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November 17 - December 9, 2025
Before Tor can reply, there’s a strange gurgling noise and a click of a safety catch. When I look up, one of Rafe’s men has a thick arm around his neck and a gun to his temple. It’s gold, with a dragon etched along the barrel. While everyone in the room jumps up and draws their own weapons, I smirk into the bottom of my whiskey glass.
Gabe’s gruff voice comes from the shadows. “Your cavalry are pathetic.” He drops the man like a sack of shit and shoves the others out the way. Rafe sinks back into his chair, glaring at Gabe as he takes his place next to me. Rafe leans over the table and hisses, “Grazie, dickhea...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
Everyone around the table laughs except Dante. The tension between him and my brother crackles like static. No one on this earth hates Dante more than Rafe does, because he swears he caught him cheating at one of his poker games years ago. The only reason he didn’t put a bullet in his head is because he’s Tor’s brother. The feeling is mutual, but not because of that fateful night. No, Dante hates Rafe because he’s everything he wishes he could be. As successful as Devil’s Cove is, it’ll never be Vegas, and as cut-throat as Dante is, he’ll never be as powerful as Rafe.
Nothing. And if it’d been the Hollow brothers who’d asked for the land, I’d have probably given it to them. But now I know Alberto wants it to hold over his hot, young fiance, there’s not a chance in hell I’d even consider it. I darken my glare and recline in the armchair.
“What do you care?” His eyes thin. “You sound like that bitch Aurora.” Bitch. An unnecessary amount of fury threads through my veins. I wash it down with a gulp of whiskey. “I care about the environment.”
“My money’s on Gabe,” Rafe mutters, nodding to our brother on the opposite side of the table. His leather jacket is slung over the back of his chair, and he’s wearing his signature aviators. Not that he needs them—nobody has a poker face like our brother.
Rafe and I exchange smirks. How the fuck these kids ever got into this party, I’ll never know, but at least they’ll provide a level of entertainment. “I know,” the other one hisses back. “All the Viscontis must have grown up on a diet of full-fat milk and steroids. They are fucking huge.” “And all look like MMA fighters.”
Their whispers continue but I can’t hear them any longer over the blood thumping in my temples. The ghost of whiskey now tastes bitter on my tongue, and my fingers twitch. So much so, that I slip my hand in the pocket of my slacks and curl it into a fist. So, Aurora’s a whore. A far cry from the virgin she’s pretending to be for my uncle. I run my tongue over my teeth and take a slow, deep breath. Rafe’s silent now, and I can feel his gaze heating my cheek.
Stacks of golden and silver chips slide across the green velvet. My gaze falls to the back of the blond boy’s head. “Angelo, don’t—” But Rafe’s voice sounds like it’s in the cave over. Before he or my own common sense can stop me, I take a step forward, loom over the kid’s shoulder, and slam my hand down on top of his poker chips.
He gulps, before reluctantly dragging his eyes up to meet mine. Unlike the rest of my family, I’m not much of a betting man, but I’d bet every chip in the joint that he’s just pissed himself.
“Let’s ask the guy who created them.” I toss the chip behind me to Rafe. He catches it with one hand. “What do you think, brother? That look real to you?” Rafe pins me with a blistering glare. His jaw locks and he gives a shake of his head so slight that I know it’s only meant for me. But I hold my ground and wait. Flaring his nostrils, he eventually looks down, flicking the chip between his thumb and forefinger.
The music starts again, and slowly, the incident settles like dust and everyone falls back into having a good time. Feeling heat on my back, I turn around and see Rafe standing in the shadows, glaring at me. As I walk past, he pulls a hand out of his pocket and grabs my arm. “Vicious Visconti is back,” he murmurs in my ear. I stare straight ahead, spine steeled, until he lets me go and moves off into the crowds.
One week and one day. That’s all the time I have left to pretend that this isn’t really going to happen.
