. “Figured that was a bit dramatic.”
“Why now?” My question stuck somewhere in my chest, because I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer. The more I understood him, the harder it became to pretend I didn’t care, and caring was a gateway drug worse than the ones he swallowed.
Lucius leaned back, arms resting on the steps behind him, expression gone quiet. Thoughtful. “Lieve.” He dragged a slow hand down his face, thumb lingering against his bottom lip before dropping into his lap. “And Sophia, I guess. Don’t want to traumatise your niece by OD’ing in your family home.”
There it was—a brutal little punch, right beneath my breastbone. He never did play fair.
Not trusting my voice, I reached over and tugged on that curl, the one he’d been fussing with. It uncoiled under my touch, springy and soft. At the foot of those steps, his headtucked beneath my chin, strand trapped between my fingers. I twisted it and he hummed when it tugged against his scalp. That single, low noise set a flame beneath my skin, hotter with each passing second.
“Has anyone told you how much you mess with your hair?” I asked.
“Mmm.” Lids half-closed. “Mãe used to say the other kids would call me a girl.”
“Did they?”
“Not when I hit my growth spurt. They knew I’d beat them worse than their pa’s.”
I tried not to smile. Failed. On the contrary, there was something oddly charming about the idea of my prince of darkness with his fists full of violence and a soft spot for vengeance. He was so irrevocably himself and the honesty of it stroked a very inconvenient place beneath my ribs.
“Coglione,” I breathed, mostly on principle.
