5. Elio
ELIO
Isa was back at Valentino’s apartment.
At least this time, Valentino had the good sense to not bring any of his conquests with him. He would do better to just go to the women’s houses from now on.
Isa looked up at us as soon as the doors opened. “Hi,” she said, smiling sheepishly, as if she thought Valentino might be angry she was here again. She should know she had her brother wrapped around her little pinkie.
He brightened and walked over to her, wrapping her in his arms in a big bear hug, and nearly engulfing her whole.
Something uncomfortable shifted inside me. Fuck, but had she always looked so… fragile?
A small ache started around my chest, and I didn’t know what to do about it. Maybe it was because I had watched her grow up, but it felt like something was… off with her, and I didn’t know what it was. Something was different.
Her light-blue eyes didn’t seem as bright today as they usually did, and she didn’t seem to have any color on her face.
She still looked beautiful, just… off. And I didn’t know what to make of it.
Today, she wore a black turtleneck shirt that molded perfectly to her figure, paired with dark blue jeans.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” she said, her eyes moving briefly over to me before turning back to her brother once more.
“Of course not,” Valentino said. He leaned down and whispered something in her ear. She avoided eye contact with me.
Things hadn’t been the same between us since that night she made her confession. Sometimes, I wished she hadn’t said anything in the first place. But I wasn’t oblivious. I had suspected something months before that, hoping it would go away on its own.
Now… I wasn’t sure how I was feeling or what the fuck I wanted anymore.
Fuck.
When they pulled away, both siblings turned and looked at me.
“Were you guys planning on doing something tonight?” Isa asked, nibbling on her bottom lip.
I shook my head. “Just have a few beers and watch the game.”
Valentino shot me a grateful look. Not that he needed to.
We had planned to come back to Valentino’s apartment to have a few beers and bounce ideas off each other on what to do about the Devil’s Wings MC.
They were getting braver, considering one of the grocery stores owned by the famiglia had been ransacked that morning.
The store had been a front for us to use food cans to move drugs in and out of the country.
Luckily, the damages weren’t substantial, but it still pissed me the fuck off.
That plan was now pushed back. It wasn’t like we would ever discuss business in front of Isa.
And this had nothing to do with whether or not we trusted her, and everything to do with the fact that Isa was too innocent to hear anything we might say.
Valentino certainly thought so, and I wholeheartedly agreed with him.
But that meant there was nothing for me to do here.
I should leave. Make up an excuse and go, letting them have this night to themselves. But there was a part of me that didn’t want to leave, and I didn’t know why that was.
Isa suddenly smiled brightly, and for some reason, I could feel my heart reacting to it. I looked away from her for a moment, my eyes clashing with Valentino’s as she said, “Since you guys don’t have much of a plan, I have an idea on what we can do.”
“You do, huh?” Valentino said dryly, his tone of voice indicating he already didn’t like whatever she had planned.
She nodded. “We go to a bar.”
“Absolutely not,” I said at the same time Valentino said, “Hell no.”
Isa seemed taken aback by our outbursts. She frowned, her eyes moving from her brother to me. My lips twitched with the urge to smile. Did she think that frown was going to scare us into giving her what she wanted? There was no way in fucking hell I would ever let Isa step foot into a bar.
“Why not?” she asked.
I looked at Valentino. He should take the lead on this. It didn’t look like he knew how to answer her, or at least, didn’t know how to answer her in a way that she would find acceptable.
“Please. It’s not like I could just go to a bar by myself, like other women my age.”
She placed a lot of emphasis on the word “women,” and I got it.
With the kind of family she grew up in, there wasn’t a lot of freedom for her.
Not like how it was for other people. Giulia was the same way.
While she understood, I knew there was a small part of her that resented that.
But there was nothing I could do except take my sister out when I could, giving her some pretense of freedom.
I didn’t blame Isa for wanting the same thing. But a bar ?
She turned to Valentino, who still looked like he didn’t know what to say to her.
He felt guilty over how little freedom she had, and Isa could see that and pounced on it.
“It would be completely safe. You will be there.” She turned and looked at me briefly.
“So would Elio. I just want to see how it is.”
