Born in Blood Collection Volume 1 - Cora Reilly Page 0,301

familiar faces. Nobody disturbed me. Apart from a short nod, they stayed the fuck away from me. They all knew what was good for them.

“Trying to kill a poor dummy?” came Luca’s drawl.

I landed another hard kick against the head before I turned around to my brother. He wasn’t wearing gym clothes. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you.”

“Why?”

“Because you weren’t there when I came to pick you up in your apartment this morning.”

“You went into my apartment while I wasn’t there?”

Luca rolled his eyes. “I didn’t touch your wife, but I left Aria and Romero with her.”

I nodded, trying to calm the fuck down. I was still on edge. I wasn’t even sure why.

“Take a shower and get dressed. You look like you need a drink,” Luca said in his Capo voice.

I didn’t protest. I felt like a truck had run me over. I must have been in the gym for hours. It was already light outside. Luca and I went to one of our dance clubs. Except for the cleaning ladies, it was still deserted. I grabbed a whiskey bottle from the shelf, and Luca and I settled at the bar. In most social circles it was probably considered too early for alcohol. Luckily we didn’t have to obey those stupid rules.

Luca and I emptied our glasses, then he fixed me with his big-brother stare. “So what’s going on? Are you already growing tired of your obnoxious wife?”

I downed another glass of whiskey, waiting for the familiar burning to turn into warmth that spread in my chest. “Why do you ask?”

Luca cocked one eyebrow. “Maybe because you prefer spending the night in a sweaty gym than in bed with your young wife.”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“And you couldn’t come up with something more entertaining to do than kickboxing a dummy?”

“You’re starting to grate on my nerves,” I said.

Luca ignored my warning tone. “To be honest I’m surprised you lasted this long with her. If I spend more than ten minutes in a room with Gianna, I want to seal my ears with hot wax.”

“I’m not tired of her. I actually like Gianna’s obnoxious personality. She spices things up. Life would be boring if she were like the other trophy wives.”

Luca narrowed his eyes. “Aria isn’t just a trophy wife.”

Of course he was allowed to get angry when I even remotely insulted Aria but he could talk shit about Gianna all the time. “I didn’t say anything about Aria. But I prefer my women…”

“Annoying and foulmouthed,” Luca finished for me, before he took the whiskey bottle out of my hand. “Then what’s the problem? Why are you sulking like a whiny bitch?”

I was waiting for one of my usual clever comebacks to pop into my mind, but I drew a fucking blank. That was serious bullshit. “I’m starting to think that Gianna might always hate me. I thought it was her way to be interesting and a challenge, a sort of game at the end of which she’d come to her fucking senses and fall for me like all the girls I’ve pursued before her, but I’m pretty sure Gianna is a challenge I’m losing. She won’t come around. I think she hates this life a bit more every fucking day.”

Luca scanned my face. “This is really bothering you.”

He said it as if that was the biggest fucking surprise of his life, as if I was a fucking robot that wasn’t capable of emotions. “That, coming from you,” I said with a smirk. “Before Aria I wasn’t even sure you were capable of liking anyone, least of all a woman.”

“You make it sound like I’m a fag. It’s not that I didn’t like women. They were just not something I considered useful outside of the bedroom.”

I shook my head. “How the hell did you get Aria to love you? It’s like the fucking eighth Wonder of the World. Are there any new drugs you’re not telling me about?”

“You’re wasted, Matteo.”

“I’m not. If you’d stop hogging the fucking whiskey, I might get the chance to be in a couple of hours.” I ripped the bottle from his hand and took a swig. “Gianna is like a tiger in the fucking zoo, caged in. It’s fucking depressing to watch her look for a way to escape captivity.”

“Did she try to run again?”

“How could she? I’m keeping her on a tight leash.”

“You’re not thinking about letting her go, are you?”

I didn’t think I could, and I didn’t want to. I was selfish and that