On my first night in Hell, I was tortured by the Devil himself.
He strapped me to a chair in an eight-by-eight cell, stripped me naked, shaved every square inch of my body, then stuck electrodes on my temples, chest, and groin. Someone wheeled in an old tape player and pressed "play". Roxanne by The Police crackled out of the speakers, and every time the name "Roxanne" was sung, he ran a current through me.
That bitch is mentioned twenty-six times.
He played it for eighteen hours straight.
For years, I thought it was the worst form of torture a man could ever endure.
But then Rafe started throwing parties.
"I'm telling you dude—I had a dream."
The vocal fry sizzles on my back like hot oil. The man at the roulette table behind me isn't Martin Luther King, but a California tech bro who invented a rideshare app and thinks he too changed the world.
"Come on, man," his co-founder groans. "An acid trip isn't the same as a dream."
"All right. It was a prophecy, then."
"Jesus."
"Yeah, man. I saw him too. He also said you should go all in on red."
There's a heavy pause, the type that brews bad decisions, then:
"Fine. Fuck it."
A chorus of cheers ripples around the table, followed by the swish of chips gliding over velvet. The ball drops and rattles, like teeth in a glass jar. It skips and clinks, growing slower and slower and slower, before dropping into a slot with a dull, final, thunk.
Silence.
"Fuck. My wife is going to kill me."
I drag a hand down my face. Consider clawing my eyeballs out while I'm at it, because fuck, I hate these fucking parties.
We're in Whiskey Under the Rocks, in Devil's Hollow. It's one of the many cave bars buried deep beneath the ground, and for the life of me, I'll never understand why Rafe insists on holding his annual poker night here. The ceiling drips, the walls sweat, and the acoustics amplify every liquor-fueled laugh and coked-up conversation.
Tonight, it's dressed up like an aging hooker working the holiday season. Christmas trees sprout from every corner, their branches sagging under gaudy baubles and lights. There's tinsel wound around stalactites and fake snow jutting from limestone. The whole joint flashes red and green, and to top it all off, some annoying cunt is bashing piano keys in one of the alcoves.
He ran out of Christmas classics to play an hour ago, so now he's working through commercial-jingle versions of mainstream songs instead—not that anyone here is sober enough to notice.
Grinding my teeth, I flip over the next card in the deck and toss it on the table. I don't bother glancing down to see what I've dealt—I'm far too on edge to care.
It's the law of probability: shove three or more Viscontis in a room together and at least one of the bastards is going to set it on fire, then look to me to put out the flame.
I never come to these parties to play cards; I come to babysit. I've fine-tuned my order of observation over the years, always looking for the biggest fire-starting dickhead in the family first—Benny, obviously—then working my way down the list. But tonight, there's a tense undercurrent running beneath the festivities. It's stitched into suits, poisons the drinks. The floor is wet with gasoline, and even if I were a betting man, I couldn't say for sure who's going to strike a match first.
Cracking my knuckles, I glance over at Benny out of habit. He's running the poker game opposite, a spaced-out smirk on his face and a blonde draped across his lap. He catches my eye and winks before blocking a nostril, dipping his head, and snorting a line off her thigh.
Fucking idiot. Of all the girls he could trick into opening their legs tonight, he had to choose the one who arrived with a Turkish arms dealer.
But it's typical Benny behavior. Nothing Emile can't handle. No, tonight I'm more concerned with the fire hazard sitting to my left.
"Deal."
My attention cuts over to Rafe. "What?"
"You deaf now?"
My fist clenches. "The last card was an ace."
"I have eyes," Rafe snaps back. "Deal a fucking card."
As I flip over another card in the deck, Rory flashes me a shit-eating grin from behind her hand.
A mild amusement prickles my chest. Yeah, and if Rafe's eyes weren't permanently glued to the elevator doors, he'd probably notice that our sister-in-law is taking him for a ride.
He takes after our mama: superstitious as fuck, only he's too embarrassed to admit it. Usually, he's only wary of the stupid stuff. He'll avoid walking under road signs and make sure to salute a passing magpie. But recently, his bad omen has the shape of a short redhead with a smart mouth and sticky fingers.
Penelope Price has got him fucked up. He's convinced she's the reason that his fortune is bleeding out of his asshole. I don't know about that, but I do know she's the reason he's taken first place on my fire-starting dickhead list tonight.
She's also the reason Angelo's sitting three tables over, sulking.
Raking my teeth across my bottom lip, I find our older brother. He's spent more time glaring at Rafe over the top of his cards than playing them, because as expected, the meeting with Kelly O'Hare went south. His eye wandered too far for Rafe's liking, so he blew the dust off his gun, fired a bullet and triggered a war with the Irish.