“You know how it is,” Valentino said, shooting her a pointed look. When she was younger, Isa was known to sneak out in the middle of the night and go off to wherever the hell she wanted. She was still too fucking young, but at least she wasn’t doing that shit anymore.
I lost count of how many times Valentino and I went out searching for her in the middle of the night, in a place known as Sin City.
“And it has been a long time. When was the last time you were in a bar?” she asked.
Valentino didn’t answer her right away. He couldn’t because the answer was last week.
“Please. You won’t let anything happen to me. I will be completely safe.” She looked from Valentino to me, her eyes staying. She had the “puppy eyes” perfected, and I felt my heart pinch.
“Maybe we can go for an hour or two,” I said.
Valentino shot me a look. I raised my hands and backed away a little. He shook his head as Isa tugged on his arm. “Tino.”
He let out a small sigh. “Fine. But you are not to stray from Elio’s or my side. Got it?”
Her smile widened, and again, that fucking pinch in my heart started. Her eyes moved around from her brother to me, then back to her brother, as a mischievous glint shone in them. “Got it.”
She didn’t fucking get it.
I frowned and watched as she made her way over to the bar top. I lost count of how much she had to drink, but it was obviously more than she could handle, considering she was stumbling.
I turned to Valentino, but the fucker wasn’t focused on his sister.
He was eyeing a redhead across the room.
And I knew he drank more than he should have.
Not enough to fuck with his judgment, but enough that he wasn’t paying as much attention to his sister as he should.
My grip tightened around the neck of my beer bottle before I took a huge sip, my eyes moving back to Isa.
I nearly spit out my beer when I realized she wasn’t trying to get another drink, but was attempting to climb up on the bar top, with a few encouragements from some of the fuckers around.
I stood without thinking, moving over to her.
I grabbed the back collar of the fucker who was holding out his hands to help her up and yanked him back.
He stumbled and nearly fell, turning his angry eyes over to me until he got a good look at my face.
He relaxed his expression and held his hands out in front of him, backing away from me.
The other men around caught on and, lucky for them, backed away from Isa as well.
I wrapped my arms around her hips and pulled her back down, holding her against me. She let out a surprised squeak before it turned into anger.
“Hey, let go of me.”
I leaned down until my lips touched her ear, trying hard to ignore the floral scent on her skin, and said, “Calm down. It’s me.”
She froze in my arms for a beat before twisting her head around to look at me.
Our eyes met, and I didn’t fucking know why it felt like something was tugging on my heart, as if trying to get this useless organ to plummet deep down into my stomach.
I took in a huge inhale and walked us back to the table.
“I can walk,” she said quietly.
“Considering I’ve been watching you stumble around this bar for the past ten minutes, I don’t think that’s true.”
She let out a small gasp in outrage, causing me to smile, before I quickly schooled my expression.
“It’s the shoes,” she said. “They’re… unstable.”
“Your shoes are unstable?” I asked, glancing down at them. She had on black tennis shoes. They looked comfortable. And very stable.
She didn’t respond.
When we reached the table, Valentino looked up, his eyes narrowing as he took in his sister and me.
“Elio, man. Why are you holding my sister?” His tone was casual enough, but I could hear the tension in his voice.
I tightened my grip on her briefly before depositing her on the seat.
I pointed at her when it looked like she was about to move out of it.
“Don’t even think about it. Your ass is to be planted firmly in this chair, and you’re not moving until you get some water and food inside of you.
” I turned to Valentino. “She was trying to climb up on the bar top. With encouragement from some very enthusiastic fuckers.”
Valentino’s eyes widened as he turned from me to his sister. “What the fuck?”
Isa crossed her arms over her chest and pouted a little. “It was just a silly little bet.”
“A silly little bet?” Valentino repeated. “Who made the bet with you?”
Yeah, I would like to fucking know. I turned to Isa.
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Something told me she knew and just didn’t want to tell us. She grabbed the beer bottle I had set on the table and was about to take a sip when I pulled it out of her hand.
“Hey, I was drinking that,” she said.
“Don’t fucking drink anything that’s been left unattended in a public place,” I gritted out.