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Luca released a wicked cackle that sent a shiver down my arms. “Tell me, Aiden, whose cock was she riding less than a minute ago?”
My brother’s gaze shifted to me. “Lexie?”
I threw up my hands and shrugged. “I was just messing around. You know I don’t like him like that.”
“The fuck you don’t,” Luca snapped.
He could have leveled an entire football field with his stare.
“Deny it all you want, baby girl. If it makes you feel empowered, go right the fuck ahead, but we both know whose cock you’ll be sucking for the rest of your life.”
A petite redhead latched onto Aiden’s arm, begging him to come with her to the beach. He shook her off and steered me away from Luca’s table.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
I angled my body to look at Luca. “Home.”
The girls dancing on the table jumped down, making a lot of noise. They found places on the laps of Bastian, Damian, and Marcello Salvatore, all of which shot daggers at me. They gave a whole new meaning to the sayingif looks could kill.
Luca gripped Aiden’s bicep, facing off with him. “If you ever get in the way again, they will find you in pieces at the bottom of the bay.”
“Threaten me all you want, but you will never get my sister,” Aiden challenged. “Over my dead body.”
Luca’s eyes flickered with pure insanity. “So be it.”
At the time, I thought nothing of Luca’s threat… but I should have heeded his warnings. If I had given in to him, I could have avoided a lot of pain.
4
LUCA
They sayit takes the same amount of energy to love as it does to hate. I spent equal amounts of time hating and loving Alex.
She drove me fucking insane.
After Alex disrespected me in front of my friends, I decided to kill her with kindness. I sent my assistant to her house the following morning with lingerie and chocolate. The day after that, I bought her new art supplies. It wasn’t until I offered to let her paint in my mother’s studio that Alex started speaking to me again.
I could always get to her through art. She was obsessed with my mother’s paintings, and it showed. If anyone could imitate the legendary Evangeline Franco, it was Alex.
Two weeks into our new arrangement, I found Alex on the floor in my mother’s studio. She stripped down to a pair of black lace panties and a matching bra.
Why did she have to tempt me?
Rock music blared through the Bluetooth speakers. Alex was dead to the world, lost in her art. She was fucking beautiful without even trying. Her blonde hair fanned out around her as she lay on her stomach, her legs curled into her tight ass as she hummed the tune.
Watching Alex in her element took me back to better days. To the days when bloodlust didn’t run through my veins like a shot of heroin, poisoning me from the inside out.
My mother would have loved her. They were so much alike that I couldn’t help but think of the last time I saw my mother on the floor in her studio, two paintbrushes stuffed into her hair like chopsticks.
Alex gasped as I sat in the armchair beside her easel, holding her hand over her heart. “Luca, you scared me.”
After getting over her surprise, she glanced down at her lack of clothing and attempted to cover herself with her hands.
“No. Don’t hide from me. I love this gorgeous view. But why are you painting in your underwear?”
She pointed at a pile of clothing a few feet from her. “I didn’t want to ruin my dress.”
“What are you working on?”