Page 8 of Damiano De Luca (The Five Syndicates)
I faltered. He’d just lost his brother, and I hadn’t been watching my words. “I’m sorry, Frankie.”
His loss hung between us like a swaying noose, a reminder that if we ever decided to move on, it would always be there to rob us of our breaths. Vincent Romano’s death had ended the Andretti-Romano war, bringing the syndicates closer than they’d ever been. He sacrificed himself not just for his family but for peace between all of the syndicates. For what? A world I could barely stand? One which forced me to build walls higher than the Great Wall’s?
“Don’t worry about it, kiddo.” Frankie straightened up his bespoke three-piece suit, looking like a black-haired cross between George Clooney and Robert Redford circa Indecent Proposal. A group of women nearby clung to his every move. “For what it’s worth, I’m happy you’re here. You’re always welcome in the city.” He stared past my shoulder before returning his gaze to mine with a smug look pasted on his distinguished features. “As much as I’d like to watch this unfold, I have to head to the cemetery first.”
“Watch what unfold?” I started to ask, but he was already walking away.
Not a second later, a shadow darkened my path. I forced myself not to turn around as Damian’s lips found my ear as he spoke, “Talking to yourself?”
I pictured the barbed-wire fence outside the state prison I usually passed on the drive back to Connecticut. Criss-crossed steel. Spiked metal. Sharp edges. Twenty feet high. I needed to build walls like that within me. Fast.
Pivoting to face Damian, I backed up a little, so his scent wouldn’t make me lightheaded anymore. “Most people can take a hint when someone doesn’t want to talk to them.”
His eyes dipped to my arms when I crossed them, and he looked almost satisfied by the defensive gesture. “You’re leaning into me, Princess.”
I drove my heels into the ground, forcing myself not to adjust my body at his words, because he was right. I was leaning into him, and I hadn’t even realized it. But I wasn’t about to admit he was right.
They say one lie is enough to cast doubt on every truth, yet no amount of lies could ever absolve me of the worst truth of all—Damiano De Luca meant something to me. My brittle heart would never heal. I was condemned to him forever.
We stood so close as he bent forward and continued to murmur in my ear, “The way I see it, I see past your bullshit, your body is speaking an entirely different language than you think it is, and the only person who can’t take a hint is you. So, I’ll spell it out for you, Princess.” He gestured at my body, which was still leaning towards him. “This isn’t the body language of someone who left me. This is the body language of someone who has never stopped wanting me. I’ll figure out why you left ten years ago, and I’ll figure out why you’re here now.”
I couldn’t believe Damian’s audacity. Who spoke like this to someone after a decade apart? Though I saw traces of the boy I’d once loved in him, he had also changed. Confident, powerful, and unpredictable. The kind of guy my mom would have warned me away from as a kid if it weren’t for the fact that he was exactly the type of man tailor-made for a mafia princess.
I swallowed, forcing down the way his words and presence sped up my heartbeat. I’d forgotten this feeling. Since leaving Devils Ridge, I’d stayed away from the fuck-you-with-his-eyes, take-what-he-wants-with-both-hands, padlocked-chest-full-of-secrets type of guys. I was the goldfish who took her first dip in the ocean, decided it was too big to handle, and begged for a cozy little fish bowl she could swim safely in. I was the anti-Nemo.
So, I shook my head, denial running deeper in my veins than drugs in an addict’s. And I couldn’t deny I’d always been addicted to Damian, though my words said otherwise, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He leaned back against a random car, not a care in the world as to who it belonged to, despite standing in a lot full of dangerous mafiosos. “There’s nothing cute about this denial act.” I opened my mouth to protest, but he cut me off with his hard voice, “Don’t bother denying your denial. It’s an insult at this point, and I may give no fucks, but my soldiers don’t take insults lightly.”
Leaning against his car had put some much-needed distance between us, but I could feel th
e ghost of his breath across my face as he reprimanded me. I shoved down this stupid lust and mocked, “Touchy, touchy, sweetheart.”
“I’ve worked hard for everything I’ve earned, Princess. If I don’t defend my kingdom, I deserve to be dethroned.”
“You speak as if I give a damn.”
“We both know you do.” His eyes dipped to my wedding ring, and he backed off the car, reached his pointer finger out, and stroked it.
I pulled my hand back, suppressing the tingles of lust that stretched the length of my spine and spun my mind a thousand different ways. “I’m not here to talk to you.”
“Ah, the crux of the matter. Why you left. Why you’re here. Feel free to explain either.”
“It’s been ten years, Damsel. Shouldn’t you be over this?”
“You can lessen what we had all you want, Princess, but it’s never going to change the fact that you loved me so much you used to say my name in your sleep.”
“You’re lying.”
He ran his eyes down my body, pausing a moment on my chest, which swelled with each breath drawn. “If you remember, the air vent on the wall separating our rooms stood above both our beds. I could hear everything, and you spoke my name like it belonged on your lips.”
He was right. I’d dreamed of him. Still did sometimes. I’d always been this unaffected girl. So aloof. So collected. But Damian nicked my armor, and a few years after I’d left Devils Ridge, I finally put the armor down.
So, here I was, with dangerous attraction simmering in the air and no protection against it. The spark between us had always been my problem. I could never truly push him away, so when I left, I knew the only way to succeed was to stay away.
But I was no longer away, and my demons weren’t the type that could be confronted.
The least I could do was try to find my way out.
