6. GIULIA
“WHO’S CARLY?”
“Huh?”
When Steel eyed me like I’d lost my marbles, I just repeated,
“Who’s Carly?”
“We don’t have a Carly around here.”
Beside him, Link moaned as he took a bite of my pasta. “Fuck, this is good shit, Giulia. I mean, I think this might be better even than the damn steak.”
Steel’s brows rose. “You’re kidding me. Better than the steak?”
“Yeah.” As Link slurped up some more food, he moaned like he was having an orgasm, and even though I was used to hearing my brothers mid-sex, which was a level of TMI that I hoped few ever had to understand, my cheeks burned hotly at his reaction.
For the first time in my life, people were appreciating my food instead of just grunting at it or taking it for granted.
It was weird.
I liked it, liked that more than I liked cooking at any rate. At least it made it more bearable.
“Where’s mine?” Steel demanded, eying the pots in front of me with a hungry look that had inspiration hitting me.
“You don’t get any until you answer my question.” I tossed the pasta that I’d boiled for sixty seconds into the frying pan. As I let it get coated in the puttanesca sauce, I smiled at him. “Answers for food.”
“You do know that’s not how shit works around here, don’t you?” Steel growled, eying the bright red sauce as I flashed it in the pan, letting the homemade sghetti get drenched in it.
“Isn’t it? Far as I can see, I have a lot of hungry mouths to feed. First.”
He frowned. “I’m on the council!”
Link cackled. “She’s got you by the balls, dude. Just answer her.”
“A-Are you bribing me for my dinner?” Steel sputtered.
“Finally, he gets it.” Link grinned at me. “Can I have some more sauce?”
“Sure.” I reached over and ladled some into his dish. “There you go.”
He moaned again when he took another bite. “This stuff… it’s fishy. Why?”
“Anchovies,” I explained, but my attention was on Steel. Mostly because he’d messed with me yesterday in the council meeting.
I got the feeling Link would tell me who Carly was, but messing with Steel did no harm.
As far as I could tell, he and Link were the most easygoing of the council.
At least, I was hoping that was true. Or my ass was about to be tossed out, all because I wanted to know who the fuck Carly was.
I mean, it already stung my pride that I’d been on the watch out for an Old Lady called Carly just so I could eye up Nyx’s woman, but when that had revealed nothing, I knew I was left in the lurch.
I shouldn’t give a shit about whether he’d claimed a bitch or not, and yet, I really fucking did. Why, when the brother was a grumpy pain in the ass, I didn’t know, but tell that to the butterflies that took up residence in my stomach whenever he made an appearance.
Steel groaned. “I love anchovies.”
“I know,” I told him sweetly. “I heard your pizza order the other night.”
That wasn’t why I’d made the dish today, but it helped.
He folded his arms under his chest, and I knew he was thinking he could outwait me, so I called out, “Jingles—” God, I hated her. “I have the tray ready for Maverick.”
When I thought about the brother who, from what I’d heard, hadn’t left the clubhouse in years, I determined to bake him a cake all his own.
From my perusal, a perusal that had gone awry, he still needed fattening up, and if I had to cook, I might as well get it right.
I figured it was my service to the nation. Helping one military vet at a time.
Steel grunted as Jingles headed over and snatched the tray off the table the second I dished up the plate for the councilor. He didn’t even take the opportunity to study her ass, instead, he studied me as I poured more pasta into the boiling water in front of me.
“Did you really hand make that?”
“Yeah. I did.”
Because I was one part insane, and one part eager to impress.
He whistled under his breath as he watched me flash some more sauce into the pan. I was doing this individually because the councilors were served first, which meant I had ample time to torment Steel into answering me, as Nyx was usually the last one in to eat.
“There is no Carly around here,” Steel explained, his gaze on the sauce.
“Nyx has an Old Lady brand on his throat?—”
Link wagged a finger at me. “Nyx is off limits to little girls like you.”
That had me gritting my teeth. “I’m curious.”
“Been asking questions about all of us, have you?” Steel retorted, brows high in disbelief.
If my cheeks burned, then fuck it. “I’m curious,” I repeated.
