Page 70 of Nikola

Fuck, his Russian was even worse. Why couldn’t he stick to Italian? Ahem, English. Whatever language wouldn’t give me a headache.

“That still doesn’t explain why you two are getting drunk together like two sorrowful idiots?” Vasili grumbled.

“Where in the fuck were you?” Sasha slurred. “Skye is… missing.”

Vasili’s brow furrowed. “She went out with Marietta.”

“Oh.”

“Oh,” I echoed. “I guess that’s good.”

“Isn’t it a bit early in the day to start drinking that shit?” Vasili questioned, eyeing the glasses on the bar.

“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” Sasha drawled, getting to his feet and rubbing his ass. “Jesus, I think that’s gonna bruise.”

“You’re lucky it’s the only thing bruised,” I remarked, my words slightly slurred. I had to stop drinking this shit. It was lethal.

“Why are you two drinking together?” Vasili asked, narrowing his eyes. “You’re usually too busy arguing.”

“We had an urgent…matterto discuss,” I said. “And our wives are mad at us.”

Vasili snickered. “It was bound to happen eventually. You’re both too hardheaded for any woman to put up with. They’re saints for lasting this long.”

“Fuck. You.”

He joined us at the bar. “Now, what happened?”

“Matchmaking gone wrong,” I muttered.

“What he said,” Sasha echoed. “It was funnier when it happened to Nico and Luciano. Twins identity gone wrong happened to us.”

Vasili’s eyebrows shot up. “I didn’t know either of you had twins.”

I waved my hand. “We don’t.”

“Man, this situation is even worse than that of Nico and Luciano,” Sasha grumbled. I didn’t follow, and I certainly wasn’t in the mood to ask for an explanation. “Why did I have a daughter?”

“She’smydaughter,stronzo,” I muttered.

“Mine too,” Sasha argued back.

“Don’t start on that shit again,” Vasili hissed.

And that was how the three of us found ourselves seated at the bar, drinking moonshine for the remainder of the day.

24

SKYE

Nikola wasn’t at the club and wasn’t expected for another few hours, so Marietta and I decided to kill time strolling through the French Quarter, sipping cocktails, and eventually stopping at the tattoo parlor.

Marietta got a tiny tramp stamp that only someone she was intimate with would see.

Likewise, I decided to get a tattoo on my ass: a bite mark in the shape of teeth.

In honor of our first time.

Was it dumb? Maybe. But to my cocktail-hazed brain and empty stomach, it was the best decision I’d ever made.