I push through the door, books stacked in one hand and coffee in the other, kicking my shoes off as I go, the door clicking shut behind me. It’s the smell that hits me first—unfamiliar, masculine, which permeates the air. It’s intense, dangerous. The whole room’s filled with it; there’s a mild lingering smell of cigars. It’s heady but confusing. I look around the room to see Darius’s bed still dishevelled, but mine is made, smoothed out, not a crease in sight. There’s a folded piece of paper on my bed and a small black box. I tentatively remove the lid to find it containing a velvet bag.
My fingers shake as I reach for the note, unfolding it and taking a breath before reading it. It’s from Lexi. She’s ended it with me. I flop down on the bed and take the velvet bag, pulling it open, and it’s a coin or a medal maybe? It’s old. I don’t recognise it. It looks foreign, a cross on one side with randomletters surrounding it and a man or woman on the back holding a cross. It’s heavy, silver in colour but I have no idea what it’s for. Why would she end things with a note and then leave me a gift?
I’m so confused—who did she get to deliver this? How did they get in? I can smell them in the room. I toss the coin onto my desk. I yank the bedclothes off and snatch up my washing, heading down to the basement to do the laundry. I’m so over this fucking day. I can’t shake the fact that she had someone come into my room. She broke up with me with a note but left me a stupid fucking carnival token.
I have the coursework I wrote for her for class, but she can go to hell and write her own from now on, and as I storm down the stairs, I realise I’m now going to have to find a new coffee shop to go to. Fuck my life.
Bellino
Chapter Fourteen
I wait in the shadows. I lurk. I watch. I learn. I follow him around campus, out of sight. For a big guy, I know how to blend in and when to stand out. I watch as he interacts with people around the grounds; his roommate grabs him around the neck and scrubs his fist into his hair, laughing as he does, and I see red. My feet are moving before I even know what’s happening, and then they break apart. Leonardo laughs and pushes him away. I breathe and step back into the shadows. I pull out a cigar and lean against the wall. I suck in a big breath and blow out the smoke. It puffs out into the air, and the frustration that goes with it dissipates. I need to see Father. I need to forge a plan. I won’t live a lie any longer. I refuse to marry Leonardo’s sister when it’s him I want, and it’s time I told Father that.
I stand and wait for them to move. When they pack up their things from the grass, they all head in my direction, and Iduck back into the dark and wait for them to pass. Giving them time to leave, I filter in behind them, holding back so they can’t see me. They’re all painfully unaware of what danger they’re in. I smirk to myself like the shark that I am as I follow along, they step inside the local pub. I sneak in behind them and take a seat in the back corner as they all head to the bar. Laughing and joking, I watch. The dingy lighting is the perfect cover for me to hide away. They drink until their words are incoherent, their actions are drained and sluggish. They’re totally impaired at this point. So I follow along behind them, making sure he gets back.
When he clicks his dorm room door closed, I wait in the corridor. I hear the light snoring through the door, and I pick the lock. I slip inside. His features relaxed. He’s beautiful. I reach out and slide my hand down his face. His eyes flutter, and his cheek pushes into the warmth of it. He sighs, and I feel it straight in my dick. I rub myself through my trousers as I stare down at him. I watch every flutter of his lashes against his tanned skin, the way he wraps himself up in the covers, holding them tight against him as he wraps his leg and arm over the outside, clutching them tighter, pulling them into his body.
I feel something more than lust. I don’t know how to describe it—, a pull towards him, maybe, and I lean in closer. I breathe him in. His smell is intoxicating. The arousal that peaks inside me longs to burst free. I close my eyes.
“Who are you?”
A groggy voice comes from behind me and I turn to see the roommate scrubbing at his eyes.
“You’re dreaming,” I whisper as I glide towards him. I lean in and blow in his face. His eyes flutter, and he lays back down, rolling away from me, and I chuckle. I was actually gonna choke him out but guess I don’t have to, this time. I slip the little gift onto his pillow. I take one last look at him before stepping back out of the room and closing the door, locking it behind me.
Bellino
Chapter Fifteen
I slip into the house and creep through the hall, heading to the office where I stand just out of view and wait. We left things on a semi-truce for now after what Matteo did, and I’ve kept my distance. However, the more I think about it, I’m not sure why. Why didn’t I kill her back then? Why didn’t I fuck her, break her, destroy her? There was something though, something that stopped my usual behaviour. Something that gave me pause. But now I make my move.
I wait in the darkness of the room, and as she pushes in through the door, I lash out. I smirk as I crash her back against the wall, kicking the door closed behind her, flicking on the light. The huff of air rejected from her pathetic body as I tighten my grip on her throat. My fiancée—well, I suppose sister-in-law now. Either way, she’s fucking irrelevant.
I snarl at her. “You’ll die today for what you’ve done to my family. You don’t deserve to carry the Ricci name. I should have killed you when I had the chance. I pull back slightly, slamming her back against the wall again. Her eyes roll as her head makes contact with the brickwork. I pull out my gun from the back of my trousers and push it into her temple.
“Any last words?”
She flicks her eyes to mine. A look of defiance spreads across her beautiful face before a slight twitch of her lip tics at the corner. She takes a breath as I loosen my grip enough for her to speak.
“I’m no fucking Ricci. You’re a fucking lapdog, Bell,” she spits. “You’ll never be Don. You’ll never amount to anything while your father still breathes. But I can help you.”
I bark a laugh at her. “Once my father dies, it will all be mine.”
The slight shake of her head and the look of disappointment that slides over her face like a mask makes me pause just enough for her to start talking again.
“My father was the same as yours is, Bell.” Her hand comes up and touches my cheek, and I growl as her skin burns into mine. And I snatch my head away. “He will never let you take over. This will never be yours.” She smiles, devious, cunning. “But together… together we can take it all.”
“Fuck you. You could have had it all with me. You chose my fucking brother.” I press the barrel of my gun firmly against her temple. Spittle flies onto her face as I snarl. “You will never be good enough on your own. You’re nothing, a nobody.”
“You know that’s not true, Bell. I succeeded. I took over. It’s mine, all fucking mine,” she laughs out.
“Stop fucking calling me Bell. You have nothing. They’ll never let you keep it all, and I will gladly help them take everything from you. You’re temporary.”
“Bell, you seem to have missed how many of the Syndicate still draw breath. We could have it now. We can take it all. You never wanted me. You never even looked at me. Fuck’s sake. Bell, you couldn’t have picked me out of a line-up. You don’t even fucking like women. You’re gay.”
I flinch back. I pull the gun back and square it between her eyes. I push it to her forehead and pin her head against the wall. Her hands limp beside her body, and there it is, that look of disappointment again. I am gay. I’m not ashamed of it. I don’t hide it, as such. It was just never going to be on the cards for me. I was to become the head of the family. I was to marry her. She would be my bride. My wife and I would give my father another heir. That was my fate, the legacy I was given.
I would have become Don, but she fucked it all up by killing her scum of a father and choosing to abandon our marriage. Abandon me, and choose my brother, my younger brother at that.
