Page 47 of Brutal Queen

“No! You’re going to shut up and listen.” He pauses momentarily, swallowing hard, like he’s worried about how to say whatever it is that’s on his mind. “You’re not okay, Nico. You’re beating yourself up about something you have no control over, and you’re not talking about it. We all see you struggling and it’s time to suck it up and talk to us. It doesn’t have to be me. But you can’t keep all this shit inside anymore.”

I feel like I’ve been punched in the ribs. I don’t know what to say. Apparently, I’ve not been as subtle with my feelings as I thought and this time it’s Benny who’s got the complete measure of me.

“I-I didn’t expect it to affect me as much as it has. And if I thought for one moment, it would make me unsafe with you, I would never have played so hard last night,” I say, throwing my leg off him and sitting down beside him on the sofa.

He leans into me and rests his head on my shoulder.

“But we know now, and you need to deal with it. You can’t keep ignoring it.”

“I know, Bambi. But…” I don’t know how to unjumble the thoughts that have been swirling in my head for weeks, “where do I start?”

His hand finds mine, and he weaves our fingers together, squeezing gently. “Start at the beginning,” he says quietly and lets his words hang, waiting for me to take the bait.

I take a deep breath and start talking.

Fuck,it’s late. Or wait… is it early? I flick my wrist to check the time on my watch and see that it’s actually 4 am. My internal clock is completely screwed. I have no idea how long I was asleep before we started talking. However long it was, I obviously needed it. I needed the talk too.

Benny sat by my side while I rambled about everything from what I was told to what we know now. I’ve been insisting since the moment Manny opened his poisonous mouth that nothing has changed. I was a bastard and I’m still a bastard, but really, everything has changed.

I thought I was raised by my distant relatives, but Sinclair can’t find any evidence that I’m in any way related to them, which means Aurora’s dad must have placed me with them and he’s not here to explain why. Why place me with people who made it clear every day of my life they didn’t want me?

I don’t know where to start with having Salvatore for a father. I always knew whoever my father was, he was a cunt, so it really does feel like nothing’s changed. What’s thrown me, what keeps me up at night, is knowing that I’m related tohim.

Max-fucking-De Luca.

I’ve always celebrated the violent streakthat runs through me, but now it feels like a poison crawling through my veins, ready to turn me from monster to full-blown psychopath. It makes my skin crawl to think that I am anything like my…brother.

My biggest fear is that one day when I look at Aurora or Enzo, they won’t see me, they’ll see him in me. That I’ll be a constant reminder of everything they’ve suffered at his hands, and day by day, I’ll lose them a little more, until one day I’ll see nothing but hatred in their eyes.

I can’t bear the thought that I’ll lose my family.

“I can only tell you what I see when I look at you, and that’s the man I love,” Benny says. “To me, you are Nico Verardi.”

“I’m not a Verardi,” I bite out, unable to hide my disdain for the name I was raised with.

“Well, you’re not a fucking De Luca either.” Benny’s words help. Everything he’s said and done tonight has helped. No matter what I’m feeling about myself right now, nothing has changed for him. He still sees me as he always has. As his.

“Maybe I’m not either, maybe I’m not anything,” I joke, but it doesn’t land and only succeeds in pissing him off.

“Don’t you start this shit with me, Nico.You’re fucking everything,” he says, in an unwavering tenor that rings true with his sincerity.

“I love how unshakeable your faith is in me. I really do. But I can’t help the way I feel sometimes. In truth, I’ve never felt more like a bastard than I do right now. Discarded, unclaimed.” As I speak my truth, it hangs like a noose around my neck. What if the family I’ve built for myself does the same thing? What if they reject me too?

I drop my head in my hands because just the thought of that has my stomach churning and my heart pounding in my ears. I don’t think I’d survive losing them.

All of a sudden my breathing is ragged and I can’t seem toget enough air in my lungs. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so helpless, and whatever this is, I don’t fucking like it. I feel like I’m drowning. The leather cushions creak as Benny eases off the sofa to the floor and shuffles in front of me. Slowly, his hands wrap around my wrists and pull my palms away from my face.

He’s kneeling at my feet, smiling.

“You’re ours, goddammit. I don’t care if your last name is Verardi, De Luca, or Romano. But let me make one thing perfectly clear. We claim you. You belong to us.”

Every word that rolls off his tongue sweeps over me like a river bursting its banks and carrying away the debris after a storm. I take a few deep breaths and start to feel more and more centred. The corners of my mouth slowly tip up to mirror his smile. I feel a thousand times better even for having said half of that out loud, and I love that Benedict knows exactly what to say to help me through it. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have found him. Or to have let him find me.

“Is that your idea of a stealth proposal, Bambi? Throwing your name into the mix?” I tease.

“Nico, I’d marry you tomorrow and give you my name if you’d let me,” he says. When I search his eyes for the mischievous glint I expect to see, there’s nothing but complete sincerity in them.

Saliva pools in my mouth, and I swallow hard. Holy fuck. The past few weeks have left me feeling more unstable than I ever have, but Benedict has managed to anchor me back to myself. I lean forward and kiss him hard, tangling my tongue with his and stealing his breath.

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