Vendetta (Blood for Blood #1)(69)

“It’s suicide,” I muttered.

Nic sat back and smiled, and for a second he looked like the teenager he was supposed to be. Happy and carefree, not dark and hardened. “My brothers and I, we have been training for this life since we could walk,” he said. “We can read situations unlike anyone else. We can break a man’s neck ten different ways. We have the knowledge to infiltrate gangs and the skill to shoot their leader from a hundred feet away.” He spoke like he was listing a set of everyday skills on his résumé, and not reeling off his special mob-related activities.

“Do you have to answer to the boss of your family?” I asked.

“Yes,” Nic said slowly, as though he was starting to realize something. “We follow his instructions.”

“Who is he?”

He shook his head like he was coming out of a daze. “Sophie,” he said hesitantly. “I’ve already said far too much. I got carried away … I always seem to with you …” He trailed off. “You could ruin me now.”

“I won’t,” I said automatically. I hadn’t even thought about it, but my heart already had an answer. Despite everything, I didn’t want to ruin him. He was already being ruined by the people around him. By his own family. If only he could see that, maybe I could get through to him.

“I can’t say anything else,” he said.

It didn’t matter; I already knew who the boss was.

How could their father have OK’d this when he was alive? My father saw me pretending to smoke a candy cigarette once and nearly grounded me over it. But Nic’s father probably bought him his first gun, taught him how to load it, how to aim it, how to kill with it. And now Felice? Surely he had a responsibility to look out for these boys, not use them to kill people.

I fell back against the couch, suddenly feeling exhausted. “You don’t have to say anything else,” I said softly.

Nic leaned down so that the height of our noses was aligned when he looked at me. “Are you frightened, Sophie?”

I did my best to ignore how close he was. “I don’t know.”

“You didn’t run away.”

“Not yet.”

His smile was a soft tug at the lips.

I was beginning to feel intoxicated again; dizzy with desire. “You do bad things,” I reminded myself aloud, making the mistake of looking into his eyes. How many people had spent their last seconds on earth looking into those eyes?

“Only sometimes,” he said quietly.

“Do you have to be so casual about it?”

“I don’t feel bad about what I do.” He brushed his finger along my neck, and my spine started to tingle. How many necks had he broken with those fingers? “But I feel bad that you dislike this part of me, and this part is almost all of me, Sophie.”

“But there’s so much kindness in you, Nic,” I whispered.

“Kindness for the right people.” He watched my lips as he trailed his finger beneath them. “For people like you.”

I felt a familiar rush in the air. Don’t get distracted. What were all those things I’d wanted to say? Suddenly I couldn’t remember a single one. “You shouldn’t break the law.”

He pulled my chin toward him and brushed his nose against mine. “I know,” he hummed against my lips. His breath was as unsteady as mine. “Bella mia,” he moaned softly into my mouth, and that was all it took to make my resolve implode.

This time, our kiss was deeper than before. Nic tangled his hands in my hair, pulling me into his body and molding my shape to his. He dragged his mouth along my skin, intoxicating me with his kisses. “Staying away from you is too hard,” he groaned into my neck. “I don’t want to be good anymore.”

“Then don’t be,” I said, clutching him tighter and feeling the muscles in his back flex against my fingers. Gently, he dipped my head back and found my mouth again, parting my lips with his tongue as he pushed me down across the couch, holding me beneath him.

When the sound of the front door slamming against its hinges made the couch jump under us, we were shocked back into reality. I pulled myself up just in time to see the look of unbridled horror on Nic’s face. He shot up, his cheeks flushed with pink, his eyes darting.





Luca stalked into the room.

“Nic, have you heard from Val — What the hell is she doing here?” The beginning of his sentence differed drastically from its end, which grew substantially in pitch.

Nic raised his hands in the air like he was surrendering to a police officer, positioning his body protectively in front of me as though Luca might lunge and tear my throat out.

He came to tower over us. Fury and shock mingled in his eyes, but there was something else there, too, something I couldn’t place. “Nic, I am going to rip your heart out and make you eat it, you stupid …” His sentence descended into the worst combination of expletives I had ever heard in one single breath.

Nic jumped to his feet and squared up to his brother. “I had to explain what she saw.”

Luca’s icy blue eyes flashed with fury. “So you brought her here?”

Nic balled his fists. “Don’t start.”

Feeling dangerously close to losing it, I sprang to my feet and pushed past Luca. I couldn’t handle being on the edge of a conversation that would undoubtedly slide right over my head, but still be close enough to drive me insane with questions. I shouldn’t have been there with them anyway, and now that my clarity was back, I was going to use it. “I’m going to get out of here.”