40
LUCA
“ F ontana!”
I march across the courtyard so hard and fast that my heels hurt in these damn dress shoes. Whoever said ‘fashion is pain’ wasn’t lying.
“Fontana!” Levi calls after me again.
“Fuck off, Marchese!”
“Hey!”
I’m suddenly tugged backward by my jacket, spun around and pinned to the SUV.
“You don’t get to take it out on me, got it?” There’s a level of pain in his eyes that I can’t quite discern what put it there.
“You don’t get it!”
“Oh I get it! We all fucking get it. We don’t need a reminder that it could have been Sera in Gio’s place, but it’s not. So stop harping on about that shit because she needs us right now, not your fucking questions.”
I grip his jacket, effectively slamming him against me. “I have to know! I have to know what the fuck she was thinking because it doesn’t make sense. If she had stayed inside, with us…”
“I know! Fuck! But we can’t think about that right now.”
“Then what?”
“You can be such a fucking idiot sometimes,” he grinds out.
I’m trying to keep all my composure at the insult thrown at me, but between my heart thundering against my chest and Levi’s closeness, it’s getting fucking hard.
“Don’t you get it?” Levi shouts at me, his hot breath hitting my face.
No, I don’t get it. I don’t understand why the hell she would leave the party without telling us, risking her own fucking life over some stupid disagreement with her father.
“She’s repeating the same fucking day!” Levi’s grip on my shirt tightens. We’re just a breath away from one another, our anger fueling the proximity. “She can’t lose him!”
“ I can’t lose her !” I scream.
My lungs fight for breath, fight for a calmness I’ll never get, yet I start to feel the storm wither away when I look into Levi’s eyes. They’re brimming with heat, and I’m not sure how we even got here.
Our eyes lock for a moment, an uneasy sensation washing over me. He’s so close that I can see the faint scar above his brow. How am I just noticing that?
Before I have time to figure out what is happening, our mouths slam together.
I don’t know who starts it, I’m not even sure either of us are to blame. But the fire in my gut tells me this feels right. And the fact Levi doesn’t push me away tells me he’s feeling the same.
My heart pounds to a new rhythm, one I’ve never experienced before. My body perks up to a new tune, one that calls to me. It’s like my body has been playing one song on repeat, and now that I’ve dared to play a different song, I’m enjoying it just as much.
Levi cups my face between his palms, deepening the kiss until our breaths mingle and the anger dissipates. He cages me in so tightly that it actually feels safe, it actually feels like all my problems have diminished, leaving nothing but dust in its wake.
I press my lips more greedily against his, and Levi complies, pushing his hard body against mine. And I mean hard. I can feel every ridge of his chest, abs and cock press against me as our tongues move, sliding seamlessly against one another. It’s almost as if we’ve been doing this dance for years. It feels natural, superlatively perfect. It shouldn’t, right? We shouldn’t be doing this. We like Sera, not each other.
No matter what my head is telling me, though, I can’t seem to pull away. I want the opposite. I want more of Marchese.
What the fuck?
When Levi finally withdraws from my lips, he just stares at me, breathless and confused. I see the frown line forming on his forehead. And like him, I don’t really know what to say.
For a beat, we just stand there still pressed against one another, shocked and lost for words.
Levi removes his hands from my face, the cold air replacing the warmth like a gut punch.
My stomach churns under the weight of guilt now filling the void between us. We’ve gone from fighting over Sera to fighting for something else, and I’m not sure at which point we lost sight of everything. Maybe it’s the fact we’ve been spending more and more time together? The last week we’ve been living in each other’s pockets. Laying low meant we had more time together, all three of us. Have we crossed a line somewhere we didn’t know existed?
Before I can run through any more questions, Levi steps away from me. “Sera needs us,” he reaffirms. “We need to get a grip of the situation, of The Vultures, of any fucking intel we can gather.”
I nod, but his words still sound so muffled over the pounding of my heartbeat in my ears.
“Luca?” he frowns. “You coming?”
“Huh?” I’m still dazed with what just transpired that I haven’t got an actual clue what he just said. Apparently it wasn’t anything to do with that kiss.
That body-numbing, mind-fucking kiss.
“Get in the car, Fontana!” he barks, snapping me out of my daze.
