Chapter 4 #2
I hear my father say something about bringing one of our security team with him, but I’m too busy leading Contessa to the kitchen to pay attention to anything else.
While most of the time our family has important shit to do, there are always at least a few meetings about the most ridiculous bullshit every year.
“That was…” I mumble, and mime shooting myself in the head as I lean against the counter.
Contessa looks around the enormous kitchen, opening cabinets and getting everything she needs to make some tea.
“At least it didn’t involve blood and guns,” she tells me.
Her shoulders aren’t tensed up by her ears anymore.
She moves less cautiously and her voice isn’t like a mouse’s now that it’s just us in the kitchen.
“Blood and guns are the best part.” I grin at her.
She shakes her head. “I don’t know how you can enjoy this so much.”
“Enjoy what?” I ask, watching as she puts water in a kettle on the stove.
“Being a part of this…incredibly messed-up family. Knowing the things they do,” she says.
“I do them, too, Tess, and the only reason you don’t is because your soon-to-be wife does,” I remind her.
Her brow furrows. “I’m aware of that.”
“Bein’ the stay-at-home wife to a killer doesn’t make you any better than me.”
Contessa steps over to stand next to me. “I don’t think I’m better,” she promises me. “I just think you’re really traumatized and…coping differently.”
I snort. “We’re all fucked-up, baby girl,” I remind her. “You might be in a different way than me, but we’re all family, and we’re all stuck in this together.”
She cracks a smile. “That’s true. Look, I don’t hate our family, blood or found. But I want to do something different with my life.”
“So do it.” I wave a hand. “There’s nothing’ saying you can’t do what you want to do and still be part of the family. Use the system for your fucking benefit, Tessa.”
She purses her lips. “I guess.”
“You gotta toughen up. Use your voice. Don’t let your mom and my dad push you around.
Show them you can handle yourself and you don’t exist for them to use however the fuck they want,” I insist, my tone getting rougher with every word.
“You keep mousing around them, and they’re going to toss you around like a doll. ”
“I’m scared,” she admits. “You don’t understand what it’s like to be smaller, weaker…a woman.”
“No, I don’t, but I know if you talked to the others, like Lena and Pepper, they’d be there for you. They’re chicks and they’re tough as shit. They can help you pull yourself together and get what you want,” I tell her. “What is it you want, anyway?”
The kettle whistles and Contessa turns the burner off.
“I want to teach art,” she tells me. “Elementary school art, specifically.”
I nod slowly. “You can do that if you speak up. Fuck, they’ll even pay your way through college if you remind them how good a cover an art teacher is.”
“It wouldn’t be a cover, though,” she insists.
“They don’t need to know that.” I look toward the doorway to the kitchen to check that we’re still alone.
“What do you want?” she asks, turning to face me with her mug of tea in hand.
“What do you mean?”
She raises a brow. “Surely you’re not in college for business administration because you like it. Okay, you enjoy the drama and violence, but what do you want outside of that?”
I rub at the back of my neck for a moment. “Ah. This was about you, Tess.”
She laughs. “Yeah, sure.”
“At least tell me if you’re finally going to settle down,” she says.
“I think you’re covering that for me. You’re getting married and you’re barely nineteen,” I remind her.
She frowns at me. “It’s not just for the family, though. I know it seems like it, but I love Yvette. She’s…not what everyone thinks.”
I eye her. “Really?”
“Really. Maybe I wouldn’t choose to get married yet if we’d met in normal circumstances, but if I truly didn’t want to marry her, I wouldn’t. I promise.” She sips at her tea.
I narrow my eyes. “Well…congrats, I guess.”
“Whatever. You’re avoiding the question. Are there any guys you’re interested in? For more than just sex.” She shoots me a pointed look as she says the last bit.
I’m already smirking, having been prepared to answer her question crudely.
“Maybe,” I reply. My heart suddenly throbs, and I clear my throat. “Not sure yet.”
“Oh, I know that look.” She smiles. “It’s like the one Yvette gives me. The you’re mine , intense look.”
“Pfft. Careful sharing that, cousin. I have a lot of dirty details I could tell you,” I remind her.
She shakes her head. “No, no. No thanks. Just tell me about the guy.”
“Ethan,” I blurt out.
“Should I know him?” she asks.
“No. He’s a couple years younger than me, and he’s studying biochemistry. We…ran into each other,” I explain.
“And you remembered the word biochemistry, impressive,” she chuckles. “Ran into…normally, or in a one-night stand way?”
“If you can believe it, I haven’t even fucked him.” I put my hand up.
Her face flushes. “Ew, don’t say it like that! But…I am surprised,” she admits. “A guy who studies biochemistry doesn’t sound like your type.”
“You don’t know my type,” I snap.
“Well, no, because you’ve never actually dated anyone, only hooked up,” Contessa accuses. “But nerdy types who are serious about their work are the exact opposite of you.”
“I can be serious! I’m just serious about things that aren’t school.”
She shrugs and sips her tea.
“But you’re interested? Is he?” she asks.
“Interested isn’t a strong enough word,” I admit. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him. I know he’s interested, but he won’t admit it.”
“What are you going to do?” she asks.
I look away from her for a moment, thinking about Ethan’s posy pink face, his lithe hands, his lips…
“Make him mine.”
Ethan is one of the most dedicated students I’ve ever seen.
He gets up at the crack of dawn, and if he doesn’t have a class that morning, he’s in the library or at the coffee shop studying.
He helps teachers after class with cataloguing and grading.
He’s in the science lab doing projects that aren’t due for weeks.
Every single person he interacts with gets the same soft smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. He avoids meeting their gaze half the time, and doesn’t stay for long.
Except when he’s with Nathan.
He hangs out with Nathan Grenander more than Lena.
I’m sitting in my car outside the coffee shop, watching them through a window. They’ve been sitting at a small table with their laptops and notebooks spread out for three hours now.
I’m desperate to know what they’re talking about.
How long have they been friends? Why does Ethan look more comfortable with Nathan than his own girlfriend? I can guess the answer to that question, but I don’t like it. Jealousy flares even hotter in my chest.
I’m stalking Ethan. At this point I’m well aware of that, but I don’t give a fuck.
I’ve done far worse.
As I watch them smiling at each other and talking—probably about their homework and other nerdy shit—I can’t help but imagine what it would be like to walk in and pull Ethan to the side, to take him into the single bathroom in the coffee shop and push him face-first against the door.
God, what I wouldn’t give to yank his jeans down and reveal his ass, to see how perfect and tight it is, to fuck him raw until he’s screaming and panting, unable to breathe, unable to think.
I’d yank his head back by his hair, bite his ear, his neck, claiming him with my teeth until I taste his blood.
Saliva pools in my mouth as my cock hardens.
Maybe I’d make Nathan watch. I could clear the whole café out and tie the fucker to a chair with his own clothing, then make him watch me ream his best friend’s ass over one of the tables…
Better than the other thing I want to do—feel the life flood out of him under my hands while I tell him that Ethan is mine .
Stop looking at him like that.
The honking of a car in the parking lot abruptly brings me back to reality. I shift in my seat and look in my rearview mirror. They aren’t honking at me, so I turn my attention back to the front window.
I’m tempted to go inside when my phone buzzes on the passenger seat, and like most days, family duties call me away.