Page 68 of Corrado

“That’s new,” Corrado said, pointing over his shoulder at Alessio’s face.

At the nose rings, likely.

He arched a brow. “I guess so.”

“What if they get ripped out?”

“That’d be shit, I bet,” Alessio replied dryly. “Say goodbye to your friend here, we’ve got other things to do.”

“Excuse me?”

Alessio didn’t look away from Corrado, not even bothering to spare the man beside him any attention. He wasn’t fucking around here, and if he didn’t put some distance between Corrado and the stranger, someone was going to get hurt.

Because apparently, Alessio wasn’t good at this. He didn’t do well with jealousy. And since he was more than capable of causing some serious bodily harm to another human being, it was better if he just corrected the problem causing him the issue in the first place.

Like now.

By getting Corrado away from the man.

If it seemed like Alessio was being an asshole, then so be it. They could deal with that later. At least, people would remain alive.

Right?

Yeah, jealousy was not his friend.

At all.

Learn something new every day.

“Say goodbye,” he murmured.

Corrado’s brow lifted, clearly hearing the heat in Alessio’s tone. Yeah, he couldn’t even hide what he was feeling, for fuck’s sake.

This was ridiculous.

Downing the rest of his drink, Corrado set the glass to the bar, and pushed off the stool to stand toe to toe with Alessio. Alessio had all of a half of an inch on Corrado’s six-foot-two height. It wasn’t a lot—barely there at all, really. For the most part, it still put them damn near eye level.

He didn’t say goodbye to the guy, who was now slipping off the stool that had been beside Corrado’s, and moved further down the bar away from them entirely.

Corrado only looked at Alessio.

“Better?” he asked.

Alessio wasn’t going to lie.

“Not yet.”

“Yeah, I can tell.”

“Don’t sound so fucking smug about it,” Alessio returned.

Corrado smirked. “Kind of hard.”

Jesus.

Alessio needed to get off this conversation. He didn’t need his weaknesses available to the rest of the world for public consumption. “Do you have a room here?”

“And a fake ID, some cash … twenty-four hours to do whatever I want.” Corrado shifted from foot to foot, glancing away. “I didn’t know you were back.”