Chapter 15
LELANI
The more he holds me pressed to his chest, the warmer my skin gets, and the quicker the lines blur between a simple dance and foreplay.
I slide my eyes to the entrance of the house when I notice Sylvia.
Her stare floats over the crowd as she’s probably looking for me.
I let Paxton know that we might get interrupted at any moment now.
“Is it your family again?” he murmurs, unaffected.
“Mm-hmm.”
“Do they keep an eye on you at all times?”
He seems amused. I’m not.
“It looks like it.”
Just as I finish saying that, Sylvia heads our way.
“Let’s go our separate ways for now,” I say. “I don’t want her on my back because I’m dancing with you.”
The song comes to an end just as he glances over his shoulder and notices the sparkling silver evening gown sliding through a group of people.
“As you say,” he murmurs, a little pissed.
Ignoring his reaction, I walk toward my grandmother.
“Any new developments?” I ask, irony dripping from my voice. “Anyone ready to propose to me?”
“No need to be sarcastic,” she says, her eyes checking the crowd behind me. “Who was that?”
Studying the scowl on her face, I shrug.
“A guest, I guess,” I say, entertained by the play of words.
Her eyes come back to me rather abruptly, her mask removed.
“Listen to me, Leilani,” she pushes through her teeth.
“Whatever you want to accomplish with this rebellious attitude won’t work.
It won’t change your future. You need to behave for once.
You need to at least pretend that you're marriage material. One of the men you saw in our house today might be your future husband.”
A smirk filled with contempt tugs at my lips as I yank my arm out of her grip.
“You’re right about that. One of them will be my husband one day, and he’ll need to accept me for who I am. Do you think I’ll magically morph into a purring kitten? This shit that you’re trying to pull on me hasn’t worked on Bianca. What makes you think it will work on me?”
Her eyes narrow with dark outrage.
She attempts to grip my arm again, and I fight back hard, unwilling to let her treat me like I’m a little girl.
Irritated with how quickly our conversation has gone sour, and how a few bystanders are looking at us, she leans closer to me and speaks next to my ear.
“This is not a silly game, Leilani. Your mother ended up six feet underground because she played stupid and wasn’t able to make a smart decision a single time in her life.
You are so concerned with what your future looks like?
Let me give you some advice. Learn quickly and stop being difficult.
You either play by our family rules, or you end up dead.
There is no in between. I hope I’m clear on that,” she says, straightening and running a hand over her dress before offering me a fake smile.
“Stop behaving like a slutty, little spoiled brat. That’s all I’m saying. ”
With that, she glares at me in conclusion and moves away. Chewing on my lip, I watch her find her way back to the house.
I hate these people.
Slutty, little spoiled brat.
Who even talks like that?
As soon as she vanishes behind a group of people, I know exactly what I need to do.
Dragging my eyes around, I locate Paxton.
He nurses a drink.
What’s new, really?
I need another drink myself, so I signal a server, and soon after, I get a glass of bourbon and head to Paxton.
We barely reconnect and start flirting, this time with way more alcohol in our blood, when I notice how distracted he has become.
He looks over my shoulder several times, so I turn around and spot Callum.
Talking to one of his men, he keeps an eye on us.
Perfect, says the little devil inside my head.
I loop an arm around Paxton’s neck, throw my head back, and press every inch of bare skin against him, a big smile on my face.
Instantly distracted, he tilts his eyes down, taking me in. All of me. Luscious lips, pearly white teeth, eyes burning with a fever, boobs almost spilling out, squished against his hard torso.
His stare slides lower, although there isn’t much to see, but there’s a lot to feel.
My lower abdomen is pressed against his groin, and just like that, the hard contour of his manhood is no longer a secret contained to his pants.
The second I arch and push myself against his hard on, his eyes flicker with delight, and right there and then, I see with sharp clarity how much he’d like to fuck me.
I’ve seen that look many times before, in situations that were hardly appropriate, on men who had no business being close to me.
“You wanna go in the back?” I ask. “We can dance in private,” I murmur, a soft smile on my lips.
“Private?”
He cocks an eyebrow in disbelief.
“There are fewer people in there. No one will interrupt us,” I go on, paying close attention to the shift of light in his eyes.
He’d rip my clothes open with his teeth if he could.
He’d probably fuck me here in the middle of the crowd if it weren’t for the real possibility of getting a bullet in his head.
He must be aware of the risks as he lifts his gaze and looks toward the house.
He might feel obligated to respect certain rules.
Rules imposed by Callum, who else?
Is Paxton one of them?
Is he close to Callum?
Who cares?
It makes no difference to me.
“I need to talk to him first,” he says, looking at me.
He doesn’t even think it’s necessary to tell me who he is. He assumes I know.
Weird.
I do know that Paxton and I are concerned about the same man, for different reasons, though.
