Page 1 of Confession (Constantine Brothers #2)

ONE

Vitali

I’ve told Quinn a million fucking times that he doesn’t have to cook. He already has a more than fulltime job as my bodyguard. But every time I point that out, he just says he likes cooking.

Maybe so, but what he really likes is keeping busy. Quinn doesn’t do well with downtime, and he’s had a lot of that over the past six weeks.

“Should you be doing that?” I ask as I walk past him kneading pasta dough at the kitchen island. The glare I get from those hazel eyes. Jesus. If looks could kill.

Sometimes I wonder if Quinn would beat me in a fight.

I kind of think he would. I might be an inch or so taller at 6’2” and I’m pretty damn cut, but Quinn is fucking jacked .

As for skill, my training is more formal, courtesy of my father, but Quinn is tough as fuck, courtesy of his.

Quinn is rarely drunk, but he was one night, and that came out.

I’m not sure whether he remembers that conversation.

He sure as hell never followed up on it.

“I’m fucking fine,” he informs me. “Have been for a while.”

I snag the coffeepot. It’s six p.m., which is kind of my second morning. I need caffeine, a workout, and a shower before the night starts.

“You got shot,” I remind him. “Twice.”

Quinn aggressively kneads the dough. “Nothing vital was hit. And one of them was just a graze.”

“Isaac said—”

“Isaac’s a fucking doctor, what do you expect?”

Being interrupted usually annoys me, but interactions with Quinn always seem to activate a different part of my brain. It’s like my usual defense mechanisms relax.

“You’re supposed to listen to doctors,” I point out as I fill the coffeepot at the sink.

He ignores me.

As I get the coffee going, I watch him work. I tell myself that I’m gauging his movement, judging his recovery, but the truth is that I watch Quinn a lot. And sure, I always have for some reason, but since he got hurt, I’m catching myself doing it even more.

Wearing a black apron, with his green plaid sleeves rolled to his elbows, his body rocks slightly as he kneads the stiff dough. For a second, I can almost picture my grandmother beside him, teaching him to do this.

Quinn entered this household in the last year of Nonna Maria’s life.

She would keep up a steady stream of Italian, her frail hands correcting his strong ones when he couldn’t understand her words.

She would shake her head and say, “No, no ,” like she despaired of his efforts, but her face would light up whenever he walked into the kitchen to help her.

Bello , she called him. Handsome.

I mean, he is. Objectively speaking, of course. It’s part of why I hired him as a bouncer at Eclipse two years ago. The nightclub has a certain aesthetic, and his ruggedly handsome face fit the bill. Plus he had the body, skills, and calm demeanor needed for the job.

That feels like a lifetime ago, him working at the club. This is where he belongs. I can’t imagine this house without him.

Arms crossed, I’m standing with my back to the counter, listening to the percolator gurgle to a finish as I watch Quinn. I’m sure no one looking at me would guess that my heart is skipping. It’s done that a lot over the past six weeks, and it’s the reason I’m holding Quinn back.

He could’ve been hurt a lot worse. He could’ve been killed.

When it first happened, adrenaline was high, Quinn was walking and talking, and there was a lot of shit going on.

At the time, in my mind, Quinn was doing his job, which he’s damned good at.

I cared because I would care about anyone who works for me getting hurt, especially Quinn or Sasha who live in my house.

But for some fucking reason, ever since it happened, I’ve been fighting a fixation that I really, really need to get control of.

And it’s not just a fixation. It’s a fear. I don’t want anything to happen to him.

I have to get over it, I know. I have to let Quinn get back to work before he loses his mind, which he’s pretty damn close to doing.

Done kneading, he covers the dough in plastic wrap. I set my coffee aside and walk up behind him. “Let me see it.”

Quinn’s back goes ramrod straight at my sudden nearness.

He’s not exactly a touchy-feely person, but I don’t see him tense like this with anyone but me.

I don’t get it, and it’s very annoying. I mean, I talk to him more than to anyone.

He’s the only person I let see how much it fucked me up when Nonna Maria died last year.

And I know he’s not intimidated by me, so what the fuck?

Usually, I maintain a decent physical distance to avoid this response from him, but it’s been harder these past six weeks. There’s like a fucking magnet on him or something.

“See what?” he asks, turning to face me.I’m too close, I know, because I can see the gold and amber flecks in his otherwise green eyes.

“Your shoulder, dumbass.”

Annoyance is written all over his face. “It’s fucking fine. I don’t know why you refuse to believe me.”

“I don’t know why you refuse to show me if you want to get back to work so goddamn bad.”

His nostrils flare. I’m manipulating him, offering something he wants in exchange for something he doesn’t want—my attention. I get that. But come on, I’ve seen him shirtless plenty of times.

When Quinn sees that I’m not going to budge on this, he exhales loudly to tell me how irritated he is and yanks the tie on his apron. He pulls it over his head and tosses it onto the counter. He starts unbuttoning his shirt.

Okay, I do have to admit that forcing Quinn to undress has a different vibe than I was imagining.