I hadn't even moored the tender when I got the call asking if I could return to the yacht and clean up the blood before it seeped too deep into the teak.
Bringing my watch to my mouth, I grind out a command over the radio in tonight's language: German.
I need more eyes on Vicious, because I learned a long time ago that his sulking usually leads to shooting.
A crackling confirmation comes through my earpiece, but I'm not done with my sweep. I skip over Nico at the craps table—he just comes to these parties to pick up chicks and watch everyone else embarrass themselves—and find his older brother, Cas.
Cas. Christ, I can't remember the last time he ranked so high on my fire-starting dickhead list, or even when he last broke the top five. He's usually too busy lubing up his fist to fuck investors, or bidding on junk found in a dead grandma's attic, to cause me any problems.
But then again, he doesn't usually let his fiancée, Alyona, out of the house. So, instead of working the room, he's propping himself up against the bar, five drinks down and antsy. He'd surgically detach his last name from his first, if he thought it'd get him out of marrying the Russian vodka distillery heiress, but that hasn't stopped him from glaring at Alyona's hand resting on Rafe's business partner's thigh.
Knowing where everyone is and who they're glaring at marginally softens the tension in my jaw. Everything's under control, for now.
I grab my beer and go back to watching Rory's attempt at card counting.
A bastardized rendition of a Marvin Gaye love song fissures through the club, drowning out her math-related mutterings Behind me, California Tech Bro is trying to convince his buddy that the third time is always the luckiest, and to my right, Cas rips out a booming laugh, too loud and forced to be real.
I gulp my beer. Glance at the vein ticking in Rafe's temple. Hell, I even smirk when Rory drops her cards and declares another victory.
But the thing about my thoughts is that they're just like my fucking family. Never quiet for long.
The next swig of beer burns as it passes through my throat. The base of my skull throbs, and I squeeze my eyes shut so hard I see flashes of pink.
When I open them again, I'm glaring in the same direction as Rafe.
"Who else is coming tonight?"
"Tayce," he grunts back.
"And?"
"Whoever she's currently fucking, probably."
"Mm." I cut a knuckle through my beard. "Who else?"
"Not Tor, that's for sure," he says bitterly, checking his watch.
Irritation squeezes my chest like a cramp. "Anyone else?"
Still staring at the elevator, Rafe lets out a hard puff of air. "A big spender from Vegas is supposed to be flying in. He better not bail—I could use the cash injection." He flicks a distracted glance to the pile of cards. "Deal."
I slam down a card so hard the table shakes. Rory yelps, someone in my peripheral vision flinches, and Rafe stops spinning his poker chip.
His gaze locks on mine, bloodshot and suspicious.
I clench my jaw. "Who. Else?"
"You and your circus freaks have vetted everyone I even considered inviting," he murmurs. "So why are you asking?"
Rafe isn't expecting an answer, and even if he was, he couldn't waterboard one out of me.
My gaze shifts to the rock wall behind his head. I clench my jaw to an even beat, as if it'll pump the pink out of my brain.
She said she was coming, and yet she isn't here. She doesn't strike me as the type to show up late, so I guess she's not coming after all.
Good.
Good.
My next gulp of beer tastes like lukewarm disappointment, so I flag down a passing server and order something stronger. I turn over cards. Crack my neck. Even strum my fingers on the table to the beat of a 90's one-hit-wonder.
But then a murderous thought grips me.
She's not coming tonight.
So what else is she fucking doing?
The worst-case scenario flashes against the rock wall like a festive montage.
Red: her hand sliding down another man's bicep.
Green: her panties sliding down her thighs.
Venom shoots up my spine and explodes at the base of my skull. The thought of another man seeing her panties turns my blood acidic.
My fingers grapple for the earbud in the right pocket of my jeans, then change course for the left pocket to snatch up my cell and check her Instagram profile for the millionth time today.
I swear, if she's gone on that date, I'll fucking—
Ding.
It's barely audible. The type of sound only mad dogs and me can hear, but it shoots through the cave on the back of a silver bullet.
My eyes snap to the elevator.
Red.
Green.
Pink.
It's only a glimpse. An inch of space between two sliding doors, filled with blonde, sparkles, and heels. But it turns out, I'm no better than my brother, because an inch is all it takes for my spine to jerk straight.
Self-disgust wraps around my neck like a noose. I'd rather be stabbed in the groin ten times over than in the same boat as Rafe, but just like him, I can't look away.
The doors slide all the way open. A pool of gold light spills out onto the concrete, and when she steps into it, my muscles harden to stone, because—
That. Fucking. Dress.
It's the first thing I notice and the only thing I see. Not that there's much of it to see. I've used more fabric to polish a damn gun.
My blood heats and my gaze thins, carving a line of fire down the length of her. The neckline is as low as the hemline is high, and what little there is in between clings to every curve and dip like it's been vacuum-sealed to her body.
