Milan #2
Milan was absorbed in the conversation, his attention laser-focused like he had to really try hard to understand.
He’d looked at me like that at the altar too, and I realized I’d seen him; the analysis of me, the unfamiliarity, the soothing mechanisms he’d done at my house.
That was the attentiveness and coldness people spoke of.
He consumed rooms. He was everything, and it made everyone else feel like nothing.
“Don’t you think he’s hot?” Elena whispered, smoothing a hand down her lilac gown. “He kinda looks like Batman.”
I snorted. “The illustrated Bruce Wayne that doesn’t exist.”
Fiorella shoved between us, appearing from seemingly nowhere as she said in a sing-song tone, “He does now.”
My sister had an ability to sense when conversations were happening without her, and she was never far behind gossip and drama.
She rested her head on my shoulder, watching Milan with rapt attention, and it was only when I turned to kiss her forehead that I smelled the sweet, tangy alcohol in her glass, but also the undertone of something musky clinging to her navy-blue silk dress.
I pulled my head away, noting how her necklace was tangled slightly at the back, that her hair was now loose from its tight updo, and there was a faint blush of red and purple blossoming on her throat.
“Fiorella!” I hissed, nudging her slightly into Elena.
Fiore choked on her drink, managing a strained, “What?”
“Who did you have sex with?”
Elena feigned a dramatic gasp. “Bad girl… Was it good?”
I glared at my best friend as my sister tutted, “Nobody.”
It obviously was not nobody. She was distracted, but so was I, too much to care in that moment. I’d have to deal with her another time.
Milan was hot.
He filled out his suit with muscle and wide shoulders, that much was obvious, but I found real beauty when I looked closer, deeper.
His hair, so dark it was almost blue, was perfectly curled at the top, the collar of his shirt was pressed exactly into two equal triangles, his pants sat precisely before his shoes, and even the loops of his laces were even like he’d measured everything.
If I hadn’t had to hear his uptight, mocking attitude every time he opened his mouth, maybe I would’ve been more accepting of this arrangement.
I snatched Fiorella’s flute of champagne, downing the contents, and instantly, Milan’s gaze hit me from across the room like he had a sensor for any movement around him. It was imposing. It was grand. It was belittling, and he hadn’t even said a word.
His face remained cardboard, unmoving and utterly fake, but he scanned me from head to toe, and the smallest, briefest crease between his brows formed.
Milan turned back to Giovanni, shaking his hand with his eyes still trapped on me, and I almost laughed, almost made some joke about how I’d captured his attention so thoroughly he couldn’t focus, but then he excused himself and began to walk straight toward me.
Elena sucked in a sharp breath, holding it as she strained, “Oh god, here he comes.”
“Do something!” I gritted through my teeth. “I don’t want to speak to him!”
In the corner of my eye, I caught another figure making their way toward us, and I breathed in relief. Matteo was closer to us than Milan, but I suspected that it wouldn’t make much difference; if Milan wanted my attention over Matteo, who probably wanted Elena’s instead, he’d have it.
“Ladies.” Matt smirked in greeting, shoving his hands into his pockets as he approached.
His focus fixed on Elena, undressing her with his eyes, caressing her.
If this had been the time and place, I would’ve been desperate to draw the look on his face and the flush on hers.
“This looks like the witches’ coven of trouble. What’s occurring?”
“Cily won’t speak to her husband, who is still on his way over here, by the way,” Fiorella said.
I groaned. “He is the most frustrating human being to make conversation with.”
“Why?” Matt chuckled, trying and obviously failing to focus on anyone other than Elena.
“He doesn’t like it when I talk. I don’t think he likes much.”
Matteo shrugged. “You do talk a lot, principessa.”
“Teo, that’s rude!” Elena smacked him in the chest, but he caught her hand, bringing it to his lips and peppering small kisses down her wrist until she yanked herself away, whispering something into his ear that looked as though it reminded him that they were supposed to be a secret.
Matteo’s face paled, and he swore under his breath, looking frantically behind him and over his shoulders.
He was a lovesick idiot.
I slapped a tense smile onto my face as Milan edged closer, so close that the heat of his cologne wafted toward us like a pre-warning to his appearance, but before he could get any closer, three men stepped into his path, all suited like he was, all similar in ways, and I watched his throat work in a deep swallow before he said a word.
That was a real reaction, not one made of cardboard and falseness.
That was either fear, history, or anger. Maybe all three.
“Who are they?” I whispered to Matteo.
Matt went to wrap an arm around Elena’s waist before clenching his eyes, jaw, and hands closed and grinding through his teeth, “The Feras. The tallest one, Brenno, is the Capo dei Capi of the Philadelphia mob—” Fiorella interrupted him with a harsh choke on her refilled glass, but he kept going anyway.
“The middle one is his Consigliere, brother, and lawyer, Cesare. The little one, Ezio, he’s only twelve, but he’s still the Capo’s brother. ”
I looked closer, noticing the few boyish features the shortest one still had, but it took me a while to find them. If their preteens looked that much like men in Philly, I wondered what the hell their training looked like.
The other brothers, Brenno and Cesare, had dark hair, and if it hadn’t been for the slight waves and loose curls in theirs, I would’ve found it almost identical to Milan’s.
“They’re brothers,” Matt said as if he could read my scrutiny.
“Brothers?” I echoed, my jaw gaping open. “Nobody mentioned Milan had brothers.”
“I don’t think many are brave enough to say it. Some shady shit happened, and nobody really knows what. One day they were Famiglia and the next they were Feras and moved to—"
I didn’t hear the end of Matteo’s sentence before I was stalking toward their conversation, desperate to figure out why my new husband was so shrouded in mystery.
My pulse pounded in my ears, only growing louder by the time I reached them and realized that this was not a pleasant conversation between brothers.
Brenno, the eldest, the Capo dei Capi, couldn’t have been older than twenty-five.
He looked the most like Milan, but there was still a hint of someone else that made me wonder if they were full brothers.
He looked me up and down, but it wasn’t assessing like Milan’s gaze was now; Brenno’s was familiarity that hadn’t been earned but learned.
“Well, well, well.” He chuckled darkly. “You must be the newest addition. Welcome to the family, Mrs. Lucca.”
I hadn’t realized how close I’d stood to Milan until my shoulder nudged into his side, and he planted his rough palm on my hip, tugging me closer until there was no room between us. It wasn’t a sign of a loving husband and his new wife, but of ownership.
A statement. A contract.