Page 117 of Hostile Love
Red silk peeks out of their jacket pockets and their Souza family rings are visible.
Instinctively, I twist my own a few times, getting used to the fact I have one after all these years.
I can’t say I feel any different. There wasn’t a carnival celebration in my chest or a sudden metamorphosis of my personality. Although, knowing it belonged to Angelo Souza––my real father, I guess that’s something.
But there’s no point wondering what my life would have looked like in a parallel universe.
The pieces I like about myself came from my family’s guidance. They taught me loyalty, respect for myself, how to party like a champion, obliterate targets when necessary, and, most importantly, how to take care of the people who mean the world to me.
I am who I am because of them.
That's all that matters.
“André.” Blanco puffs on his cigar. “Mended well, I see.”
My brother waves his arms outwards and does a three-sixty turn.
“Better than ever. Can’t keep a good dog down, right? When I fall…I fucking bounce.”
Truth is, no one outside of our family would ever know how slow his recovery actually took.
Painfully slow for a man who gets agitated from lying in bed for too long and suffers an immense fear of missing anything.
When he arrived back at the mansion, he had stayed in a guest suite for a couple of days, heavily medicated and spaced out.
Eventually, he insisted on being hands on with the twins.
After a week or two of thinking he was invincible, he overdid it and burned himself out.
That was the hardest part for us to witness. Seeing him slip into a weird funk where he struggled to build himself back up to par.
He did, though. And this afternoon, André is stronger than ever, a coiled spring ready for action.
Giovanni starts walking towards the chapel and calls out over his shoulder on his way past, “Showtime.”
“Find your seat, Blanco.” André tosses his blunt, stamps on it, and stretches his shoulders. “Tommy’s on his way.”
I hold my elbow out for Dani to latch onto, meeting her gray eyes. When she steps into me, leaving her father behind, and hooks my arm, I don’t hide my grin.
Yeah, motherfucker, she’s all mine.
“Ready?” I ask as Blanco and André stroll towards the chapel doors, disappearing inside.
Sunlight dapples the stones underfoot and a slight breeze moves through the trees. I thumb her jaw as she gazes up at me and then spin her around, bumping her tits into my chest.
“You're beautiful, Dani.”
Blood surges to my dick, making it strain against my zipper. I crash my mouth over cherry red lips and kiss her the way she likes it. Hard and dirty.
The sound of her whimper explodes like fireworks inside me. One hand settles around her nape, the other swathes her throat, controlling how I kiss her.
“If we weren’t in the middle of something,” I growl into her mouth. “I’d drag you behind a tree and fuck you in the dirt.”
She grabs onto my lapels and tugs. When my painfully hard dick jabs into her belly, the groan escaping her is liquid fucking gold.
Her tight little body rubs against me, hungry and needy. My temperature soars and desire almost blinds me.
It takes every grain of my self-restraint to peel myself off her.
