It wasn’t like I could trust her brother to keep her safe.
He’d sell her for his next fix.
“So like I was sayin…”
I stood up, and the man to my left fell silent. Walking over to the railing, I scanned the crowd for her and found her almost instantly.
“Boss?”
“Keep an eye on her.” I didn’t take my eyes off the dance floor. My men already knew what they had to do. I had been pretty clear on that, but now that Gio was here, I wanted people close to her.
“Get someone close,” I hissed as I watched them together below. The music was pumping, so their slow dance was out of place. “I want to know what they are talking about.”
“You don’t trust her?”
“I don’t trust him.”
Chapter Twenty
Sophia
“You’re wasted,” I hissed as Gio looped his arm around my waist and pulled me toward him right in the center of the dance floor.
I’d noticed right away how glazed his eyes were and how weird his voice had sounded, but I hadn’t put two and two together right away. It had been years since I had seen him like this. In fact, the last time I had, I had been about thirteen, and he had disappeared for six months,
Now I realized he had been sent to rehab, but I hadn’t back then.
“Gio.” I tilted my head up to his, but from this angle, all I could really see was his angular jaw. Which he was moving side to side.
Shaking my head, I tried to pull away. This was a nightclub, and him holding me like we were slow dancing was going to cause issues. People would look at us. Matteo would look at us.
“What drugs have you taken?” Catching his chin, I yanked his face down so I could stare into his eyes. “Jesus.”
This up close and personal, he looked even worse.
“Don’t fucking touch me.” He slapped my hand away painfully and tightened his grip on me. “Just stand here and fucking listen. The sooner I can leave this dump, the better.”
Again, he pulled me into him.
“It isn’t a dump,” I muttered, and his fingers dug painfully into my hip. “And why did you come if you didn’t want to be here. You should have been…”
“Jesus, Sophia, do you ever stop fucking talking? I don’t know how Matteo puts up with,” his chest rose and fell, “well, I’m guessing you don’t do much talking at all. Do you know how hard it was walking in here and seeing you sitting on his lap with his hand up your dress like a common street walker?”
I stiffened. “You’re the one who put me in this situation, Gio,” I ground out. “You’re the one who dragged me back here.”
“Yeah, to help me,” he spat, and some of his spittle hit me in the face.
I blinked it away. “I am…”
“You’re not helping Sophia. You’re fucking in his bed and fucking him, aren’t you? My sister and my best…”
I rolled my eyes. “What did you expect to happen, Gio? That he would take me as his mistress, which was something you agreed to without talking to me, by the way, and we would sit around and knit cardigans?”
“I didn’t expect you to act like a whore and enjoy it.”
I lost my temper. Lifting myself to my tiptoes, I lowered my voice. “Would you have preferred he raped me? Would that have made you feel better?” I bristled. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up.
Someone was watching me, and it didn’t take a genius to know who. Matteo.