I’m not fine, and haven’t been fine since the car ride with Angelo on Wednesday. Ever since I stood on the porch and watched his tail lights melt into the gray horizon, there’s been a thick unease trickling under my skin. Like being in a small car with him on a rainy day has turned my blood to syrup. It’s an uncomfortable feeling, akin to when I step outside first thing in the morning, and although the sky is clear and the weather forecast predicts sun, I know it’s about to rain. It’s inexplicable. Ominous. It raises the hairs on the back of my neck and tension clots between my shoulder
...more
“You look like Marilyn Monroe.” It’d be a compliment if her tone weren’t so bitter.
The silver dress shimmers under the white vanity lights, and my hair, for once, isn’t poker straight and boring. Greta has styled it into big, loose waves, which cascade down my bare back and bounce when I walk.
Tonight, the pianist has started early; lively jazz drifts from under the swinging doors of the dining room and fills the domed ceiling. I descend the stairs slowly, because, as always, my dress is too tight and my heels too high to do anything in a hurry.
A hand. It’s big and strong and I shouldn’t be able to recognize who it belongs to so easily. Warmth brushes my bare back, a wave of adrenaline chasing after it. I twist around to find Angelo Visconti so close I can probably guess the thread count of his crisp, white shirt. I shift my gaze higher, meeting his eyes. He slips a cigarette between his lips and inhales. Then he blows.
Hot lmaoooo
“Those silly little shoes of yours are very…inappropriate.”
A grunt, low and sinister, rumbles in his chest. I’m so close I can feel the frequency of it. The cherry of his cigarette glows, and then I’m surrounded by his smoke once more. This time, I part my lips and slowly suck. It’s not lost on me that this smoke was in his mouth just seconds before it enters mine, and the thought feels so incredibly naughty that my face starts to burn.
Big mistake. He takes a step forward, closing the gap between us as quickly as it appeared. I force my expression to remain neutral, unbothered, even though I’m sure I’m not fooling him. I was never very good at acting, and if I can hear my heart beating like that, then he probably can too.
I clear my throat. “What are you doing out here?” “Smoking.” “Thought you didn’t smoke?” His gaze rises up to mine, confusion crossing his face for a split second, before he realizes I’m referring to the night in the alley beside Tor’s half-built club. His lips twitch. “You keep my secret—I’ll keep yours.”
He doesn’t answer my question. Instead, his gaze drops to my lips as he rakes his teeth over his own. I really wish he’d stop doing that; it makes my head feel all funny. In a bid to look at anything but the delicious curve of his cupid’s bow, I glance down at the cigarette glowing faintly in his right hand. He must have noticed, because he brings it up into the small space between us, and twists it around so the filter is facing me.
“I don’t smoke.” Dark amusement dances in his eyes. “I thought you were a bad girl.”
With a smirk that deepens the cleft of his chin, he pulls the pack from his slacks and tugs out a fresh cigarette. The flame of his Zippo lighter dances majestically against the dark night as he lights it.
“Watch me.” As if I ever do anything else these days. He slips it between his lips and takes a slow, sensual drag. This time, he has the courtesy to blow the smoke out above my head. I feel mildly disappointed. “Here.” He hands it to me. “Not so much this time, magpie.” I like the way he watches my mouth as I slowly inhale. A few seconds later, smoke smoothly escapes my lips, coasting over the planes of his face. “Better,” he purrs.
I smile, passing it back to him. He glances down at the red ring of lipstick around the filter and pauses. His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat, and I swear, I see his pulse in his jaw. “Oh—” But before I can finish my sentence, he slides the cigarette between his lips and inhales.
Hottttt
Wrapping my arms around myself, I glance toward the garden. “I should probably get going.” “Stay.”
He cocks a brow, waiting for more. “How would you feel if you found your fiancee in a dark corner, sharing a cigarette with a handsome man?” He stares at me. At first blankly, then his eyes thin. “You think I’m handsome.”
Heheheheheeheh
His laugh feels good against my skin. “Am I more handsome than your husband?” “It’s not hard.” “So, who would you rather kiss?” I blink. What?
SCREAMING
Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look. My gaze drops to his lips.
“I’m thirty-six.” “Almost twice my age.”
