Chapter 70
ALEX
My eyes swept over Marcello’s bedroom, taking in every inch of the space. He was alone on the top floor, his father at the far end of the hall. Thankfully, we hadn’t run into Arlo. That would have been awkward as fuck.
The room had high ceilings, tall windows with dark curtains, and a balcony overlooking the bay. He had the same room as Luca, but one floor above him. I stood at the center of the room and noted every mural detail, which spanned two walls.
Marcello can paint .
A smile stretched across my face, and a strange feeling stirred in my belly.
Several emotions raced through me at once—excitement, happiness, and pride.
His mom would have been so proud of him.
I thought about the fresco in Evangeline’s studio.
With their perfect golden crowns, she saw her sons as stars, the light illuminating their handsome faces.
Smooth brushstrokes created a world that belonged to Marcello, and his bedroom was a testament to his raw talent.
Black, red, orange, and a hint of white paint swirled across his walls.
In Brooklyn, I painted the Underworld version of Devil’s Creek on my bedroom walls.
All the devils were there. But Marcello’s mural was the Underworld.
A man stood at the center of the skull and fire landscape, his head down, dark waves atop his head. He had snakes wrapped around his legs, slithering up his arms. What looked like a king cobra sat on his shoulder, its tongue hanging out.
Like The Serpents.
“Marcello,” I choked out, stunned by this surprise. “This is…” I turned to look at him. My mouth hung open. “Wow… You’re really good.”
“We have a lot in common,” he said with a wink.
I smiled up at him. “You could pursue an art career. We could…”
“No. I don’t want anyone to know.” He shook his head, dark hair falling onto his forehead. “My art is the only thing not corrupted by evil.”
“Exposing my art to the world opened my life up to interpretation. I get a lot of questions about Luca. People want to know if he’s the Devil in my paintings.”
“He’s your inspiration.”
“It started as a present for him,” I admitted. “Just an experiment. I didn’t even think my first Devil painting was that good. But Luca made a big deal out of it.”
“My brother is a bastard. But he has his moments.”
Marcello’s eyes flicked back to the mural. I studied the man with the snake wrapped around his body.
“Aiden knew your secret, didn’t he? That’s why you guys were friends. You told him how to find The Serpents.”
Marcello nodded. “We did the piece behind the bakery together.”
I lifted my brows. “The one in Beacon Bay?”
“Yeah. It was Aiden’s idea.”
“He showed it to me a few weeks before he disappeared.”
I wrapped my fingers around his wrist and looked up at him. He was so beautiful that I wanted to cry. Lonely Boy . Now, it all made sense. Artists were natural introverts, content with cutting themselves off from the world.
The loneliness suited him.
I opened my mouth to speak, and he pressed his finger to my lips. “Before you ask about Aiden, I can’t tell you anything. Marry Luca if you want answers.”
“The oath,” I muttered.
He nodded, then lowered his finger, eyes still on me.
“Does your brother know you paint?”
“We talk little,” he confessed, then led me by the hand toward his king-size bed. “Not unless it’s about work, the Knights, or you. He hasn’t been in my room since we were teenagers.”
“I wouldn’t have survived growing up without my brother.” Turning to face him, I moved my hand to his thigh. “Aiden made everything better. The night terrors. All the shit with our parents. That’s why he was so protective of me. Why did he never want Luca near me?”
He sucked in a deep breath.
“Thank you for holding me at night. It helps me get back to sleep.”
“I wish I didn’t have to hear you scream… I don’t know any other way to make the nightmares stop.”
“Aiden did the same thing for me.” I smiled at the thought of my brother. “He had the magic touch.”
He gave me a knowing look.
“I miss him,” I whispered, fighting back the tears. “Every day.”
An awkward silence passed between us.
He looked down at my hand on his thigh. His fingers grazed mine, my skin on fire from his touch.
Our eyes met, and he swiped his thumb across my bottom lip. “You deserve better.”
“Thank you?”
“All of us.” His voice was deep and smooth. “You’re too good for this place. So much like her.”
“Your mom?” I guessed.
Some of my success in the art world came from Luca’s connections. He made a lot of shit happen for me. Despite my feelings for the Salvatores, they had also done a lot of good for me.
“You remind me of her.” He traced a circle on the top of my hand with his finger. “At least what I remember.”
“You and Luca had horrible shit happen to you, too.” I squeezed his hand. “It should have bonded you, not pushed you apart.”
He stared over my shoulder at the wall. “We were never close. And after our mom died, our house was silent. No laughter. No music. Nothing. Just fucking silence. She was the only good thing in our lives. The light in the darkness. Then came the violence. I adapted to my environment.”
“My house was a nightmare,” I told him. “I hated it.”
He cupped the side of my face. “Your mom will pay for what she did to you.”
I felt a spark between us, an instant connection that made my skin sizzle with heat. “What’s happening between us, Marcello?”
His eyes held mine. “I don’t know.”
“We can’t keep doing this.” I blew out a deep breath. “Luca will end up killing both of us.”
“I knew it was you,” he whispered.
My chest caved from his confession, sucking the air from my lungs.
Be still, heart .
“Until tonight, I’d never fucked a woman without a condom.” He leaned his forehead against mine and groaned. “I wanted to know how you felt. Just once.”
He gripped his tie around my neck and pulled me to him. I remembered I was naked for the first time in twenty minutes, save for his tie and my thong. His breath ghosted my lips. He smelled like scotch and cigars mixed with the scent of clean linen.
“I won.” Marcello tugged on the tie, pulling it tighter around my neck. “Luca set the terms.”
“Is this really how you want me?”