“Sure. Go. I’ll wait,” I say softly, lifting my drink to my lips and slowly tilting it so he can watch the amber liquid roll inside my mouth and drip and smear my lips.
He seems fascinated with my mouth as I flick the tip of my tongue out and collect that bourbon, making sure I lick my lips in the end.
His hard cock twitches against my abdomen, and I couldn’t be happier with how things unfold.
If I’m going down, let’s make it a big event. I can’t wait to crash and burn.
CALLUM
I watch him walk away and mingle with the crowd.
I’m not convinced that he’s convinced that messing with Leilani Gallo is a dangerous thing.
I’m not convinced he has the mental capacity to assess risk and make a smart decision now.
She’s obviously ignited his imagination, making my warnings to him fall on deaf ears.
I couldn’t be more blunt than I was.
Paxton knows about the Gallos and that there’s no love lost between them and me.
He doesn’t know everything, for obvious reasons. No one does.
He is one of my few friends, as I said before.
I wouldn’t call him my best friend––I don’t believe in having anyone that close to me anyway––but he’s not my enemy.
Paxton and I have done business many times before.
He knows me from before I became a fixture in the Gallo family.
He is acquainted with the straightforward, often harsh side of me. The man who’s fair in business, and fearless and feared in any kind of war.
We’ve never shared trite details about women over a glass of scotch, although at times we’ve crossed paths and found ourselves seeking the company of the same ladies.
That’s not the case here.
This is way more complicated than him chasing some skirt, looking for some good time.
This is not the place or time.
He is familiar with the world I’m living in, and normally, he doesn’t get involved with these people, staying away from them as much as he can, avoiding the unsavory aspects that no one particularly likes.
He’s smart enough not to get killed over a woman, but when the woman in question is Leilani Gallo, all bets are off somehow.
Just now, he looked at me with glassy eyes as I explained to him that her family is a vipers’ nest, and their precious heiress is as mad as, if not worse than, her late mother.
At least Bianca Gallo came with some life experience.
She did stupid things, but her family was quick to fix what their beloved daughter savagely destroyed.
That’s not the case here.
Leilani Gallo has no one on her side.
Her family regards her as some pesky liability they have no need for or care for.
Bianca was stubborn and entitled all her life, but had a large variety of ways to cope with her frustrations.
Can’t say the same about her daughter.
The more I ponder her childish ways, the more I get lost in a storm of dark emotions.
As a rule, I wouldn’t glance in her direction, and most of the time, I’d ignore her.
I wouldn’t feel either way about her.
Up until tonight, I never looked at her straight.
I know the crazy power women like her have.
It's nicely tucked between their legs and lodged between their ears.
What their brains might not easily extract from you, their flesh could surely summon, and sometimes, it's the other way around.
For some inexplicable reason, it kills me to see her make a fool of herself.
It also gives me satisfaction.
I could watch the Gallos dance around her crazy fire all day long, getting tripped up over and burned down by the antics of their own granddaughter.
Having her run the show is a spectacle in itself, and seeing them grind their teeth might be cheap satisfaction, yet it still works for me.
On that note, the enemy of my enemy should be my friend, but there’s a problem with that in this case.
At the end of the day, Leilani Gallo is still my enemy.
She’s their flesh and blood.
She may be adamantly against them, but she’s no better than them, and her loyalties, if they exist, surely lie with them.
It’s not only that.
There’s something about this woman.
Aside from her infinite capacity for fucking with my plans, ruining them with her clownish silliness, she and I could not be more different.
No matter how much I enjoy her screwing with the patriarch and matriarch of this family, I can’t take her bold yet erratic moves lightly.
I’m still here, looking forward to getting my revenge, in no mood to babysit her, or watch her destroy herself, while changing the dynamic of this family even more.
And probably for the worse.
This spoiled woman has no idea what she’s dealing with here.
She thinks life is all rainbows and unicorns; she can get men hard and then walk away from them with a smile on her face.
She believes she can stop her family from setting her up with a new husband, as they feverishly search for a powerful mobster to expand their powers.
I know what they’re up to.
The old Gallo is no fool.
He doesn’t want to rely on me too much, and I can’t blame him.
I’m just as careful in watching them because her husband might change the entirety of the chessboard.
So I need to pay attention to the little brat, not to mention that I tense up every time I see her doing stupid shit.
I don’t want to believe I might care about her.
I refuse to believe that.
Never in my life have I paid attention to anything other than how to preserve my power and stay alive.
That’s all that mattered.
But things might change tonight, I muse as I’m watching Paxton head straight to where she vanished moments ago.
So much for my brotherly advice.
He learned nothing from what I just said to him.
He may be drunk, but that’s still a lame excuse for his behavior.
He may also be irremediably lost to a chimera, an illusion dipped in blood.
We’ll see.
Grinding my teeth, I set my drink down and stalk away, determined to stop the disaster that is about to happen.