Chapter 79: Chapter Twenty-Four

Alice

Damn, Andrei made such a ridiculous scene that nobody would talk to me for the rest of the day, and poor Mitchell, my new lab partner, tried to quit! One day in! I needed a partner to pass things!

Now I was alone.

And while I appreciated the overprotectiveness, while it made me warm inside for a nanosecond, now I was just pissed.

I’d always wanted someone to watch out for me. Someone to care for me. I mean, wasn’t that what brothers were for? Fathers? To be the guy that threatens all your boyfriends with a gun?

Or gives you a curfew? I never had any of that, and admittedly, it felt good to have someone care.

What didn’t feel good was being socially ostracized because he was worried about a guy who still lived at home and played Fortnite until one a.m.

My last class wasn’t very exciting.

It didn’t matter that he wasn’t a rapist.

He supported it.

I checked the clock and grabbed my things as the professor dismissed us. Nobody made eye contact with me as I weaved my way through students and finally exited the building.

It didn’t help that his aviators were low on his face, or that I could see the small diamond piercing in his nose as it twinkled toward me as if to say, come and get me.

It was irritating.

My own reaction to a man who I knew was bad.

To a man who cut out my own brother’s tongue. He was both hero and villain, and I didn’t know how to mix the two together.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one staring either.

Several girls held up cell phones and snatched quick pictures, while a few guys sneered in his direction out of pure jealousy. The man looked like a Viking god. Of course, they were jealous.

I held my head high as I made my way over to him.

He didn’t look up. When I was a foot away, he just tucked his phone back into his pocket and grinned, all white even teeth, a small dimple in the corner of his left mouth made itself known.

“I’m disappointed.”

“Huh?”

“So many girls were taking pictures I almost started posing, and yet you’re not even appreciating the goods by doing the same thing.”

“I don’t have a cell phone.”

He crossed his arms and grinned. “Did you check your bag?”

“What?”

He motioned for me to turn, then very slowly unzipped the front pocket and pulled out a brand new iPhone. He handed it to me then lifted the hair by my ear and chuckled. “My number’s labeled Satan.”

“Would have guessed that.” I barely got the words out; it was like I couldn’t get air into my lungs. He was too close, he smelled too good, and it was confusing.

I liked them. In a way, it was a barrier between us, a visual way for me to understand that there was distance separating us.

I needed that.

Maybe as much as he did.

“Shall we?” He held out his hand.

Frowning, I took it, noticing that he seemed to clench his teeth like my touch was painful.

“You don’t like touching me.” I said it like a statement.

He stared down at our hands and quickly looked away; a forced smile fell across his full lips. “For reasons I’ll never share. So, don’t ask.”

“Is it me or all women?”

“All humans,” he said quickly. “Skin is too warm, I don’t like it, I don’t like to feel it… drives me fucking crazy.”

“And yet you’re not wearing gloves.”

“Maybe I’m conducting an experiment,” he said in an amused voice. “Hold your hand for longer than five minutes and prove to myself that I can handle the pain.”

I tried to jerk my hand away.

He held my fingers firmly in his grasp. “I’m not being an ass, I’m being honest. Maybe that does make me an ass, but it is painful, make no mistake about that.

We reached the car.

He dropped my hand like it was hot and opened my door. “You hungry?”

“No.” Yes, but I didn’t like this weird version of him, where he cared, where he picked me up from school. I preferred scary, scary I knew how to deal with, not that he wasn’t petrifying.

Case in point, there was a dagger on his seat and it still had blood on it.

I gaped. “Do I want to know?”

He was silent for a couple of breaths, and then he started the car. “Probably not, it’s just business.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

“Doubtful. The business your father and brother do isn’t just illegal, it hurt my friends, my alliances. Ergo, that’s not just business, it’s fucking war.”

“Who drew first blood? You or them?”

He hesitated and shook his head as he pulled out of the parking spot. “Does it really matter?

I hung my head. “That’s not what I was told.”

“Well…” He turned the car to the right. “You weren’t there.”

I stared down at my hands. “You were?”

“I was the one who set it up, who drew them out, drew her out. Of course, I was there, had Phoenix not shot her, it was my job to follow through.”

“She made a mistake. People make mistakes.”

