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It isn’t so much the need to have Dario fear me but the boundary to keep him out of clear sight in case I decide to kill him when I reach a bad mood at any given day. But I also have to keep him close enough to ensure he’s not a liability to the family name once again. Perhaps it makes me weak for not yet being able to dispose of my brother. That a tether of sentiment remains of not wanting to be entirely alone. It is the blood we share that has kept him alive. For now.
“I don’t know how else I can explain to you how sorry I am for that night. I know I had too much to drink and you had to take responsibility for me, but I can help now!”
Rage fuels my bloodstream at how flippant he is about his actions. Even now he’s shown no amount of responsibility for the ruin he almost put us in.
I seethe under my breath so only he can hear, a reminder of his shame and sin. “You put a bullet in our father’s chest. You think you can take responsibility for that now? Do you want to tell those who work for us? See who takes votes? See who comes for you and me for covering it up.”
He flinches under the harshness of my tone. “I didn’t mean to do it.”
A child’s excuse. One I’m tired of covering for because it was detrimental to my own survival and the loyalty of my men.
“You might be able to drown out your sorrows every night for your failures but it’s been me that’s kept this business running. That saved your sorry ass. And you don’t understand why I despise your very presence? You think I’m being unfair?”
He’s quieter now. “I’m the laughingstock of our family. No one takes me seriously. I’m just a spoilt brat to everyone.”
“Because that’s exactly how you act. Better they see you for that then your true colors.”
It takes all of my efforts to not lunge across and choke my brother for his naivety. I think back to that night. Hearing the gunshot come from this very room and being the first to walk onto the scene. Dario standing over our father with a gun, confused bloodshot eyes staring over him and the inability to comprehend what he’d done. They’d gotten into a fight about Dario’s drinking and drug abuse.
By the time I’d got to them, my father was already dead. Everything else that evolved afterward was chaos. Only few knew the truth. Some suspected. So we’d claimed it was from a heart attack and within the same night I was head of the Armani family.
I’d been forced into the role prematurely, covering up the filthy lie of his existence so we both weren’t taken out in the process. This fucker hasn’t changed a bit. Drowning his demons in pussy, alcohol, and drugs. “You’re nothing but a liability,” I remind him.
He seems taken aback but still tries his hardest to say, “What if I could show you otherwise.”
I scoff, irked by his genuine plead. “You cannot change your nature, Dario. How many times have you already tried and failed? I won’t let you bring down our name because of it. I mean it, Dario, you fuck up one more time and you’re going back to Italy.”
“As if this is any less a prison in this mansion where you still have Ivan treating me like a child being babysat. Unless of course you’re here instead of him so you scrutinize my every action.” He shoots out of the chair angrily.
“You should be grateful in your prison that you have so much of the money I earned for you to spend, rather than in the grave.”
He pauses at the door. He considers his next words carefully. “I really used to look up to you.”
“And our father was once alive.”
“Fuck you, Luca,” he dares to say as tears well in his eyes and he opens the door to storm out.
My jaw grinds and Lorenzo’s smart enough to close the door to leave me deep in my raging thoughts. I throw back the whisky furiously enjoying its burn.
All these years I had to prove myself, stepping up as the head of the family. All Dario continued doing was drugs and partying. He put me in the position where I had to choose whether I betray the very code we were raised on by covering for my brother or killing him instead as example. Family loyalty is everything and yet where had my loyalty gone the moment my father lay dead?
I don’t care for many things. But it is something that still boils my blood because at any point the truth could be revealed which is why I have made sure everyone is so terrified of me that they’d never rebel even with the truth exposed.
I pull out Ara’s delicate necklace I’d stolen and stare at the cross as it dangles from my fingers. Ara was the greatest contender for who might be looking to exploit my secrets. And I still can’t stay away. I should’ve dealt with her like I did everyone else. Killed her first ask questions later.
Yet I am transfixed.
Knowing full well she is chaos in a bottle.
One I seem to happily be sipping from daily.
41
ARA
Luca’s hand is between my legs. Little moans escape me as I beg him to never stop. He’s become my filthy, intoxicating pleasure, breaking apart all my inhibitions from the inside.
“Come all over my hand like a good girl.” His voice is distant but it’s all the permission I need to—