I step toward his Porsche, sliding into the passenger seat beneath the doors. They glide back down seamlessly as Levi starts the engine, the roaring of horsepower beneath our asses killing the silence immediately.
I don’t know where we’re going, but Levi’s urgency has me on edge. He peels us out of Sera’s long driveway, hitting the road back to the Bay in no time at all.
“Where are we going?”
“We need answers,” he replies vaguely.
I lift a brow at him, but he’s not looking to even notice. He’s solely focused on the road ahead, content with us lulling into silence for a short while.
But that’s the problem, because with the silence, I’m left to my own thoughts. I don’t like where they wander either. The ghost of Levi’s lips still lingers on mine. It’s a gesture neither of us want to address. I’d be okay with it, if it wasn’t sitting at the back of my mind like an unanswered question.
Of all people, Levi was the last person I imagined doing that with. Sure, we’ve put aside our differences for the sake of Sera, but fuck , I never thought about stepping the other way. I’ve never kissed another guy before, and I’m pretty sure Levi hasn’t either. Yet everything about it is starting to war with the guilt, telling me I shouldn't feel the way I feel, like I’m betraying Sera. That kiss wasn’t just anything. Something deep in my gut is telling me it happened because of some fucked up reason I’ve yet to discover.
The silence is steeped in tension, a thick fog clinging to the unspoken words. He doesn’t look at me, and when I’m certain it’ll remain that way for the rest of the journey, I avert my gaze to the window.
Twenty minutes later and we’re pulling up to the marina. Levi gets out first, lingering outside until I join him. I hesitate for a moment, noticing exactly where we are.
“What are we doing here, Levi?”
“I told you,” he shrugs. “We need answers, and these fuckers owe us.”
Before I can ask anything else, he’s storming towards the front of the bar, The Vultures’ emblem lit up under the blanket of midnight. The seedy glow of the bar spills out onto the path outside, the music cascading along with heavy thuds and crashes.
Levi steps in first, wary and silent.
“You’re not one of us if you cannot follow orders!” Zeke shouts, towering over three men with another six behind them, all pointing guns at the men’s heads.
Heads lift as we enter, causing Zeke to turn, eyes widening when he takes us in. I’m pretty sure the bloody shirts and scowls on our faces give away the mood we’re in, but Zeke is still concerned.
“Is she okay?” he asks like he knows why we’re here.
Levi nods silently. “Her bodyguard not so much.”
Zeke drops his head, sighing defeatedly. “Loyalty means a lot to us here,” he mutters, picking the dirt from under his nail with his knife. “We had an agreement in place and some of my brothers went against my decision. For that, I am sorry.” The man looks us both in the eyes, sincerity swimming in them. “Tell Bianchi I will make this right.”
“So you know who attacked them, Zeke?” I ask.
He looks over his shoulder at the three men kneeling behind him. “Like I said, loyalty means a lot to us here. As soon as we heard there were men defying my orders, I brought them here. Though you have to know, there were more.”
“Where’s the rest of them then?” Levi growls.
Zeke smirks. “Bianchi’s bodyguard is very skilled it seems.”
I glance at Levi, but he’s too focused on the three men cowering underneath six guns. It kind of escaped me that we needed to run a clean up crew with everything else happening around us—not that we would have had a chance anyway. The sirens were already heading to the party by the time we hit the main road.
“It’s handled,” Zeke supplies as he turns to the group of men. Seemingly, he can read my mind, because he doesn’t waste a second explaining. “It was a gang shootout, or that’s what the rumor is. Officials won’t ask questions and Bianchi’s name won’t even be mentioned.”
“There still lies the question of what the fuck happened?” Levi states. I’m not really sure what’s going on, but I have a feeling what’s playing out in front of us is to do with the very man now laying on a plastic covered kitchen table with our leader by his side.
“There were some traitors amongst the brotherhood,” Zeke answers, glaring at the three men who seem to have already come to the realization they’re not leaving this place alive. “The Verdis have no dealings here, and I made that clear. Some of you forgot who was in charge.”
Zeke marches back to the three men kneeling on the ground. “You jeopardized everything,” he growls at them. He leans down to the first man in the small line up, tearing the white vest from his body with his knife. “My daughter.”
He steps up to the next guy, splitting the shirt down the center. “The brotherhood.”
