Chapter 23: The Sweetest Oblivion: Chapter 23

“Judges, lawyers, and politicians have a license to steal. We don’t need one.”

—Carlo Gambino I WAS POURING A COUPLE fingers of whiskey neat when Adriana came up beside me. I eyed her as she grabbed the vodka decanter and then filled a tumbler three-fourths full.

She glanced at me, looked away, and then flicked her gaze back to me when she noticed my attention. “

?”

“Maybe try to hide your alcoholism from me from now on.”

“Let me continue my classes and I will.”

“Would you rather be safe, or happy?”

She blinked as if it were a much more complicated question. “Both, I think.”

“Unfortunately, that isn’t a choice.”

Her sigh was put-out. “It’s not my fault a lot of men want to kill you.”

was probably an understatement.

“And now you.”

Her brows knitted. “What?”

“They’ll want to kill my wife too,” I said, before adding, “Probably rape you a few times first.”

She frowned. “Like you’re going to do to me?”

Somehow, I knew she was going to say that. I stared at her, my expression impassive. She pushed a strand of caramel-colored hair behind her ear. She had golden specks in her brown eyes, like Elena’s. In a disturbing way, I hoped there were other similarities.

“You’re not even going to say you won’t rape me?” She sounded annoyed, bringing her drink to her lips while looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows.

I admired the view with her. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Not very good at keeping promises.”

She choked on a sip of vodka, glancing at me with wide eyes. “I’m going to die,” she muttered before disappearing.

Dry amusement filled me, and I gave my head the tiniest shake. That meeting with my future wife went well. I hadn’t raped a woman in my life and wouldn’t start now, though, for some reason, I’d felt like sabotaging the conversation. Probably because I was already agitated, and the night had just started.

Elena stood in the kitchen talking to Lorenzo, with her complete attention on him. Her long hair was pin-straight and she wore a gold dress that hugged her every curve. It was too fucking tight and receiving enough stares from my cousins to piss me off. Even Luca had glanced at her with a knowing smile and then tipped his beer to me in an obnoxious gesture.

Lorenzo was making a besotted idiot of himself. The man was a cold-blooded killer, yet he appeared to be a nervous mess talking to Elena Abelli. He was currently rubbing the back of his neck and fucking —and just imagining Elena tied to Lorenzo’s bed in some kind of fucked-up BDSM scenario made that Russo blood burn me from the inside out.

“That went smoothly.” Gianna’s tone was dry, apparently having overheard my conversation with Adriana. “Why did you have to invite ?”

Her pupils were so dilated only a sliver of dark brown surrounded them. A wave of displeasure ran through me. It sucked me back to age fifteen when I found my mamma’s lifeless eyes wide open.

“Who?” My question was indifferent, but I already knew.

Her gaze narrowed. “Christian.”

“It’s none of your business who I invite to apartment, Gianna.”

I wouldn’t have invited him if I’d had a legitimate reason to do so—and more than Elena practically drooling over him yesterday. The asshole had a pretty face, and it annoyed me more than I cared to admit that it had interested Elena.

“I don’t want him here, Ace.” She watched Christian talk to my uncle Jimmy with a sour expression.

“Ask me if I care,” I answered dryly.

Gianna had hated Christian since the moment she met him. The FBI part was at the top of the list of reasons why, but she was also the agent’s opposite in every way. She scoffed at his perfectionism, while Christian grimaced at her lack of decorum.

Elena’s soft laughter filtered through the room, hitting me in the chest.

My jaw tightened.

Lorenzo was not that fucking funny.

“That’s the wrong sister you’re staring at. The right one is over there.” Gianna pointed a white-painted fingernail at Adriana, who sat on the couch next to Benito with her legs pulled up beside her. “She’s probably recovering from your threat of rape.”

I let out a dry breath when Adriana giggled at something on Benito’s phone. “She looks real traumatized.” There was something cold and fearless about her, but apparently the idea of sex with me was unappealing enough she believed she would die from it. Maybe it was a good threat I could keep in mind, because I thought I might need a strong one with her.

Truthfully, I’d thought about sleeping with Adriana a complete total of zero times. All thoughts of sex had been about her sister, especially after she’d arched her ass against me yesterday in the universal way all men understood as a go-ahead.

She hadn’t been shy about letting me know she’d let me touch her, but I couldn’t help an inkling of awareness from settling in when she’d placed her hand on mine and I’d felt that ring of hers. She loved some man. Wore his cheap ring on her finger like it was a diamond.

Bitterness had run through me. She wanted to get off and she was going to use me to do it. When I realized that, I’d felt something I had never felt in my life: like I was expendable. And that pissed me off.

Nonetheless, had followed me around all day and night in that soft, sweet voice of hers. Everywhere I fucking went.

There was always some vice that eventually killed a Russo.

Irrationality. Idiocy. A penchant for unprotected sex with cheap hookers. My father’s was monetary greed.

I was beginning to think mine was Elena Abelli.

