10. A Night in Italy
A NIGHT IN ITALY
Anastasia
Nero Amato continues to torment my life.
Some-fucking-how, I’ve found myself back at the Mancini villa.
Vanessa and Zeno figured their shit out with my help. We were all going nuts dealing with her indecision between love, heartbreak, and hatred. Since the war ended, the organizations grew so close that my neurotic people-hating brother agreed to guard Serafina while she was off at school.
Yet Serafina found herself forcibly engaged to Alessio Vitale of a rival mob—much to my brother’s loss of sanity. After the meeting where Vitale gave her the ring, Zeno opted to drag us all to his house to spend more time with Vanessa and his sister.
As happy as I am for them, this alliance-slash-relationship means the inevitable: being near Nero.
He exits the villa with a Doberman jogging beside him as Zeno parks the car that I’m about to steal and drive away to avoid him.
I haven’t seen Nero since the day we saved Vanessa from this place, minus a recent video call we all had with him and Zeno.
I could do with another ten years passing before I do.
I hate to admit he has consumed my thoughts since that day.
He greets Zeno with a nod and hugs Serafina as she flashes him the engagement ring Vitale forced on her hand. A fierce protectiveness makes his body rigid in the way that speaks to his brotherly affection for her.
“That won’t suit you at all,” he mutters.
Once he finishes greeting the others, he finds me in the back despite trying to use Lev to hide. He shoots me a cocky grin he clearly expects me to return, but he’ll be waiting a while for that one.
Past aside, his arrogance immediately pisses me off.
I’ve lived with it once. I certainly won’t again.
He assumes he’s owed a greeting, which is every reason I won’t give him one.
The men Papa placed in my life once believed they were owed my cunt—and look where we all ended up.
Nero won’t win, not like Papa’s brutal games.
I’ve stopped playing the men’s games and follow my own rules now. One where I’m no longer a pawn, no longer a piece to be kidnapped and shuffled for the sickness of others.
Nero Amato is no different.
Since Vanessa and Zeno seem set for life, and now Lev and Serafina are becoming a secretive thing, it’s clearly inevitable I’ll be expected to play sort-of nice with him.
He sidles closer, his cologne setting him apart from the men of my past. It’s…warm. Gentle, almost. If a hug had a scent, this would be it.
“Long time no see.” He juts his hand in an offer of a shake. Since everyone’s watching, I rest my palm against his, my teeth sinking into my tongue before accidentally saying all the other things I’m tempted to.
“I’m sorry, I don’t remember you.”
He falls into step beside me as I trail Zeno and Vanessa to the front doors. “Then I’ll have to make you remember.”
That feels like it has a deeper meaning.
For the remainder of the night, I keep my eyes averted from him.
Avoiding him has been going well. When Zeno handed out drinks, I nursed mine, preferring not to get shit-faced and let my guard drop in a place so far from home.
Nero, on the other hand, does the opposite. He’s consumed glass after glass, until his movements are sluggish and his gaze glassy. The very gaze that continues to find me, but I’m only aware because of the glances Vanessa’s been throwing between us.
Not because I’ve been watching him too.
When Zeno and Vanessa take off for bed, I do as well, using their exit to escape undetected to the spare bedroom Zeno showed me earlier. It’s a decent size, with a large bed, attached bathroom, and simple décor on the walls.
After washing up and undressing, I note that without a change of clothes, my shirt will double as pyjamas for the single night we’re here. Not the most comfortable, but I’ve dealt with worse.
After the long day of verbally sparring with Alessio Vitale and ensuring Lev’s behaviours remain in check before his feelings for Serafina have him losing his mind, bed sounds like a blissful dream. The cool sheets and soft pillow will sweep me to sleep.
Then someone knocks on the door.
Nero
Anastasia Petrov continues to torment my life.
How does one move on from the guilt—the knowledge—that if shit was different—if I was a better soldier and accomplished my assigned task—my best friend might still have a father?
They don’t.
They especially don’t when the living reminder continues popping up in my life.
Not only does being around Zeno constantly remind me of my failed job, but so does she. Knowing the girl I allowed to escape was alive and well somewhere in the world was manageable, but having her around is something else.
But it gets worse.
So much fucking worse.
She’s every. Fucking. Where.
In my memories. In my dreams when I close my eyes and see her poised in front of me, angling a gun at my face, which was more sexy than terrifying. In my thoughts, to the point I’m literally climbing out of my skin with insanity.
Insane with want and lust. Insane to talk to her and confirm she’s living through this burning hell too. That her mind is as frazzled as mine is, and torment has us both wrapped in its cruel grip.
Being in the villa again, this time as friend rather than foe, is an opportunity to rid myself of this wonder. Even as she avoids me all evening, trying to focus on the others, her gaze continues seeking me out.
She can’t ignore me forever, no matter how much she wishes for it. Not since Zeno and Vanessa insist on making us all one big ole happy family.
The others drink, but I go heavier. Given that one source of my guilt is sitting prettily across the room, it calls for numbing my mind. She’s unaware of how my insides are knotted because of her.
