Luka hands me a chilled beer. Other than the glass of wine I chugged down the first night, I’ve not touched any alcohol since arriving at this cursed mansion. A cold beer hits the mark nicely.
We sit in silence for a while, sharing the plate of snacks and drinking our beer. When the food is all gone, Luka pulls out a joint and lights it with a Zippo. The sweet scent of weed fills the air. He closes his eyes, giving me a chance to admire his perfectly sculpted body.
The guy’s pretty as hell. Whereas Angelo is undeniably handsome, his features have a hard edge to them. He’s all sharp cheekbones with a square, masculine jaw.
Luka is a softer, more carefree version of Angelo, a man unburdened by the demands of a criminal empire. Thick eyelashes frame come-to-bed eyes and laughter lines tell me he smiles way more often than his brother. I guess he takes after his mother rather than their brute of a father.
“Not seeing your girlfriend this evening?” I ask when the silence grows thick. My phone is likely still in the desk drawer at Mack’s bar, but the last time I looked up the Di Rossis on social media, Luka had been dating some influencer chick.
He snorts. “Jealous, cutie?”
“Not in the slightest.” I take the joint he offers me and suck in a lungful of smoke. It hits me hard, and for a moment, everything seems brighter. The turquoise pool glows as the lingering tension in my body fades away.
Damn. I needed this. Luka lets me take a few more drags before he snatches the joint back.
“I dumped her,” he says finally. “She bored the shit out of me.”
“Not cerebral enough for you?” I giggle, finding it hilarious that a player like him would want more than a superficial relationship. I probably should have said no to the joint. If I’m not careful, I’ll fall asleep on this very comfortable lounger and wake up at noon tomorrow with sunburn.
Luka throws me a lazy grin. “She talked too much. Mostly about stuff like makeup tutorials and fashion.”
“Yeah, that sounds terrible,” I agree. I can’t imagine anything more mind-numbing than discussing makeup trends and fashion. The few friends I made at school were more into gaming and anime.
My idea of fun back then was learning to code or doing math puzzles, not reading gossip sites. Much to my stepmother’s disgust.
“Men don’t like women with brains, Chiara,” she’d tell me while simultaneously stealing my textbooks. Lucky for me, they were all available as e-books, or I’d have flunked out of my online college classes.
Luka takes one last drag of the joint and then tosses it into the pool. I laugh at the thought of Angelo swallowing it when he does a few laps, which soon turns into a slightly hysterical belly laugh, and after a few moments, Luka joins in until we’re both crying.
My the time my hilarity dies, I realize this is the first time I’ve truly laughed in years.
“I like you,” I tell Angelo’s brother with a sappy smile, my tongue loosened from the weed and beer. I know I’ll regret this unguarded moment tomorrow since Luka is probably here to spy on me. Report back to his brother.
But I’m not thinking about myfucking husband.
7
Luka
The guarded woman who walked into the kitchen earlier is long gone. This version is relaxed and utterly enchanting. I wonder if my brother has seen this side of her. Somehow, I doubt it.
From the videos of the wedding I saw on social media, footage Fina failed to take down, it was pretty fucking obvious Chiara Farucci did not want to be there. To be fair, Angelo had not looked happy about it either, but because he’s a good little soldier, he accepted his fate.
The only people who seemed delighted by the whole debacle were our father, Vivian Farucci, and the priest.
Chiara’s helpless laughter is like music to my ears. She’s so relaxed she hasn’t noticed her spaghetti strap has slipped off a tanned shoulder, or that if she turned to face me, her tit would probably fall out of her top.
I’ve noticed, of course. My dick’s noticed too. Luckily, she’s oblivious. The solar lights Fina strung up have lost their brightness now that midnight has been and gone.
“I like you,” she tells me once her giggles fade away.
I smile, my mind a little cloudy from the weed. If I stretched out my hand, I could touch her golden skin. Are her thighs as silky smooth as they look?
My imagination paints a picture whereby I roll off my lounger and kneel between her legs, parting them as she gasps in shock. I can almost hear her breathy moans as I pull down her shorts and taste her sweet cunt.
My dick throbs uncomfortably, but she’s too busy staring out into the darkness with a sappy grin on her face. I resolve to roll more joints for her. God knows she needs to have a bit of fun in this fucking mausoleum. If my brother has his way, she’ll be pregnant in no time.
I’m jealous.
