I grunted. I shouldn’t have said that name. It’d take Nicky two second to put two and two together.
“That makes Giovanni Lanza, your capo’s father, yours too. That makes you Enzio’s brother, not cousin,” she said.
“Allora, first Enzio isourcapo, not just mine. Second, and you can’t babble about this to anyone or I’ll have to cut your tongue out, even though Giovanni was my father, Enzio is still my cousin.”
She stared at me for a few moments before she put her hand over her mouth as she seemed to have figured it out. “Marta was a bitch.”
“We don’t speak ill of the dead.”
“Are you serious? You must have hated her for what she did to your mom and killing your dad.”
“She got what she deserved. Now she’s with her maker.”
“I didn’t know you were so religious,” she mocked. “Hold on a sec, how is Enzio still your cousin? Did she sleep with—”
“Another uncle? Si, si.”
“Holy fuck.” She leaned back in her seat, grabbing a piece of sanguinaccio. “So let me get this straight, Giovanni was capo, and when he died, Enzio, as his son, took over, but if Enzio isn’t actually Giovanni’s son, doesn’t that make you the rightful heir to the kingdom?”
“Don’t go there, little kitten.”
She took a bite of the blood sausage. “Why not?”
“Because we protect our honor at all costs.” I dropped my fork and rose. “And I fucking hate traitors.”
“Why would your claiming your right make you a traitor?”
I banged the table with my palm. “Why the fuck do you care? Don’t you hate our kind, what we do and live for? Why suddenly too ambitious to rule?”
She flinched. “I’m not, and I don’t give a shit about your bloody thrones. I was just trying to understand.”
“Allora, understand this. Without honor and loyalty, we’re nothing. We can’t allow our dirty secrets to come out or the Lanzas will be destroyed. Enzio is Capo, and he’ll do whatever it takes to protect his honor and the family’s, that includes killing whoever threatens either.”
“He’d kill his own cousin?”
“Yes, like he killed his own twin brother when he thought he betrayed la famiglia. If I were Capo, I’d kill me, too. Because if I went ahead and tried to claim what was mine like you suggested, I’d be a traitor, pissing all over our mothers’ honor like that. And if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that no traitor in our family has lived long enough to enjoy whatever little gains they thought they’d get for their treason.
“So hear this because I won’t repeat it again. I will never betray my cousin for a deadly ambition, a seat to a burnt kingdom because that’s exactly what I’m gonna get, a burnt kingdom to rule. That’s if I don’t get Il Tagliatore’s knife in my heart first. I choose to be loyal to my capo and protect la famiglia’s honor as the Lanzas’ enforcer and soon underboss. Nothing more. So knock it off. That little game you’re trying to play is dangerous, and even I won’t be able to protect you from the consequences.”
CHAPTER 31
Nicky
I replayed the conversation we had in the kitchen in my head to distract myself from the throbs assaulting me between my legs each time he moved the washcloth over my body. But I couldn’t focus. The soothing memory of the warmth of his firm body every time he carried me naked in his arms kept yanking me back to what he was doing to me now. To his touch as he thoroughly cleaned every inch of my body in the tub.
I thought his giving me a bath would be traumatizing, bringing so many dreadful memories to the surface. I kind of wished it’d have so I could feel nothing but my hatred for Dom and then hate him some more. But when I dared glance at him, I didn’t see the face in my nightmares, the monster that destroyed me.
I still saw a monster, though. One so different. One so…beautiful. One, like he said, forbidden in my book. One I should have never wanted but shamefully desired.
Fuck me.
The longer I stayed here, the more I realized Dom might have been an asshole, but he was more human than coyote. More human than Leo. More human than Tino. The more I realized, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself I was appalled by his touch like by any other man’s, I wasn’t. The more I realized Domenico Lanza could be my own destruction more than my salvation.
He brought the washcloth under the swell of my breast, his hand big enough to cup me whole in the process. “You’re too loud.”
I bit my lip at the tingling sensation shooting through me. “I didn’t say anything.”
“But your mind is a rumbling chaos. I swear I could fucking hear it. You might as well spit it out and get it out of your system.”