Hotttt
“Besides,” he continues, his voice hardening, “only silly little girls would think grown men would want to kiss them.” “And only dirty old men would ask their uncle’s fiancee about her kissing preferences.” Silence swirls us, thicker than the smoke escaping Angelo’s parted lips. “I was joking, Aurora.”
He keyed his uncle’s car because of that kiss.
This time, he doesn’t tell me to stay. He takes a final drag of his cigarette, then closes the gap between us. Instinctively, I push myself further into the wall, flattening my palms against the cold brickwork. He looms over me like an incoming storm, placing one hand next to my shoulder, using the other to grind the butt into the wall, just inches from my ear. He stays there for a moment. And then another. Trapping me in with the weight of his body and the intensity of his gaze. Time seems to crawl; even the music drifting out of the house sounds slower.
“Tell me a sin, Aurora.”
“Is this what it’s going to be like now?” I rasp. “Me drip-feeding you sins so you don’t listen to the ones I dialed in?” He licks his teeth. Slowly nods.
“Every time he makes me kiss him like that, I spit in his whiskey.” My sin lingers in the air, filling the tiny gap between us. As his body stills against mine, I tear my gaze from the sky and land on his. It’s darker than the night and just as cold.
I’m utterly, madly, unacceptably obsessed with Angelo Visconti. My fiance's nephew, near-stranger, and keeper of my darkest secrets.
No literally same
No matter how close to the shoreline I get, I can’t escape the Whitney Houston ballad that spills out of the basement bar. I can’t escape her, either. Jesus Christ, she’s everywhere. I crossed the line earlier, and now I’m forcing myself to keep my distance.
It’s like she put on that damn dress to irritate me. The sequins shimmer and flash every time she moves, commanding my gaze like a magnet. And then I find myself watching her. Watching her sway her hips and flip her hair to cheesy ballads. Watching the hem of her dress ride up her ass as she leans over the bar to talk to the server. Even when she sits in the shadows, twirling the straw in her gin and tonic, with a lop-sided smile, observing Don and Amelia dancing to the slow songs, she forces me to watch her. It’s all too easy to forget she’s a gold-digging whore.
I catch her watching me, too. I feel it, her heavy gaze brushing against my back while I’m talking to Cas or Benny. I clench my fists and try to concentrate on whatever business shit they are rattling on about, but it’s near impossible when her laugh trickles over my shoulder, or she teeters past and I catch a whiff of her vanilla and bubblegum scent.
“An intern put sugar in my Americano and my first thought was to dislocate his jaw.”
“We’re bad people, Angelo. You can run from that fact, but you can’t hide from it, even all the way in England.” “You know what Mama always used to say,” I say quietly, tugging another cigarette out the carton and lighting it. “Good cancels out the bad.”
“That day in San Francisco, I walked and walked and eventually, I found myself in China Town. I was crossing the road when a woman jumped out in front of me rattling this big sack.” I glance over at him, lips pursed. “She was selling fortune cookies. Broken ones from the factory she worked at. You know I don’t believe in any of that shit, but I was just thinking about Mama, and you know how much she loved those fucking fortune cookies…” “You bought one.” “Uh-huh.” “Angelo,” he says seriously.
Behind us, the Whitney Houston ballad picks up into something more up-tempo. I shake my head.
But as the dark clouds roll in over the Cove, dark thoughts come with them. One dark thought in particular—Angelo Visconti.
And then, I wonder what would have happened if, in the darkness of the walkway, I’d answered his question truthfully. You. I’d rather kiss you.
What would he have done if that one word had fallen from my lips? I imagine his square jaw sharpening, his gaze darkening. One hand trapping me against the wall, the other gripping the hemline of my dress and impatiently dragging it up my bare thighs. He wouldn’t be gentle, and deep down, I know I wouldn’t want him to be.
I bite my lip as I slip a finger into my hole, imagining it was his stretching me open instead. I move on it, bucking my hips against my palm to build up friction, chasing that release I need so badly. The back of my head and my ears bob in and out of the water as I kick my legs to stay afloat. God, it feels good. My eyes flutter open, just as a seagull glides overhead, and when my gaze falls back to shore, I freeze.