Dropping the tie, he sat back, his eyes on my naked body. He licked his lips and ran his hand up and down my side. His thumb brushed my nipple, and then he tugged on it.
I cried out, a whimper on my lips. “Marcello.”
“Fuck, I love when you moan my name.”
“Marcello,” I whispered as he pinched the tiny bud again.
He smirked, his big hand cupping my breast, making me shiver from his touch. “If you were mine, I would never treat you like he does. I don’t care about the game. You don’t have to do this.” The pad of his thumb swiped over my painfully sore nipple. “What do you want, Alex?”
He gave me a second to speak, looking at me with those wide blue eyes. So beautiful. We breathed hard, lips parted. I attempted to talk, but nothing came out.
What did I want? No one had ever asked me. Not even Luca had given me a choice. Would I have a choice if I were with Marcello? Would things be different?
Luca hated my brother, while Marcello was his friend. He tried to help him, even if it led to his demise. And maybe he was the key to finding Aiden. I was so fucking angry with Luca. He deserved to deal with the fallout for tonight. What kind of asshole plays games like this?
We were a terrible combination, but my heart bled for him. He was the villain in my dreams and nightmares. Despite his idiotic games and all of his mindfuckery, I loved that asshole. What I felt for Marcello was a childhood crush compared to my feelings for my beautiful monster.
“I like you, Marcello,” I said, unable to meet his gaze because it killed me to reject him. “But I think we both know Luca has my heart.”
He sighed. “Yeah.”
Then he slid off the bed, giving me a nice view of his muscular back.
Marcello walked over to the dresser and sifted through the contents of his drawer.
I caught the black Rolling Stones T-shirt he threw at me and slipped it over my head.
The cotton smelled like clean linen and his spicy aftershave.
Marcello sat on the bed beside me. “I knew this would go nowhere,” he admitted. “Even after your grandfather gave you a choice. But I don’t regret the time we’ve spent together. Under different circumstances, I could have made you happy.”
“You do, Marcello. It’s just that things are different for us. You remind me so much of Aiden.”
“I’ve become his replacement,” he guessed.
“Yes, but it’s not that simple with us.” I patted his hand resting on my thigh. “Think we can be friends?”
His eyebrows lifted, a sexy smirk on his lips. “After what we just did?”
“I need you, Marcello. But not in the same way as Luca.”
Marcello nodded. “Yeah, we can be friends.”
“We still have Legare ,” I pointed out.
He shook his head. “It’s not what you think.”
Before he could respond, the door slammed into the wall.
My breath caught in my throat. Luca stood in the doorway, a bottle of Macallan in his hand, a blood-red tie hanging loosely around his neck.
He wore a black suit, the jacket open, his white shirt wrinkled, looking like he’d been to hell and back again.
Marcello narrowed his eyes at his brother. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Luca leaned against the doorframe, so drunk he could barely stand up. “She’s mine, Marcello.” Nostrils flared, and Luca plopped into an oversized armchair across from the bed. He spread his thighs and drank from the bottle. “Alex doesn’t want this.”
“Luca,” I cut in with a groan. “I was telling Marcello I can’t be with him.”
He cocked his head at me. “No?”
“No,” I confirmed.
Luca fisted the bottle, a brutal look in his eyes as he stared through me. “Why not?”
“Because of you.”
Luca strolled toward the bed with a drunken sway and dropped to his knees in front of me. He pulled my legs apart, his fingers tracing my inner thighs. “You chose me?”
“Yes, Luca. Like there was ever a choice.”
He laid his head on my lap and hooked his arm around my back. “I’m so sorry for playing that game with you. When I saw you on top of Marcello… I wanted to rip my heart out to make the pain stop.”
“You only have yourself to blame,” I pointed out. “I’m not responsible for what I did tonight. That’s on you.”
“I know,” he breathed.
I slid my fingers through his black hair, tugging at the ends. “You put me in that position.”
He lifted his head from my lap and stared into my eyes. “I can’t live without you. You know that, right? I’d rather fucking die than lose you.”
I stroked his hair. “You have me, Luca.”
“I don’t deserve you.”
“Duh,” I shot back.
“I didn’t touch another woman.” He clutched my thighs, gutting me with those beautiful but terrifying blue eyes. “You’re it for me, baby.”
Marcello sat painfully still on the bed, keeping his distance from us. I glanced over at him, and he looked somewhat deflated, but he knew nothing could break the bond I’d forged with Luca.
Drunk off his ass, Luca held on to me to maintain his balance. I gripped his biceps, and he looked up at me with one eye open.
“I love you, Drea,” he slurred. “I didn’t understand my feelings for you until tonight. Not until I saw you with Marcello. I’m so sorry, baby.”
Despite his drunken state, I believed him. Seeing me with his brother was the final straw that made him snap. If he had realized sooner, we could have avoided years of heartache. I couldn’t say I loved him back after what I’d done with Marcello.
“You need a shower,” I told him. “And some sleep.”
“Stay with me,” he said in a hushed tone. “Sleep in my bed.”
Luca had never asked me to spend the night. Sure, we’d had sex in his bed, but I usually went home afterward. Our moments of intimacy never lasted because Luca almost instantly withdrew from me. I could feel him slowly rebuilding his walls.
“Okay,” I agreed. “But you’re taking a shower, and we’re going straight to bed. Nothing more.”
Luca pushed himself up from the floor and extended his hand. Before we left the room, I glanced over at Marcello. He gave me a nod of approval. I would miss what I had with him, but I could never replace the feelings Luca stirred inside me.
Ten years ago, Luca had asked me if two broken halves could make a whole. Back then, we both thought the answer was no. It turns out we were both wrong.