“Five years,” he says.
My jaw tightens. “He really said that while looking you in the eye?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” I let out a slow breath through my nose. “That means when I kill him, I’ll know it wasn’t based on a misunderstanding.”
Vincenzo actually reaches back then, one wet hand finding my jaw where it hovers near his shoulder, fingers pressing there in gentle admonishment. “You’re not killing him.”
“Mhm.”
“Nikolaj.”
“He spent five years moving shit through your structure and making it look like the Vieri family was turning against the Five Families. He slept with your wife in your bed.” I kiss the side of his head, not gently enough to count as innocent. “You’re right, actually. I’ll have someone else do it. No need to make the morning untidy.”
That earns me a splash from his free hand, cool water thrown back over my forearm in retaliation. I laugh and trap him tighter before he can do it again, dragging him fully against my chest.
“You are impossible,” he huffs.
“I’m practical,” I counter.
“You’re homicidal.”
“That too.”
He sighs like I’m a burden he personally requested from a very expensive catalog. “He admitted all of it. The shipments. The names. The handlers. Ryazan, Naples, Marseille. Enough that I know where to start cutting.” He goes quiet briefly, staring into the whisky before finishing. “I just didn’t expect the worst part to be how stupid it made me feel.”
I knew that was the wound under the anger. Of course I did. I know him well enough to hear where his pride gets damaged and where the damage goes when he’s too controlled to let it show cleanly.
I lower my face to his shoulder and rest my mouth there for a second before speaking. “It doesn’t make you stupid.”
“It makes me blind.”
“It makes you human.”
He snorts softly. “That’s not an improvement.”
“It is if you’re the one trying to love somebody properly.”
The words leave me before I can decide whether I meant to let them out. But I don’t take it back. I don’t know when I got brave enough not to, but I’m glad of it now.
Vincenzo’s hand leaves the glass and comes up to my wrist. “I don’t know how to do that,” he says very quietly.
“Neither do I.”
He laughs once under his breath, a wrecked little sound. “You say that like it helps.”
“It should.” I kiss the wet curve of his shoulder. “It means when we get it wrong, we’ll at least be failing equally.”
That gets another laugh, softer this time, more real. Good. I’ll take any sound from him that isn’t grief.
He tips his head back just enough that it rests lightly against my shoulder again. I brush my lips against the side of his neck and feel the tension ease under the contact so subtly that anyone else would miss it.
Not me.
Not anymore.
“I hate that Lucien made you doubt yourself,” I say.
