I arrive and park, walking slowly up to the gathering. It’s a simple hotel conference room, nothing fancy. We’ve rented out half the hotel, too, but who’s counting?
Enzo Vitale meets me at the archway, holding out his hands for a hug. I lean in, wrinkling my nose at the smell of weed and whiskey on his clothes.
He blinks when he pulls away. “Luca. Is it really you? It’s been an age.”
“Not that long,” I remind him. Then again, he’d been stinking drunk at the last event we were both at.
He shrugs. “These things all blur together.”
With the drugs you take and the booze you drink, it’s lucky you remember to attend at all.
But I don’t say it, keeping up appearances.
I nod. “Don’t they?”
“Nico couldn’t make it?”
I peer down at Enzo. He’s a few inches shorter than my six-foot-four frame, but he doesn’t back down when he meets my eyes, and that’s more than I can say for most men.
“He’ll be along,” I say simply, not giving too much away.
“Keep an eye on him,” Enzo warns, and another man might take it as a challenge.
I don’t. Enzo has always been an ally, as his father was before him.
I just nod sharply and Enzo exits, walking back toward the bar where he’ll order too many whiskies and need to be carried to the car.
Everyone has their own way of coping, I suppose. Mine is work, and there’s plenty of it to be done, sussing out the rat in Nico’s organization.
The Hillside fighting ring is the only cash flow that we let Nico handle. Even Father knows he’s not exactly stable, so he doesn’t give him too much responsibility.
If Nico’s jealous, he doesn’t show it.
He’s just…Nico, and his middle name might as well have been trouble.
I see him squeal up in his newest purchase, an electric blue sports car that could be seen from space. My brother isn’t much for subtlety.
I roll my eyes and walk further into the fray, toward the smell of booze acrid on the air. I need a drink if I’m supposed to remain calm in this environment. Especially with Nico here, probably high on god knows what.
It’s not like Father would allow me to hit him. Even if I wanted to so badly sometimes that my knuckles ached.
I grit my teeth and head to the bar. I order a Scotch on the rocks, and it’s a beautiful amber color when the bartender slides it to me, the ice clinking in the glass.
When I sip it, the alcohol blooms hot on my tongue, streaming down my throat. I lock eyes with a blonde with dark blue eyes. She looks up with me, something like mild interest on her face.
She isn’t the type to wear her heart on her sleeve, it seems, but I’m good at reading people.
She hails the bartender and totters just slightly on her heels. I trail my eyes up her thin body. She’s drunk. Not falling-down drunk, but maybe loose-lipped drunk.
I could take her home, if I wanted.
I can feel that much already. Even if I get what I want from her—information—I could still use her body. She’d let me. The thought should be a rush, but instead, I feel nothing.
I’ve felt nothing for the last three years, it seems.
Not since…
A flash of bright blue eyes, hair that curled at the ends, bouncing around her waist.
