Page 13 of De Luca: The Sinister Game

I rub my hand across my jaw. “Tell me about your sister.”

Her blue eyes snap to mine, widening, as her mouth falls open, and she blinks several times like she’s trying to process my words, “What about her?”

Dante looms over her, an expression of intrigue on his face. “Tell us everything.”

“And then you’ll let me go?” She asks hopefully as I chuckle, “You’ll tell us everything or you’ll die slowly. Painfully.”

Nicole's eyes water, and I’m not sure if it’s from the withdrawal or if she’s going to cry. It doesn’t actually matter because the only reason she’s still alive is because we want information from her. She doesn’t know it yet, but her sister is the only thing keeping her alive at the moment.

“There isn’t much to tell. She’s the fat one, the ugly duckling. Nobody likes her, not me, not my parents. No one.”

Dante balls his hands into fists, and pulls his leg back and kicks her in the face with enough force to knock her teeth out, but she turns her head in time to avoid losing any. She cries out in pain as his foot connects with the side of her face, and her head smacks into the wall behind her.

“Dante,” I growled, “Stand back. You’ll get your chance.”

He inhales a sharp breath as he turns and glares at me. I nod, and he steps back from her reluctantly. We both have a fascination with our sweet Natalia, but his differs from mine. I want to fuck her and make her cry, but I think my brother is in love with her. He wants to protect her and do all the romantic shit. It’s the only reason other than our brothers that we haven’t taken her yet, because we are not on the same page. I expect that to change because the youngest De Luca brother is getting twitchy with his need for her. Eventually, he’ll snap and agree.

“Why don’t your parents like her?”

I get sibling rivalry, but why her parents wouldn’t like her is beyond me. Natalia has a bubbly, sweet personality and I can’t imagine anyone not liking her. Every family has drama, but I can’t imagine how she would be at the center of it.

She grins at me like she’s holding the world's biggest secret and shakes her head. “Nope. You’re going to kill me, anyway. I’ll take this one to the grave.”

Dante reacts emotionally, while I’m always calm and calculated. An emotional response is dangerous because if I let him, he’d kill her and we’d never get what we both want. I know it’s his need to protect Natalia that’s driving it. Still, keep your eye on the prize and all that.

Pulling out my cell phone, I call T, “Bring it.”

Physical violence isn’t how you get a junkie to talk. Only one thing will, the drugs they desire more than their next breath.

“Dante, untie her.”

Glaring at her, I stand back, my hands in my pockets, “Don’t try anything stupid. I’ll give you what you want and then you’ll give us what we want or there’ll be no more. Understood?”

She nods emphatically. “Yes. Oh God, thank you.”

T walks in and I nod to him, “Give it to her. She knows what to do.”

He walks over to her and hands her the syringe with the heroin, ready to go, and quickly searches for a vein with shaky hands and injects it into her arm. She hands the syringe to Dante, and he walks away to toss it in a bottle and seal it. It’s not perfect but we don’t have a sharps container because normally there’s no drug use here.

“Now. Start talking before I unleash my brother on you.”

She nods as she takes in a shaky breath. “We don’t have the same father.”

I tilt my head curiously as I cock an eyebrow at her. “Twins can’t have different fathers.”

Okay, it’s possible, I suppose. We all saw the news report about the woman who had fraternal twins by two different men, but I’m sure that’s not what we are dealing with here. That has to be a rare situation—one that’s not likely to happen again. What are the odds? A million to one, I don’t actually know, but it’s got to be something like that.

I suspect she’s fucking with us and feeding us some bullshit about her father.

CHAPTER 12

NATALIA

Gia and I used to go out drinking but her life is different now. She isn’t able to drink, since she’s pregnant and Domenic doesn’t like her hanging out in bars. I don’t know that I’d say he’s controlling, more protective. He lets her do whatever she wants, with security, of course, but she doesn’t like to cause him stress. And how fun is it to go hang out among drunk people when you have to stay sober? Still, I want to spend time with my bestie before she’s a mom and has to devote all her time to a crying, pooping newborn. When she texted me declaring a pool day, I couldn’t refuse.

Domenic stands watching from inside the French doors as Gia waddles over to me in a black bikini, and a protruding belly which she always has a hand on. The love she has for this baby before they’re even born is heartwarming. The way her husband stares at her like she’s his entire world causes my chest to clench with slight jealousy. I want that. Desperately. I’m happy for her, but I wish I could have something real the way they do. Not a mafia man, of course, but someone that looks at me like I hung the damn moon.

She turns to him, places her hands on her hips, “Dom.”

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