Page 38 of Sins of the Orchid

“Whoa,” I warned, when her hands came to my ass. I peeled them off, giving a pissed off look to my brother.

“Santino, you are so hot,” she murmured. “You really need air conditioning. You are going to melt. Or I’m gonna melt.” She took my hand and pressed it against her cheek. “I don’t want to melt. I saw them burning her flesh. It wasn’t pretty.” What the fuck was the kid talking about?

Then her whole body retched, and she puked all over my Salvatore Ferragamo Oxfords.

Fuck me!

CHAPTER11

Adriano

“Rise and shine, party boy.” My brother’s voice came from a distance. I wished it would go away. My head was throbbing. “Last night wasn’t such a great idea after all, was it? The rays of sunshine bring a whole new perspective.”

I groaned out loud. Last night? What happened last night? Sometimes my big brother was a pain in my ass. He did everything right; I did everything half-assed.

“Get up,” he ordered in a stern voice. I swore that fucker was born with the attitude of a don. Well, fuck him and his semi-don status.

“Fuck off, Santi,” I muttered, my mouth dry. He just had to stop talking and let me get back to sleep. “I’m going back to sleep.”

“No, you are not,” he responded. “You are going to get cleaned up and go with Pà to Amore’s birthday party.”

“Fuck you.” I hated when he thought he could boss me around. “I’ll go to Amore’s place tonight or tomorrow.”

“Her birthday party starts in two hours. You will be there on time,” he growled in warning. I didn’t know what was up his ass, but I wasn’t in the mood for my older brother’s preaching. Not today. Not ever!

“She won’t mind.”

“Adriano, I swear to God—”

“You go then,” I told him. “What the fuck do you care anyhow? She’s not your friend. She’s mine.”

“Then be a fucking friend and go to her party.”

“She doesn’t mind if I don’t show.” Santi was pissing me off. “I’ll see her later.”

The silence lingered, and I didn’t bother opening my eyes. I rolled over and pulled a pillow over the top of my head.

“In case you are wondering what happened last night,” he said in a low tone, which sometimes scared the shit out of me and everyone else. Not that I would ever admit that to him. Sometimes Santi acted like a psychopath. “You and Amore got drunk and snuck into my strip club. She spent the night hunched over the toilet, with me holding her head up.”

The events of last night slowly started pouring in. Amore damaging her father’s car, being upset. Opening the bottle of tequila and bourbon.Fuck! Amore on the stripper pole. Her father would kill me if he found out. He might be on his way to kill me now.

I jolted out of the bed. “Where is Amore?”

“Luigi came and got her,” Santino answered, a clear scowl on his face. “What in the fucking hell were you thinking? She is underage, fucking seventeen.”

“Eighteen today.”

“Underage,” he gritted out in a low voice. “Her father would have killed you if something happened to her.”

“Is he coming here?”

“You are fucking lucky Luigi owed me a favor,” he growled, getting into my face. “I am still tempted to smash your face into the nearest wall and knock some sense into you.”

Like I said. My brother was a psychopath.

I pushed my hands through my hair. My head was pounding. I couldn’t even imagine how badly Amore’s head hurt. She had never gotten drunk before. I might have been the one to come up with the idea of opening the alcohol. Usually, Amore wasn’t for breaking certain rules. I, on the other hand, was into breaking every goddamn rule under the sun. It made life more exciting. Truthfully, she could be boring sometimes, but somehow our chemistry complemented each other. After all, there was only enough room for one adrenaline junkie in our relationship.

Besides, she had a hard enough time learning how to drive, never mind how to be cool and exciting. And yesterday, she drove even worse than her usual self. She banged up her father’s car pretty bad, and it went south from there.