I wanted to fuck her and ruin her for anyone else. I wanted to crush her wings and then put them back together again so she’d become dependent on me. I wanted her to me. That dark, possessive, and dangerous feeling crawled through me every time she crossed my path.

Elena Abelli was my vice, and fuck if I’d let it kill me.

However, the urge to try to fuck her out of my system was consuming me, regardless if she wanted me to be someone else. It was an itch I needed to scratch. And when I was done with her, she’d never remember another.

Gianna shook her head while looking down on me, although she was a foot shorter, even in her heels. “That’s an awful idea,” she said.

“What?”

“Sleeping with Elena.”

Elena’s papà stood three feet away, though he was too deep in conversation to have heard.

“Gianna,” I warned.

“What? It’s what you were thinking.”

“And what am I thinking right now?” Gianna thought she was clairvoyant when she was high, which was a lot of the time.

She pursed her lips. “That you want to strangle me.”

My brows rose in accord as I took a drink of whiskey.

“I don’t understand how I had sex with you,” she said, observing the party with a sigh.

I didn’t either, though I could only feel relieved that she’d been the one to start it. Truthfully, we’d been so drunk, there was hardly a memory to go with the deed.

My gaze landed on Tony, who appeared to be getting talked down to by his mamma. It was only a diverting amusement that he’d brought Jenny, who was currently trying to sell my aunt Mary Kay.

Gianna began to drift away, but before I knew what I was doing, I grabbed her arm and asked, “And why would it be such a bad idea?”

I didn’t look at her, but I felt her sad smile.

“Because you’ll fall in love with her,” she said. “And she won’t love you back.”

The chatter was low, Elvis Presley’s a little quieter. The soft lighting sparkled off the glass view of the city, and Nicolas’s black-suited form only highlighted it as he stood near the bar.

I didn’t know how it had happened, but I was drunk. Lolled into a sense of warmth and complacency, and I couldn’t stop myself from heading toward what had to be a gentleman. The problem was, if I stopped to ask this one for help, he’d most likely take advantage of me. Or maybe that was only wishful thinking . . . He’d probably only give me a rude stare.

“I didn’t expect you to like Elvis Presley.”

I was assuming just because I could.

Nicolas glanced at me with a half-lidded amber gaze that always sent my pulse racing. “Every time you’ve assumed, you’ve been wrong.”

I took the remaining steps toward him, eating up the electricity that spanned between us with each click of my heels. “That’s not true.”

I stood by his side, perusing the liquor decanters. Close enough my shoulder brushed his chest. Close enough my skin danced with awareness.

“Yeah? Then what have you gotten right?”

I reached across him for the gin, pretending that my arm grazing his didn’t affect me at all, when in reality it sent a rush of warmth low in my stomach. “I assumed from day one that you were an asshole, and I was right.” I paused with my hand on the decanter, not believing that had come out of my mouth.

A hint of a sly smile pulled at his lips, almost as if he was thinking about something inappropriate. “Is that the first time you’ve said asshole?”

“Yeah. Did I use it right?” I tugged off the lid and poured some liquor into my glass.

“Could’ve been better.”

I frowned, a little affronted. The first time I used a curse word to insult someone and it was lame? Maybe I didn’t have it in me. I glanced at him, and a sudden wave of shyness overcame me when I noticed he’d been watching me.

“How so?” I added some tonic water and lime to my glass.

“It was pretty unmoving.” He had one hand in his pocket, while the other brought his glass to his lips as he looked around the room.

“How would Nicolas Russo do it, then?”

His gaze settled on mine. “If I was going to insult you, I’d make sure to leave you thinking about it for a while.”

I stirred my drink, feeling like stirring up something else. “So show me.”

His eyes narrowed. “You want me to insult you?”

I nodded, took a sip, and then licked the gin off my lips. My breath turned shallow when his gaze fell to my mouth and darkened.

“Thought I did that yesterday.”

“Really? I’ve already forgotten.”

The tiniest bit of amusement crossed his expression, and he ran his tongue across his teeth, a calculating stare coasting around the room. We were sort of secluded, the guests closest to us having their backs turned. Although, when I was in his presence it always felt like we were alone.

He shook his head. “I’m not going to insult you.”

“Why? Are you like a gentleman tonight?”

“Nah. Just don’t care to.”

I scoffed. “That’s because you don’t have a good one—”

A breath of shock escaped me when his rough palm gripped the side of my throat and he pulled me to him. His lips pressed against my ear.

“You look like a in that dress, Elena.”

A violent shudder rolled through me.

My eyes closed as his warm, masculine scent sank through my skin and sent a hum through my veins.

His words softened. “Only good for one thing, and it’s running your pretty little mouth.”

I couldn’t breathe with his body pressed against my side, his dirty, insulting words in my ear. He ran a thumb down the goose bumps on the back of my neck, and then his grip was gone. I stared blankly as he grabbed his drink and walked away, leaving me with a parting word.

“That’s how I would do it.”