“Her mistakes cost the De Lange Family everything. Her mistakes had to do with greed. Just curious, but did you know the worth of the Abandonato dynasty?”

I bit my bottom lip and shook my head.

“Twenty billion dollars.” He said it slowly. “Not million. Billion. And Chase offered her part of, not just that fortune but his private fortune from his own mother, from her fashion line.

“Mil refused to take anything. Her biggest sin was her pride.”

“And yours? What’s yours?” I asked a bit breathless as I leaned in.

He gripped the steering wheel with both hands. “Right now?”

“Yeah.”

“Betraying myself and the Italians by protecting a dead girl because I can’t seem to get her out of my fucking head.” He took another turn and then queried, “Burgers?”

I snapped my mouth shut and jerked back against the leather seat as he pulled up to a local burger place and actually proceeded to get out of the car and then open my door for me.

What game was he playing?

My heart was still hammering in my chest from his words.

I wanted to be insulted but I was hungry.

We sat in silence.

Him on his phone.

Me sucking down the shake like I really was his kid.

It was painful.

The silence.

“So.” That’s what I filled the void with. So. “What did you do today?”

He didn’t look up, just shrugged and said, “Had a visit from the past. One of the sluts my dad married and forced me to call ‘mom’ said she had info.

I sucked harder on the straw, gulping, “What did you do?”

“She’s alive.”

“I wasn’t asking.”

“Your body language was all over the place—interested, closed off, then embarrassed that you were actually curious.” He still wasn’t looking at me.

I reared back.

“And now you’re wondering how much I’ve noticed up until now. Did you want me to read you, or is it too early in our marriage for that?” Again, he didn’t look up.

I glared. “We’re not married.

“Until you’re safe, you say, ‘why yes husband, I would love to know more fascinating details about my body language and blatant curiosity when you put your hands on me, tell me more.’”

I almost threw my milkshake in his face.

He grinned down at his phone. “Don’t throw it, I like this shirt.”

“I don’t.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Maybe I was thinking of all the ways I could escape from you.”

“Doubtful.” He finally set his phone down and placed his forearms on the table—strong muscle on top of muscle—with smooth skin. “You know the consequences if you run.

“I won’t hesitate to kill you before they do. They’d torture you. I’d put you out of your misery.”

I shuddered and looked away. “Is that where I say, ‘thank you for your mercy’?”

“No. I just don’t feel the need to lie to you about everything. The truth may be more painful, but it’s more real, and I think you need real as much as I do.”

“Now you open up? After two days with me? Are you sampling the drugs you sell at the club now?”

His eyes flashed. “I don’t do drugs, nor do I sell them.” He shrugged.

Our food came.

He’d ordered giant burgers for both of us and started immediately setting out ketchup, fry sauce, and mayo.

I watched in fascination as he dipped a fry into each and then ate it.

It occurred to me then, I’d never seen him do anything so human.

He was eating and I noticed that I hadn’t seen him really devour his food like this in front of me before.

It felt strange, watching him do something I imagined he never took part of, what did I think? He drank people’s blood.

“Watching me eat can’t be that entertaining,” he said between bites. “Unless you just like watching my mouth and imaging what it would feel like sucking one of your—”

I threw a fry at him.

Then froze. Literally held my breath.

He didn’t reach for his gun.

He didn’t move either.

Slowly, he lifted his head and tilted it to the side in a graceful catlike manner, his face hard as stone. And then he picked up the offending fry and very leisurely dipped it in ketchup.

I felt my body heat in all the wrong places as he held it in front of his lips, his eyes at half-mast as his tongue slid out and licked the bottom of the fry.

I gripped the edge of my wooden barstool, unable to look away as he twisted the fry in his mouth, his tongue swirling around it, and then his lips sucking so perfectly that it was a crime.

An actual crime, his mouth. He shoved the fry in and licked his lips then went about licking his thumb slowly, then his forefinger.

“Do that again and I’m not using a fry.”

“’Kay.” And I meant it.

I wouldn’t survive his touch.

I wouldn’t even know how to.

And I’d hate myself, wouldn’t I?

If I gave in.

If I let him touch me that way.

I’d be exactly what my brother and dad called me.

What he’d called me at dinner.

Not his wife.

His whore.