“Please don’t.”
“He’s only like this with people he cares about. It may seem like he’s open to a lot of people, but that’s not true. Everyone in my family is a bit more selective than that when it comes to trusting others.” Their waitress arrived and Neve broke off to place her order.
Nate gave an internal sigh of relief as the rest of them did the same, choosing something random without much thought for himself just to go with the flow. He could tell the moment the waitress turned to leave, however, that the conversation wasn’t truly over, and wanting to put an end to it, he sprung up.
“Bathroom,” he explained when that received frowns from the table, then he patted Kaz’s shoulder. “Let me out.”
Kazimir hesitated but eventually slid down the booth, stopping him just before he could move away from them by resting a hand on his hip. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” He gave what had to be the millionth fake smile in the last half hour alone. “I’m fine.”
Chapter 22:
He was going to the bathroom to freak out on his own. Kazimir knew this with perfect clarity. It was the reason why that was eluding him.
Things seemed to be going well with his sister, so why was Nate turning that sallow shade he did whenever he got trapped in his head?
Kazimir watched Neve closely, but there were no signs that she’d picked up on her brother’s distress. It sounded like she’d known more about him and his affliction, what with all that talk about him putting others' needs above his own, but she sat there chatting happily with her boyfriend now, completely unaware of the obvious.
Was it the fact he was in the mafia? Was Nate still worried over how that would affect his sibling's reputation?
“Thoughts about your brother dating a mafia member?” Kaz asked bluntly, some of the fake pleasant niceties he’d been laying on thick all evening slipping away. There was no reason to maintain that type of act as far as he was concerned, not when she’d proven to be as clueless as this.
She’d grown up with Nate and yet didn’t realize he was depressed and too hard on himself? How was that even possible?
“Kaz, if we’re going to do this, we may as well be one hundred percent honest,” she surprised him by saying. “You’re hardly just any mafia member.”
So she wasn’t as slow as he’d presumed.
“Even if we hadn’t gone to school together, everyone on the planet knows who you are.”
“Rich,” he ticked off the fingers on his left hand, “sexy, and influential.”
“Dangerous,” she leaned forward and mirrored his motions, “arrogant, and a playboy.”
It wasn’t just the Brumal that talked about how he couldn’t commit? That was…annoying. Kaz had never paid attention to those types of rumors in the past, but now he was wondering if he maybe should have. Could that be one of the reasons Nate had been so against dating him in the beginning?
“My brother might not want for anything tangible,” she continued. “Your money could most likely buy a vacation moon for him if you wanted to.”
Kaz could afford several, actually, but he didn’t correct her.
“And considering how happy he looked when we met up again after the…movie, you two watched together, sure, I’ll give you sexy. He obviously finds you attractive. It’s that last part that makes me nervous.”
His brow furrowed. “What’s wrong with being influential?”
“People with power come with strings,” she said. “They come with enemies. You aren’t a government official or a Royal, Kazimir. You’re the wealthy heir of the third richest man on the planet, and the new second in command of the Brumal mafia. Even a nobody like me knows that. I don’t want my brother mixed up in anything bad.”
“I’ll protect him.” Even the thought of someone trying to harm Nate sent a wave of pure fury scorching through Kaz’s insides. He felt hot and pissed off in less time than it took to blink but kept tight control on his outward appearance to prevent her or Verga, who’d remained silent all this while, from noticing.
“Can you guarantee that?” She shook her head. “You can’t. My brother is the most important person to me in the entire universe.” Her boyfriend didn’t so much as flinch at this revelation.
“You have two of them,” Kaz reminded.
“Nuri doesn’t count.”
“Why not?”
“Because he isn’t Nate,” she clipped. “I love him, but he didn’t raise me. He wasn’t the one sitting by my bedside all through the night whenever I got sick. Or the one who attended my parent-teacher conferences. He didn’t come to my music recitals or celebrate my accomplishments—both big and small—with surprise trips to my favorite restaurant or my favorite candy. That was all Nate. Nate is more than just my brother, he’s like my parent.”
