Page 30 of Intrigue

“I don’t like being locked in,” he murmurs.

Something about the way he says it makes me pause.

“You say that like you know how it feels.”

His gaze flicks over me then, hard to read. But there’s a shift, subtle but there, like I’ve pressed against a wound he thought was buried too deep to find.

For a second, I think he’s going to ignore the question. But then, he surprises me.

“I was ten when I learned what it meant to be alone,” he says quietly. “My parents died in a fire. My father was a soldier under Moretti’s crew. Your father’s biggest rival now. Back then, they were equals. Someone set the house ablaze to send a message and start this war.”

A chill creeps over my skin.

I’ve heard the story before. And how Don Marconi took in his best friend’s son, raised him like family. But no one ever talks about what came before. About what he remembers.

I angle myself toward him. “Did you see it happen?”

His jaw ticks. When he speaks, his voice is flat, distant. “I smelled the smoke before I saw the flames. I hid in a crawlspace under the stairs. I heard them scream but I couldn’t do anything.”

A lump forms in my throat. I don’t move.

He isn’t just telling me a story. He’s pulling me into it.

The feeling of being trapped with smoke andheat pressing in. The screams. A child, curled into a space too small, too dark, breathing in death, listening as everything he knew burned to ash around him.

And he survived.

I don’t know why I reach for him, but I do. My fingers brush his wrist, just a whisper of contact.

His eyes snap to mine, sharp first and then surprised.

I don’t pull away.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

Something unreadable flashes across his face, but he doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t move or speak. He just watches me, hiseyes dipping to my lips for a fraction of a second before locking back onto my eyes.

I swallow hard.

There’s something between us now. Something we both felt the first time we met.

It’s not just the past. Or our shitty interconnected lives.

Something else. Something we don’t have words for yet.

This—whatever this is—it’s dangerous.

We aren’t supposed to be standing here like this, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off of him. We aren’t supposed to be anything.

He’s my father’s godson, the closest thing to a brother I’m supposed to have.

But we are not family.

Not even close.

And for the first time in my life, I want to cross a line.

I tilt my chin up slightly. “You’re not supposed to be out here with me.”