When Anastasia follows Vanessa and Zeno’s exit, I say a few final words to Lev, down the rest of my bourbon, and stand—a miraculous feat on its own. Still, I’d like to believe the angel’s magic lingering in the room after her exit assists.
My head nearly ends up in the wall as I stumble from the room and near the stairs. Chuckling, I pat the wall, mumbling my thanks for catching me, and groggily make my way to the stairs.
It’s a bitch of a trip, practically done on my hands and knees and with the help of the wonderfully robust metal railing.
Alcohol, my good pal. A friend that frequently convinces me to pour just one more glass. Even with Zeno living his happily ever after, it’s not enough to appease that voice urging me to keep pouring, keep drinking…keep blacking out until his father returns from the dead.
Seems I’ll be drinking until eventually joining him in Hell.
Finally, the top of the stairs approaches, and I manage to reach the spare room Anastasia’s staying in. The wall beside her door must be friends with the one downstairs, because it too catches me, giving me a leaning post as my fist lands on her door twice.
It opens a second later, the face of my angel—or a devil, depending on the angle—appearing.
Anastasia scowls, somehow looking down on me, even though I’m an inch or so taller than her.
Maybe it’s because I’m slumped against the wall, so she really is looking down on me.
Either way, she has this strange ability to make her eyes see past her nose like I’m a speck on the bottom of her shoe.
For her, I’d get on my knees. I’d be dirt. I’d let her do whatever the fuck she wants if she makes the pain within my conscience disappear.
She better admit to remembering that day. It wouldn’t be fair that she’s able to pretend our past is forgotten when, for me, it’s the central reason behind the liquor cabinet downstairs that staff keeps stocked for my well-being.
“What?” Glass imbedding into my heart and draining it dry would be cozier than her tone.
“Friendly as always, Ana. I can call you Ana, right? Your name’s a bit of a mouthful.” Ana-stas-i-a. Yep, not sure that’s being said in one breath. My eyes rake the little I’m allowed to peek at, where she’s unconcealed by the door—and what’s visible through the drunken distortion—and well…fuck me.
My dick doesn’t always function when I’m this sloshed, but she’s the exact brand of help it needs despite her not-so-sexy death glare that’s more lethal than every gun in our arsenal. Yet it is sexy, at least to me.
Not sure what I expected her to be wearing, but it wasn’t this.
In a shirt that clings to her skin and a pair of black panties.
She’s braless, her nipples small little points my mouth waters to latch onto.
To chase the alcohol with the flavour of her skin.
Her legs, lengthy, toned—a dancer’s legs—slip from beneath the shirt.
This is the image I’ll be masturbating to…well, for the rest of my life.
“Only my friends call me Ana, so no, you can’t.
Not sure why you’ve come, but I’m calling it a night.
” With a prim little sniff, she begins shutting the door, but a quick reflex I’m surprised the liquor allowed me to keep halts the door with a smack.
It’s an impressive feat that, surprisingly enough, doesn’t make me stumble.
Just in case, I nudge off the wall and inject my foot into the door’s path, ensuring she’ll have to break a few bones to close it. “Anastasia, then, we need to talk.”
In that haughty way of hers, she looks down on me again, and I decide then that no, I won’t be getting on my knees for her. Rather, I’d like to see what she looks like on hers. Let’s see what she’s like without the stick up her ass, too.
She sniffs again, this time rocking forward. What begins as a compliment shifts into disgust with the twist of her mouth. “You’re drunk.”
“We’re all drunk. You were downstairs.”
“I had a drink. You’re drunk.” With remarkable strength, she tries to shut the door again. I’m reminded of the woman who once stormed this place, gun in hand, vengeance as her cloak.
“Do you remember me?” I debated working up to this, but bourbon has a funny way of foregoing a thought process and doing what it wants instead.
“Nero Amato, Zeno’s second. You were downstairs drinking your face off. We first met when I saved my best friend from yours. I haven’t had nearly enough alcohol to forget you. I’m not sure how dumb you believe me to be.”
That’s a compliment in my world.
But the bigger one is the wall that loses a few bricks. The one she’s built in her gaze and around her body. The one she hides behind but starts crumbling with the flicker of wariness.
Got you.
With the evidence in what she hasn’t said, I laugh so loud, half the house probably wakes, but I also don’t find it in me to care. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
“You’re drunk, Amato. You don’t even know what you mean. I only choose to deal with sober people these days, so if you’ll excuse me…”
Amato. I like that. My last name in her mouth sounds right.
Stunning me out of my stupor, she knocks my hand off the doorframe and steps close enough that I’m forced backwards by instinct. Why? I don’t fucking know. Because I’m an idiot. I should be walking into her, not letting her push me back.
The second she steps into the doorway, I’m dazed. Her scent is too welcoming, and paired with the amount of skin I’m still wrapping my fuzzy, alcohol-raddled mind around, clarity is straight out the window.
She grins evilly before slamming the door in my face.