Vendetta (Blood for Blood #1)(25)

“No.” He cleared his throat. “I can try to open the door if you want.”

“What? How?”

“Do I have your permission to try?”

I raised my hands in the air. “By all means.”

“Do you mind standing back a little?”

“Are you really going to do this?”

He set his jaw. “Yes.”

I might have agreed to anything he asked right then because, in the rain, he looked incredible. His wavy brown hair was wet and pushed away from his face, revealing the full effect of his chiseled cheekbones. I shuffled backward.

Nic turned his back to me and pulled something that resembled a fountain pen from his back pocket.

“What’s that?”

“Another gift you’d disapprove of,” he said simply, before moving closer to the door and obscuring it from my view.

For a minute or so all I could see were slight movements in his arms as he went to work on the door — first the upper lock, which yielded with a light click, and then the heavier one lower down, which took longer. Finally, he pulled the handle down and the door swung open in front of us, jingling the bell above it.

My mouth fell open. “You just broke into the diner.”

“You gave me permission.” He stashed whatever he had been using into his pocket and stepped back so I could enter first. “After you.”

I stared at him as I shuffled inside to punch in the alarm code before it went off. “Do you make a habit of that?”

“No,” he said, following me closely. “My brothers and I used to find tools that we could use to break into one another’s rooms when we were younger. It was never anything more serious than bedroom warfare. It was just dumb luck that an old screwdriver could open that door tonight. The locks really aren’t what they should be.”

I flicked a switch so that a line of recessed lights sprang to life, illuminating a pathway to the other end of the diner.

“And you just happen to carry that with you because … ?”

“I was trying to get into the old barn at my uncle’s house tonight so we could use it as a storage unit.”

Nic trailed behind me, his attention wandering around the diner like it was the most fascinating place he had ever seen. “My mother ordered a truckload of antiques for the new house, but she doesn’t want us moving them inside the place until she comes back from overseas in a few weeks. She wants to finish the painting first. So right now we’re trying to find a place to stash them.”

I slipped behind the counter and started looking for my keys. “So your mother’s entrusting her sons to handle her expensive furniture in her absence?”

Nic slid in beside me, his arm brushing against mine as we searched side by side. “Pretty much.”

“I’m not sure I’m completely convinced by that, but it does seem more likely than my other theories.”

“What kind of theories?”

I tapped my chin. “How about that you’re a notorious jewel thief?”

Nic angled his head to one side and smiled. The tension seeped from his shoulders. “That actually sounds kind of cool.”

“Or what if you rob little old ladies when they’re asleep in their beds?”

“Not cool.”

I stopped searching for a moment and looked at him — his inky-brown eyes, the curve of his upper lip, the way his hair curled beneath his ears. There was something nebulous about him, something dark and uncertain. It ignited a kind of uneasiness in me that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I thought of my uncle’s warning to me, and not for the first time felt the weight of it in my mind. “The trouble is,” I said, my voice catching in my throat, “I don’t know what you are.”

Nic held my gaze steady. “Maybe that’s half the fun of it.”

Too flustered to respond, I resumed the search for my keys, and Nic broke into a low laugh. I’m sure he didn’t mean it to be seductive, but the sound of it coupled with our proximity was having that effect on me.

“So your mom went overseas and left all her sons alone in her new house?” I asked in a bid to distract myself. “She sounds very trusting.”

“She’s not,” said Nic, laughing again. “It’s just that her love for Venetian furniture outweighs the distrust she has in her five sons.”

Five sons! So I hadn’t imagined Priestly Boy Number Five and I definitely wasn’t seeing ghosts that night.

“We try to be respectful of her wishes when she’s away,” Nic added as an afterthought. “Though sometimes we make a mess, and of course we end up fighting, too, as brothers do.”

“I don’t have any siblings, so I guess I wouldn’t know a lot about the whole rivalry thing.”

Nic nodded thoughtfully. “That’s too bad. My brothers are my best friends.”

“Even Luca?” I couldn’t help myself.

Nic’s smile was empathetic. “Even Luca.”

“That’s … surprising.”

“He’s not so bad.”

I bit my tongue.

“There’s nothing more important than the bonds of family,” he went on. “When my grandfather was alive he would always say, ‘La famiglia prima di tutto.’ It’s written on his mausoleum.”