When he reaches the last man, he realizes he doesn’t need to strip him, his chest already bared through the sleeveless leather jacket he’s wearing. Zeke sneers into his face.
The man doesn’t say a word, and I figure that’s how these men survive. Silence is the best option right now because I can practically feel the anger roiling off Zeke like a tempest. I sense that when he’s really in his element, it’s the point of no return.
“Pin him down,” he orders two men before turning to Levi and me. “Help yourself at the bar, I’m sure you’ll want to watch how I handle traitors.”
If I ever thought that Zeke was the one behind the attack tonight, I’m immediately proven wrong. All evidence points to a weakness in this gang, and Zeke is making damn sure he handles it. I can see now why Sera put so much faith in him. He’s true to his word, and that settles like a lead weight in my gut because we’re still facing the fact that nowhere is safe for Bianchi.
Levi and I perch on the stools by the bar as suggested. We don’t talk, we don’t drink, we just sit and watch as the fate of those three men is dealt by the hand of their leader. One by one, Zeke orders his men to pin them down. His knife glistens in the low light as he carves out the gang emblem tattooed on the first man’s skin.
No one else says a word, and aside from the stifled painful cries of the men on the floor, there’s only the music carrying out a symphony that matches the rage in Zeke’s mind.
The flap of skin flops to the floor beside the shivering man as shock rattles through him. No sooner is Zeke done with the first that he moves onto the next. It’s like a ceremony of de-badging. These three fucked up and their punishment is exile.
By the time the third guy has his tattoo sliced from his chest, the other two have passed out. Blood pools around their bodies from where Zeke cut so deep, but it only serves as a reminder of their treachery.
When Zeke is done, he turns on his heel and approaches us. He’s silent, stepping around the bar and grabbing a bottle of beer from the cooler. He pops the lid off, the sharp fizz of bubbles cutting through the silence. “Tell Bianchi I have this handled. I assume that’s why you came here tonight?”
Levi shakes his head. “We came down for answers,” he says, turning his head to the massacre behind us. “But I guess we got them.”
Zeke nods in understanding, respect flowing through him. “I will forever be indebted to Bianchi, she can be rest assured that there is no conflict between her and The Vultures.”
“Good,” Levi says approvingly. “Because we’re going to need all the reinforcements we can get.”
After a few discussions back and forth about how The Vultures can help us, we shake hands and move back out into the night. Tonight has been fucked up in all the craziest ways. From the attack to this, I haven’t forgotten about what happened between Levi and me. It still sits in the back of my mind, but I’m pretty sure there’s nothing either of us can say.
“At least we know for sure The Vulture’s weren’t behind the attack,” I mutter as we sit in silence in Levi’s Porsche.
He shrugs back at me, still staring off into the darkness of the marina. “They were and weren’t.”
“Right,” I huff, not really knowing where to go from here.
After a heavy beat of silence, Levi turns to me, his dark eyes searching mine before he finally gathers the courage to speak. “About tonight…”
My brows furrow for a second until I see the softness in his gaze and I realize what he’s referring to.
“I don’t like guys.”
“Neither do I,” I shrug.
“So what happened before was…” he pauses and suddenly the Levi I know with the shit poker face has me dumbfounded because I can’t actually figure him out.
I half expect him to cast this shit aside and say it shouldn’t have happened, but like me, he seems just as torn about it as I am. Let’s face it, shit like this doesn’t happen if there isn’t some attraction, but Levi is Levi, and we don’t see eye to eye on most things.
“It’s okay,” I answer. “I’m just as fucked up about it as you are.” A laugh bubbles out of me. I just can’t help it. It’s fucking ridiculous that, out of all the people in this fucked up world, my attraction reaches to not only to Sera but Levi too, now.
“ Cazzo ,” he groans, carding through his dark hair with his fingers. “I don’t like guys!”
“Neith—“ my words are cut off when Levi wraps his hand around the back of my neck and tugs me to his lips. With bruising pressure, he parts my lips with his tongue, pushing in with wild abandon. It’s rushed and hot, filthy in the best kind of way.
My heart thunders in my chest as I give into the sensation, knowing Levi was the one to start it this time and I don’t seem to mind one bit because…I don’t like guys, but I like Levi.