Page 83 of Ravage God

“What about your first kiss?”

“What about it?” she asked, a hint of wariness hitting her voice.

“It must have happened while you were in high school. I do remember that rebellious phase you went through.”

I smiled a little as I thought back to all those nights I helped Valentino track her down because she had snuck out once again.

Some things never changed, I supposed.

“You were my first kiss,” she answered softly.

Now it was my turn to tense up. I turned her around until she was looking at me. “Seriously?”

“Why would I lie about that?” She scrunched up her nose at me.

“Fuck, of course not, baby. I’m just surprised, is all.”

“Who was your first kiss?” she asked.

I tried to think back to when I had my first kiss. I drew a blank.

She shot me a look. “Seriously?”

I tightened my arms around her when it felt like she was about to pull away. “I don’t remember much about those years. Things had been messed up for a while.”

I knew that didn’t excuse it, but it was the truth. I didn’t remember much of my teenage years, considering they had been filled with nothing but drugs, alcohol, and sex. And sometimes, all those things were happening simultaneously.

She frowned, as if she was trying to think back to anything significant that had happened then. She was young. I doubt she would have remembered. But the thing about growing up in such a small circle, everyone talked.

“Was it around the time Massimo was taken by the Bratva?” she asked.

“That’s a part of it, yes.”

A huge part. That one week he was gone felt like a lifetime. I had barely slept, always feeling as if I was just sitting aroundwaiting for the Bratva fuckers to send home something that belonged to him. Something that would have told me I had lost my brother permanently.

“I remember Valentino saying something about that,” she said. “You lead the rescue team to get him home. You were fifteen? It was… impressive.”

There was nothing impressive about it. It was pure fucking luck and desperation on my part to bring Massimo home. “I was scared shitless.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not impressive,” she whispered, the awe in her voice prominent.

I shook my head. “I was afraid I might have been going the wrong way.”

“How did you know where they were keeping him?” she asked.

“We waited around Bratva territory for three days and three nights, just waiting to run into one of the fuckers high enough in rank to know where they would be keeping their prisoners. There had been a lot of waiting around. And my father only approved two handfuls of men to come with me. Everyone was getting restless.”

“Didn’t he care?” she asked.

I laughed, the sound bitter. “No. He had four sons. If one died, he still had three.”

She sucked in a sharp breath. “That… that’s not right at all.”

“It is what it is,” I said. And that was the truth. It was just what it was. A reality I grew up with. I was just glad Giulia was younger than the rest of us, and she never knew our father’s cruelty firsthand.

I tightened my arms around her, and she lay her head back down on the pillow, facing away from me. It was easier to tell her these things when she wasn’t looking at me.

I always thought her face was too expressive for this world, revealing to everyone just what she was thinking and feeling. It was a weakness. But under her gaze, I felt like she saw too much of me.