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I walked away without another word. It had taken all my strength to let her go, to let her walk away from me.
I thought about feeling her body against mine. Her skin. I had known she was going to be soft to the touch, and that exposed skin on her back had been hard to resist.
In my mind, I had wanted to pull her across the dance floor and take her right there in a random closet. Just the scent of her made me hard—not an ideal situation in public.
There was still an uncomfortable stiffness in my pants. I ignored it.
Damn, I’d spent years thinking about what it would feel like to touch her. I thought just holding her close would be enough,but it wasn’t. Up until that moment, I didn’t think I had to have her.
Now I knew that I did. I couldn’t fight my obsession any longer. I had to find a way to get her to be mine. And I knew once I had her, there was no fucking way I would let her go.
At one point, when I first saw her on the steps, I had considered confronting her about her plan, telling her who I was, and letting the chips fall where they may.
Thankfully, I hadn’t done that, or we wouldn’t have had that moment.
She walked away from me, but I knew she felt it too. She was like putty in my hands when she let her body sink against mine. It was as if she belonged there.
And she did. She belonged with me. Now, I just needed a plan to make her see.
Scanning the room, I tried to remember where the library was. I knew I was taking a chance by outright following her, but I needed her.
Not to mention, I had to keep an eye on Nico as well as her. She had already tried to kill him once. I was sure she was there at the party, uninvited, to try again.
I’d seen how her purse seemed a little weighty. I knew she was packing. Part of me wanted to let her do as she liked.
Another part of me told me that I would regret it, but would I?
I despised my younger brother nearly as much as the older one. They were brainless, rash, never the type to plan, only wanting to destroy and wreak havoc. I didn’t like chaos.
We had had enough of that growing up. I valued order. But sometimes order requires sacrifice.Maybe I should just let him die, I thought for the millionth time. We weren’t close. I hated him. He hated me.
It had been that way since we were kids. We were pitted against each other since we were kids by our dad, not only physically, but in every other way. He made us compete for his love, his money, his attention.
For Dad, none of us had ever been good enough, strong enough, or smart enough. We were all wanting in his eyes.
I had grown up not caring, but Matteo and Nico had been different. They had grown up with chips on their shoulders the size of Manhattan. They had something to prove and I had a feeling it would eventually be at my expense.
I couldn’t trust them. Neither one of them were good by themselves, and they were worse when they were together.
I’d always been the odd one out, but I preferred it that way.
Matteo called me the prodigal son, which told me he hadn’t ever read a parable in his life. I never wanted to be Dad’s chosen one—had never wanted to be and had never cared to be.
I felt sorry for Nico, being that he was the baby, but he hadn’t wanted my pity. He just wanted to feel strong, even at the expense of others. He was closer to Matteo, a sloppy egomaniac, for that reason.
Matteo broke things for fun. He hated our father through and through. One beating after another had ensured that. It was ironic that out of all of us, Matteo was the most like him.
Nico, on the other hand, was just a sniveling idiot. He wanted to be in charge and important so badly that he was willing to do anything, no matter how stupid.
And that’s how Jason had died. Nico had thought he was being a bad boy and had created chaos that rippled through my carefully controlled organization.
I couldn’t afford another screw-up like that. Prison had been exactly where he belonged. He stayed out of trouble and I could watch him from there.
I had been pissed to find out that my older brother had gone behind my back to find a loophole in Nico’s case. I had wanted Nico to rot there. I figured that a few decades on the inside would make him see the error of his ways.
He was a liability and a wildcard. He wasn’t even supposed to be here tonight.
“Dario,” said a voice in the little mic in my ear.