They both snorted as they shot each other a look, then Steel’s smirk disappeared. “Carly’s his sister. She died a long time ago.”
“Oh.”
I hadn’t expected that answer, and it made my relief all the more awful.
It was weird to eye up a taken man, made me no better than a clubwhore. Still, I mourned for Nyx, even as I wondered why I didn’t remember Carly’s name.
Having been raised around here, I mostly recalled the kids of my generation and the Old Ladies. Nyx was a good fourteen years older than me, which put him in a different sphere, and while I remembered his name, and knew most of the council from memory, the details were vague.
And it irked me to no end that I didn’t want the details to be vague about him.
When Steel’s dinner was ready, I put on extra sauce and muttered, “Will that buy your silence?”
Link drawled, “Yeah. From Nyx. But if you think we’re not telling the rest of the council, you’re dumb.”
When they wandered off, equally sniggering and moaning, my lips twitched.
“What are you smiling at?”
The bark had me jerking in place, and I glowered at Nyx. Mostly because he was a dick, mostly because even though he was glaring right back at me, my stomach was in knots.
“Not a crime to smile, is it?” I sniped at him.
He studied Steel and Link’s backs. “What did they want?”
“Food,” I retorted waspishly. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
Squinting at me, he folded his arms across his chest. “What are we eating today?”
“Pasta puttanesca,” I mumbled.
When he tapped the floury Kitchen Aid mixer that stood in a place of pride on the counter, he asked, “This what you burst into our council meeting yesterday for?”
I nodded. “It makes it easier to cook.”
I’d only bought one in the end, but it was bigger than the one my mom previously had in her kitchen.
“In the future, ask me. Don’t be bothering the council with that shit.”
“Since when would the Enforcer need to get involved with this stuff?” I retorted.
“Since when does snatch interrupt a council meeting?”
My cheeks burned even as I heard a kernel of truth in his statement. “I wanted an expensive piece of kit. I wanted to go straight to the council to plead my case for it.” With that justified, I glared at him. “Don’t you dare call me that again. I’m not?—”
“You’re not what?” he challenged with a smirk that made me want to throat punch him.
“Don’t you dare tar me with the same label you give the other sluts around here.” I sniffed at him as I tossed pasta into the water, then got to work with his sauce.
Unlike with Steel and Link, I didn’t bother conversing with the prick. He’d gotten my back up. So why the fuck did I feel hot under the collar? Because I knew he was watching me? Because I could feel his eyes burning into me wherever they touched?
Jesus.
My flush had nothing to do with the heat from the stove.
But I hated that I was so weak. Weak in the face of his insults.
How could my body respond to him when my mind rejected everything that he was? Was I just a walking pussy? That fucking weak that I?—
I wasn’t like Mom.
I refused to be like her. Attracted to the danger, to the wildness in a brother. Enough that I left sense behind and threw caution to the wind.
When I almost threw the dish at him a couple of minutes later, I twisted instantly around so I was no longer facing him, and asked myself why my eyes were stinging with tears.
God, how stupid was I?
I heard his boots thumping against the floor, and relief filled me that he’d gone.
“Nyx is Cammie’s,” a voice sneered at me. “You need to back the fuck off.”
“She’s welcome to his disease-ridden dick,” I snarled back, twisting to look at the skank I knew was called Peach—the weirdo had dyed her hair that color. “What the fuck do you want anyway?”
“Food. What else, bitch?”
I glared at her. “You can make your own.” My top lip twisted into a snarl. “Unless you want me to spit in yours, that is.”
I wouldn’t. I wasn’t that gross, but she didn’t need to know that, and the sweetbutts all knew to act warily around me by now.
She narrowed her eyes on me. “You’ll regret talking to me like this. I’m Rex’s favorite.”
Snorting out a laugh, I scoffed, “I regret nothing, and I regret everything.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means I don’t give a shit if you’re his favorite or not. Fuck off.”
And with that, I returned to cooking because I still had a lot of men to feed, but I’d admit, I felt better after sniping at Peach.
Nyx’s words had, for some stupid reason, cut deep and that, along with this crazy need to know more about him, was something I had to cauterize now before the damage was too late.
Before I turned into my mom, and was left with a world of regrets.