Chapter 5
FIVE
ANTHONY
“What was that all about?” Lucien asks.
I almost forgot he’s sitting beside me. My whole attention has been at one table, on one particular woman who’s been trying her level best to piss me off and doing a better job of it than I’ll ever admit out loud.
Finally, she leaves, sliding one pale hand into Richard’s as they pass the bar. She doesn’t look at me. She doesn’t need to. I feel the slice of her attention anyway, drawn across my skin like a blade. I wait until the door closes behind her before turning to Lucien.
“I just had a little chat with Isabella. One that was necessary.” I pick up the new glass of beer Lucien’s ordered and take a sip, needing the cold bite of it to wash the taste of her perfume out of the back of my throat.
“She says she’s aware the Dragunoviks are in New York, but from what I can deduce, she’s not been contacted by them for a meeting. ”
“That’s good. One less family to have to deal with.”
“Yes,” I say. “But I’m not convinced it’ll remain that way.
The Romeros are bleeding. They’re dwindling in number, but their family may still have powerful connections and clients, enough to make them an attractive piece of scaffolding for the Russians to build on.
I hear that Isabella’s brother Alex is stirring up trouble for her. ”
I don’t care what happens to the Romeros in the general sense.
Let them tear themselves apart. Let them burn out the way Matteo and Elio did, one at a time, until there’s no one left to carry the name.
Still, it pisses me off that Alex believes himself to be the better choice the family ought to have gone with.
He’s a loose cannon, and really, the bastard should be thankful he isn’t already dead after the way he treated Dallen last year.
I set my glass down a little too hard. The sound cuts through the low music, earning me a glance from Lucien. I pretend not to notice.
“So, she’s aware enough of them that she knows they’re here. Did she ask if we’ve been approached?”
“Of course.” I take another sip of my beer, fighting to ignore the remnants of her touch still humming against my skin.
My palm remembers the shape of her mouth.
My body remembers the press of hers against it.
Having her in my arms again shouldn’t affect me at all, but fuck that bitch, it does.
I can still smell her sweet scent, feel her soft skin, the warmth of her breath against my mouth when she promised she’d kill me the first chance she got.
The angelic features of her belies just how deadly I know she can be.
I run a hand over my jaw and try to wipe the memory of her from my mind, but it’s embedded there like an immovable cancer.
“And what did you say?” Lucien asks.
“I told her it was none of her business.” Even though it’s just as much her business as it is the Morettis’. Sometimes my double standards even surprise me.
Lucien is quiet for some time, reflecting on what I said. His thoughts, who knows. I won’t break his silence. It gives me more time to calm myself down after making the mistake of touching my past.
“If she’s as smart as I believe she is, she’ll come to us first, should they reach out.”
I scoff. What the hell is Lucien on about? “You’re putting a lot of faith in her. Don’t be fooled by the angelic features. She’s got no soul. There’s no way a Romero is going to ask for an alliance or help from a Moretti. It’s not going to happen.”
Lucien frowns and studies me a moment. There’s something in his face I don’t like.
The slight tilt of his head that tells me he’s seeing further than I’m giving him credit for.
He knows there’s history between Isabella and me.
He doesn’t know the full shape of it. No one does, and I’d like it to stay that way.
“I know there’s a history between you two, but don’t let that get in the way of family. If she believes a truce with the Morettis will keep the Romeros safe, she’ll come to us.”
“You have more faith in her than I do.” I finish my beer and tip the empty glass onto its side on the bar.
“What do you think of this Richard she’s seeing?
” I shouldn’t ask Lucien this question. It makes me sound like a jealous ex.
I’m not. I don’t have the right to be, and I wouldn’t use it if I did.
I’m asking because something about that man has been eating at me since the moment he put his hand on the small of Isabella’s back and guided her to their table like he knew every inch of her already.
And if he did know her as well as I do, was he too a threat?
“You said yourself he’s a banker.” Lucien finishes his beer and meets my eyes.
“Why, do you think he’s not who he says he is?
I think you’re being paranoid. Just because she’s a Romero doesn’t mean she wouldn’t date and fall in love with someone outside our world.
Take Stephen and Dallen. They couldn’t be more opposite. ”
I take in what Lucien is saying. All true.
And I’d accept it, if not for the way Richard stood when Isabella walked back into the dining room.
Bankers sit, they slouch into their chairs and check their phones while they wait.
Richard stood, hip angled toward the door, weight even on both feet, one hand loose at his side like a man expecting trouble from a direction he wasn’t watching.
It was the posture of a man trained to survive an ambush.
It wasn’t the posture of a man who spends his days reading quarterly reports.
“I think I’ll get my team onto him anyway, just to be sure.”
“You want me to text Gianni? He’s the most discreet, and since he’s no longer in the business, no one will suspect him.”
“Yeah, do that. I’ll get him to tail him. Find out where he goes. Make sure he does head off to the office like a good little boy. We need to be careful right now. It’s a game of who we can and cannot trust.” And right now, my trust list is shorter than it’s ever been.
“I understand.” Lucien stands. “I’ll text Gianni and let him know you’ll be reaching out. He’ll have an update for you within a day or two.”
“Great. Thanks.”
Lucien stays on his feet while I remain at the bar, needing a minute to myself.
“Don’t let your guard down with Isabella. She’s angelic, but you’re right, she’s a Romero, and is capable of inflicting pain when required as much as we are. Don’t underestimate her, and don’t fall for whatever falsehoods she played you with years ago.”
I know what he’s saying is true. I should forget her.
Ignore her and her pleas for help should she come to the family for an alliance against the Dragunoviks.
But it’s easier said than done when the woman in question deceived me so thoroughly.
To then walk back into my city wearing her grief like armor, as if she were the one who paid the ultimate price instead of me was a joke.
It was her body. Her choice.
Seeing her again, being near her, has sparked a resurgence of feelings I didn’t need or believe would arise. But here we fucking are, and now I have to deal with it all on top of everything else. Just another day being a Moretti, I guess.
“I’ll try.” That’s all I can offer right now.
Lucien claps me once on the shoulder and disappears into the crowd.
I signal the bartender for something stronger than beer, because beer isn’t going to cut it now.
Not with her perfume on my collar. Not with the memory of her mouth an inch from mine, and the sound she made when I clasped her throat.
That small, involuntary intake of breath that was half threat and half something I’m not willing to name, even to myself.
The bartender slides a whiskey across the polished wood. I pick it up and turn on my stool to face the room.
The table where they sat is already being wiped down for the next pair of strangers.
In the space of one conversation with my cousin, the woman I spent five years learning to hate has walked out of this restaurant with another man on her arm, and I’m sitting here pretending my chest isn’t full of glass.
I drink the whiskey in two swallows.
Gianni’s number is forwarded to me, and I text him immediately.
Richard Keller. I want everything. Where he sleeps, who he calls, what he had for breakfast, what country his grandmother was born in, and whether the firm he claims to work for has ever heard his name. I want it by morning.
My phone lights up with Gianni’s reply before I’ve put it back in my pocket.
On it.
I set the empty glass down. The city outside awaits, but I’m not sure I have the heart for it tonight. Five years I’ve told myself I was done with her. Five fucking days back in her orbit, and I’m running surveillance on the man sharing her bed.
If that isn’t a problem, I don’t know what is.