Page 3 of Thorns of Silence
“I hate dating,” I said instead.
Understanding, or maybe even realization, flashed in her eyes, and she probably thought she’d uncovered something, a piece of the puzzle. In truth, she could have, and if she pulled at the thread hard enough, we’d get somewhere unpleasant.
But I was done with this conversation. The invisible door in my mind slammed shut as I flicked my attention back to the clock. Our time was up.Thank fuck.
The only reason I came back week after week was to honor the conditions of my probation after I smashed through a whole fucking bar. I could have made the issue disappear, but some moron had decided to live stream it.
I stood up and buttoned my jacket, glad to be done with today’s session.
“Until next time, Dr. Freud.”
TWO
DANTE
23 YEARS OLD
Cesar, my right-hand man, barged into the office of my club in Paris. l didn’t need to have the gift of clairvoyance to know trouble was on the horizon. I just didn’t think it would irrevocably alter my life. Not even amnesia could cure it.
Not this time.
“We have a situation at the bar,” Cesar announced, his tone cautious. “Someone roofied a girl, and her deaf sister is going ballistic.”
Deaf sister.
“The Romero girls,” my brother and I hissed at the same time. Amon jerked upright, pushing the laptop out of his way and scrubbing a hand down his face. Amon and I had been hopeful we’d draw in large crowds when we opened this club together. It was a perfect way to launder money—women, alcohol, drugs. What was there not to like? And while it remained an easy way to wash money, it was becoming increasingly… tiresome.
Reina, the curly blonde young woman with a sunshine attitude, could make you puke sun rays. Her sister, Phoenix, on the other hand, seemed to stick to herself and her own shadows. I hadn’t seen Phoenix since she was… What? Sixteen or so? I didn’t know much about Romero’s daughters, aside from the fact that they resembled each other, aside from one being blonde and the other dark-haired and deaf. There was never any reason or interest to learn more about them.
Although, I caught plenty of glimpses of Reina, thanks to my brother’s stalking.
“Who?”
“He didn’t touch her. Her sister and friends were there and on him.” Cesar was breathing harshly.
The way my older brother—by a mere few weeks, but he never seemed to let me forget it—jumped to his feet and bolted out the door should have been my first clue that he was beyond obsessed when it came to Reina Romero.
I recognized the signs even before he did himself.
“Are you sure she was roofied?”
Cesar shot me a wry look. “Yes, it’s pretty clear. And her friends went after Roberto to kick his ass.”
I cocked my eyebrow. I didn’t realize the Romero girls surrounded themselves with fighters.
As we made our way through the lounge and then into the club, the music pumping like it was 1999, the moment my eyes landed on her, my heartbeat stopped, then jump-started again like I’d been tasered.
Dark brown hair. The sweetest body I had ever seen. Skin that looked softer than butter even under the shallow lights of the club.
The images slammed into me, burning my skull and causing me to almost miss a step. A carefree girl with sapphire-blue eyes, dancing seductively around me, just out of reach. A temptress with soft lips that brushed against mine. Smiles that could melt polar ice caps. A melodious laugh that had the power to stop my fucking heart.
Why did it feel so fucking real?
I shook my head, chasing the images away. I’d never heard Phoenix Romero laugh. The last time I saw this girl, she was a scared-shitless teenager. It was clearly a dream, because she definitely wouldn’t have been dancing around me seductively.
In fact, this girl looked so sweet she could cause a toothache. She was as innocent as they came, and probably just as boring. Except, my dick didn’t seem to get that, fixated as it was on her sweet ass.
Down, boy.This wasn’t the girl for us. Romeros and Leones just didn’t mesh.