I should step back, grab my coffee, make this whole thing more casual, but I just stand there two feet from him as button after button of his green plaid shirt flicks open, revealing his muscled chest and abs.

He tugs his shirttail from his jeans and finishes unbuttoning until I see the new reddish scar slashing his side from the bullet graze. Other, older scars litter his body.

Quinn tugs his shirt off his shoulder, baring the fresh round scar of a bullet that went through his delt. Shoulder wounds can be really bad. He was so damn lucky the bullet went through all that muscle instead of bone.

I clamp my hand on his shoulder, squeezing harder by degrees, watching for a wince. It’s hard for me to believe that it doesn’t still hurt, but he just stares back at me, annoyed.

“Well?” he prompts when I give up and let go. He straightens his shirt and starts buttoning it. “Are you done torturing me with this sideline shit? I’m fine, Vitali.”

Quinn rarely says my name. It’s weird to hear it in his voice. I’m sure that’s why it makes my heart jump.

“Be ready at ten.”

Quinn huffs out a breath, and a tiny smile flicks across his lips.

Quinn’s irritation didn’t make me step back, but his smile does.

Something pings inside me when I see it.

I don’t know what it is, but it makes me suddenly uncomfortable.

I snag my coffee from the counter, turning to go.

That’s when I see Sasha standing in the doorway in her customary black fatigues, her dark braid draped over her shoulder.

There’s an overly attentive look on her face that makes me snap, “What?”

“Do I finally get a night off?”

“Yes,” I reply, “thank god. I’m sick of you eating tacos in my office.”

Sasha snorts and looks past me to Quinn. “You sure you wanna be stuck with his snobby, judgmental ass all the time?”

I hear Quinn suck in a breath. With my back to him, I can’t read his expression, but I take the sound to mean that he agrees with her.

“Oh, fuck you both,” I mutter. A wicked light dances in Sasha’s eyes as I walk past her.

***

When Quinn and I get to Eclipse, we find the nightclub short staffed. My manager, Keith, assures me the remaining staff can handle the bar, but one of our most popular DJs is on stage, and the club is packed.

Quinn shakes his head no before I even open my mouth because he knows what I want him to do.

When he was a bouncer here, I used to make him fill in at the bar all the time.

He was honestly more useful there because he would draw all the women to the bar, where they would order drinks just to interact with him.

Working the floor, he’d draw them away from the bar, which meant that not only were they not spending as much money, their hovering made his job harder.

He always managed to do his job anyway, a fact fully proven when he saved my life one night. That’s where one of his scars came from—and his job offer as my bodyguard.

“Just for tonight,” I tell him.

His eyes flash. “I can’t help you from the bar. I can’t see you and I can’t hear you. I’m too far away if something—”

“I need you down here.”

A muscle feathers in his jaw. “This is not my job. You are.”

That kind of pisses me off. I mean, it’s not inaccurate. He’s my bodyguard, my employee, so I literally am his job. But I didn’t like that.

“Just do what I fucking said, Quinn, Jesus.”

I spend the next two hours in my office on the mezzanine level. Doing the books is boring as fuck, but laundering money through the club is too dangerous to trust an accountant. Hell, it’s hard to trust anyone after what happened with my uncle.

He was the reason my brother vanished for four years. My uncle saw me and Roman together as a threat, so he drugged and captured Roman and sold him to a sadistic fighting ring in Eastern Europe. I still can’t believe he betrayed Roman like that, betrayed us both.

I still can’t believe I never fucking saw it.

When I need a break from the tedium of accounting, I switch over to Eclipse’s security feed. I check the exterior and doors, the chaotic dancefloor, and the quieter VIP mezzanine with its smaller bar.

Then I bring up the main bar.

Sandwiched between Keith and Alesha, Quinn is mixing three drinks. The young woman ordering is leaning on the bar, clearly flirting with him. That’s pretty much what I expected.

What I did not expect was the sight of Quinn flirting back.

I can’t believe my goddamn eyes.

Before we left the house, Quinn traded out his green plaid for a closefitting black button down.

The top few buttons are open to offer a glimpse of his chest. Was it like that on the way here?

I don’t think so. Another difference is that at home he keeps his sleeves rolled up, but now he’s got them down and buttoned to cover his scars, keeping the attention on his build and his face.

I frown. When did he cut his hair? I hadn’t noticed it trimmed up like that in the back, but I notice it now. It looks good. It shows off the structure of his face.

Jesus, he’s smiling at this girl, fucking smiling . It’s a small smile, but still. What the hell. I thought he was gay. I’m sure he’s gay. I know he’s gay. And Quinn doesn’t flirt . Did he used to when he worked here? I can’t remember. I didn’t pay as much attention back then.

Why am I paying attention now?

I don’t know. I really fucking don’t.

I close the window, irritated. I pull up the accounting program and try to focus on the numbers. Where was I?

God, I need a drink.

I glance at the side table crowded with liquor bottles. I could make something up here. I could.