A hot hiss escapes my nostrils. Christ. She's poured into that thing like hot honey.
I glare until the sparkles make my eyes sore, then palm my jaw and look up at the craggy ceiling for relief. Of all the fucking things to curse, I choose my father's name.
Ten rules, yet none of them were relevant to civilized society. I never learned how to share, say sorry, or play fairly. Every lesson revolved around anger, and though I learned how to channel it into my fist or trigger finger, I never learned what to do with it when it didn't fit the crime.
I was taught that unwarranted anger is as good as any. But despite my fucked-up childhood, somehow my prefrontal cortex developed just enough to recognize the difference.noveldrama
Did I know it was unwarranted when I caught Rafe's lackey undress Her with his eyes? Yes.
Did it stop me from clawing said eyes out with my car key and tossing his body, heart still beating, into the same body bag as Kelly O'Hare?
Of course not.
Guess I've never cared for the distinction.
My gaze drifts back down to locate her. She's still hovering in the entryway, flanked only by Tayce and Penny—thank fuck. But even though she's not hanging off some cunt's arm tonight, the mere idea of her hanging off anyone at all makes my skin burn.
The memory of yesterday's tender ride sparks behind my eyeballs like a blown fuse. Her drunken grin, her fingers flying across her cell screen in earnest. There's no doubt about it—the girl was drugged up on another man's attention. Side effects must have included a heavy case of delusion. It's the only explanation for why she had the nerve to suggest I had a crush on her.
The thought curdles in my chest. Me, of all people. A crush of all things.
If she wasn't as high as a kite when she said it, then I'd love to know what I've ever done to give her that idea. Couldn't have been because I threatened to cut out her tongue or because I strung her up in my garage like a freshly slaughtered lamb.
And if it was, then, fuck, guess she's more of a psychopath than I am.
I take a sip of whiskey to give my hands something to do. I glare at her over the rim of the glass, watching as she peers around the room with a wide-eyed curiosity. She runs a hand along the length of her ponytail, then smacks her lips together. The piano is loud, the laughter louder; I can't hear the pop her lips make, but I feel it like a bullet to the groin.
Another gulp of liquor, just to numb the pain.
Fucking crush. Sure, she's objectively beautiful; anyone with eyes and a shred of mental capacity can see that. She's got that all-American girl-next-door thing going on. You know, if the girl next door was of the curtain twitching variety and always knew whether you were coming or going. She'd probably slip passive-aggressive notes about the state of your lawn under your door too, signed with a smiley-face and a kiss.
She trails Tayce and Penny through the club, and because the girl's a magnet, my eyes move with her. Arms stiff at her sides, she weaves between tables, careful to keep a wide berth, as if she's read in a gossip magazine or something that gambling addictions are contagious.
But watching her brings this weird lump to my throat and turns my whiskey sour. Only when a drunken cheer shoots across the room and she clutches her heart-shaped purse to her chest do I reluctantly realize what it stems from.
She doesn't belong here. Hell, she doesn't belong in the dark at all. She looks like cotton candy dunked into an ashtray. An angel who took a wrong turn on the way to heaven. She looks like she knows it too.
Something primal and protective stirs beneath my skin. It's making me consider dragging her out of here by her silk ponytail and flinging her far away to some distant sunny place, where darkness and panic attacks and other men can't touch her. I'd keep her as happy and as perfect as the day I met her.
My gaze slides down to the top of her thighs.
I'd keep her dressed in rags, too.
Christ. I slam down my whiskey glass and give it a rough shove so it's out of my reach. No more of that crap tonight; it's turning me batshit crazy.
Aware that my glaring will only feed into her stupid "crush' idea, I busy myself with loading cards back into the automatic shuffler. But I don't have to look to know she's closing in, because I can feel it. She's like a lit match, her heat licking up the side of my neck, flames crawling higher with every click of her heels.
Maybe if I weren't so tuned in, or maybe if it wasn't so out of place in this cave bar, I wouldn't catch the sound of her laugh.
For the second time tonight, my eyes snap up. They lock on a hand wrapped around her upper arm. It flashes red, green, red again. I trail along a suited limb to find its owner—a server. The drinks on his tray are trembling, and she's inspecting her dress. He must have bumped into her.
It's not a threatening grip, more of a steadying one. And maybe if I were in a better mood, I'd consider letting it slide. But as he walks away, he makes the mistake of stopping. He glances over his shoulder, and runs an eye from her bare back right down to her ass.
With an odd sense of calm, I finally understand why Rafe blew O'Hare's brains out, and why Cas is thirty seconds away from going nuclear.
Visconti men don't need to love something to hate seeing it in someone else's hands.
Guess it's just not what we were born to do.