Alesso’s gift was different from his usual designer items and electronics that he tended to gift his little sister. Instead, when she opened her gift from him, she’d pulled out a clear plastic box with a baby ball python in it.
At first, I wasn’t sure what kind of a person gifted a snake to someone, but then Cini’s face lit up like a Christmas tree and I understood it. It was the happiest she’d looked all night and she had immediately disappeared to set up the tank that he said was in her room.
The pure joy on her face had made something shift within me that I couldn’t quite describe. Seeing her sit in her pretty dress with a pale purple snake winding around her fingers, her expression open and unguarded, had made me want to do something I had never wanted to do before.
It made me want to touch her and see if I could taste the excitement on her glossy lips.
I could hardly remember what I said to her after that, but I did remember how her soft lips had felt against mine and the little gasp that had left her mouth as soon as I pulled her to me.
It was all as vivid and fresh in my mind as if I had done it only seconds ago.
My grip on the steering wheel tightened as I maneuvered the SUV around the switchback curves of the mountains that surrounded the city.
“You still seem perturbed,” Alesso pointed out from the passenger seat. “Perturbed means feeling anxiety or concern.”
I slanted an irritated glance in his direction. “I know what perturbed means, asshole.”
Alesso, for as long as I could remember, was like a walking, talking dictionary. The jerk knew more words than anyone I’d ever known and liked to sprinkle them into conversations whenever he could. In another life, the guy would probably have been a language professor or some shit like that.
Unfortunately, in this life, he was the prince and heir apparent for the Italian mob.
Life was real ironic in that way.
“All right, don’t get your panties in a twist,” Alesso said, his laughter a bright bark amongst the rainy darkness surrounding us. “I’m just trying to cheer you up.”
“Then cheer me up with a beer once this is all said and done,” I told him, trying to push my thoughts of Luscinia Amante firmly out of my mind.
But, somehow, Alesso always knew how to bring a conversation right back to her. “I can’t—I told Cini I would help her finish setting up the tank for Pluto.”
“Why, out of everything you could have gotten her for her birthday, did you have to get Cini a snake?” Nico complained from the back seat, his face twisted into a grimace. “I hate snakes.”
“So you can face down scary ass mafia men, but a snake is where you draw the line?” Ranieri teased without looking up from his phone. “Wimp.”
Nico gave the alpha a shove, his dark brows pinching together. “Don’t be a jerk, Rani. Having a fear of snakes and reptiles is a perfectly legitimate phobia. They give me the heebie-jeebies.”
“Nicky is right. I’m afraid of bees, but I can face down Volkov like it’s nothing,” Alesso said with a grin, clearly enjoying the turn in the conversation. Most of our conversations tended to end with us teasing the youngest member of our pack, and I was pretty sure Nico secretly liked it.
“Shut up, you are not,” I told him with a roll of my eyes.
“I am!” Alesso insisted, his blue eyes sparkling with mischief. “If I see or hear one, I’m running in the other direction. I’m also totally allergic, so I feel pretty valid.”
“So if I bought Cini a bunch of bees, how would you feel?” Nico asked in a bid to get someone, anyone on his side when it came to his fear of Cini’s new pet.
“Then I’d kick your ass because Cini is just as allergic to bees as I am.”
We laughed and I found myself finally relaxing the further we drove away from the city.
His cheeky expression dropped suddenly and the mood in the car seemed to turn on a dime. “Remember this: you all agreed to protect my little sister just as much as I do. The world hasn’t been kind to her and she needs us to shield her from the truly awful parts. Even if I’m gone, you all need to take care of her.”
He’d said such a thing before, his normally cheerful personality slipping away to show the much darker, much more serious side of the alpha.
Cini was the thing he cared about most in the world, and I was the idiot who had kissed her.
“Nothing’s going to happen to you, Aless,” Ranieri said with a roll of his eyes as he reached into the front seat and gave Alesso’s shoulder a squeeze. “Quit being so macabre—a word which here means disturbing as you probably already know.”
Alesso’s expression cracked at the other alpha’s gentle teasing and the grin returned to his face as the sudden tenseness in the car faded away just as quickly as it had appeared.
I breathed a sigh of relief. We could always leave it to Ranieri to pull Alesso out of his moods. It was what the alpha was best at. He was a commensurate hacker, businessman, and ran our household like a sea captain of old, but his true talent was his ability to charm and cajole even the crotchetiest of people.
