Page 27 of His Nephew's Ex
He’s not wrong about the blood, but the age comment hits differently when it comes from him. Twenty years separate me from Loriana—two decades of violence and loss and moral compromises that should make me unworthy of her innocence.
But when she looks at me, she doesn’t see an old man with questionable ethics. She sees something that makes her pulse race and her pupils dilate, something that made her pull me into her bed despite knowing exactly what I am.
“What I am isn’t the question,” I say quietly. “What you’ve become is.”
“What I’ve become?” Flavio leans forward, and for the first time since this conversation started, I see something dangerous flicker behind his eyes. “I’ve become exactly what you made me,zio. Hungry, ambitious, willing to take what I want instead of waiting for permission.”
The words chill me because they carry the ring of truth. I did raise him to be strong, to claim what he wanted, to never back down from a fight. But somewhere along the way, those lessons twisted into something darker—entitlement instead of strength, possession instead of protection.
“I taught you to be powerful, not cruel.”
“Did you?” His smile is sharp, predatory. “Then explain the Pirlo situation. Explain what happened to the dockworkers who tried to unionize. Explain the accident that killed Detective Lambert when he got too close to our shipping operation.”
Each incident he mentions is a carefully buried piece of my past events I handled with care to protect the organization. The fact that he knows these details, can recite them like a grocery list, tells me he’s been paying attention to my business in ways I never intended.
“Those were necessary evils to protect what we’ve built.”
“And this is mine.” His voice drops to a whisper that carries the weight of absolute conviction. “Loriana was my necessary evil, my way of establishing something that belonged to me instead of inheriting your scraps.”
The calculation in his voice makes my blood run cold. He’s not talking about love or even lust—he’s talking about possession as a business strategy, acquisition as a form of rebellion against my authority.
“She’s not property to be acquired.”
“Isn’t she?” Flavio tilts his head, studying me with the same intensity I’ve seen in mirrors for decades. “Because from where I’m sitting, you’ve done exactly the same thing. Claimed her, marked her, made it clear that anyone who touches her will face the consequences.”
He’s right, and the acknowledgment burns like acid in my throat. I have claimed Loriana, have made her mine through possession and protection and the kind of sexual mastery that leaves marks deeper than skin. The difference is that she choseto let me, chose to surrender to what burns between us despite knowing the cost.
But does that choice justify the price I made her pay? Her freedom, her peace, the clean slate of a life before I stained it with my sins?
“The difference,” I say carefully, “is that she came to me willingly.”
“After I softened her up with weeks of attention and courtship.” His smile is triumphant, like he’s won some argument I didn’t know we were having. “After I invested months in building her trust and breaking down her defenses. You just swooped in to collect the dividend.”
The mercenary language makes me want to put him through the window, but something else catches my attention. The casual way he talks about building trust and breaking down defenses—like seduction is warfare and women are territories to be conquered.
It reminds me of someone, though I can’t quite place who.
“Tell me about the bet,” I say suddenly, remembering something Loriana mentioned about his friends.
Flavio’s expression flickers, just for a moment, before sliding back into practiced innocence. “What bet?”
“The one you made with your friends about seducing her.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
But his body language says otherwise—the subtle tensing of shoulders, the way his eyes dart toward the door like he’s calculating escape routes. After twenty years of reading people’s body language, I know guilt when I see it.
“Giuseppe Longino,” I say, pulling a name from my mental files of Flavio’s associates. “Your friend with the radical politics and expensive gambling habits. Should I have Tiziano pay him a visit?”
“No.” The word comes too quickly, too sharply. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Then what was it like?”
Flavio is quiet for a long moment, staring at his hands like they hold answers to questions he’s afraid to ask. When he finally speaks, his voice is small, younger than his twenty-six years.
“It started as a joke. Giuseppe said I’d never be able to get someone like her to notice me, because she is too pure, too independent, and too smart for someone like me. So I said I could make her fall in love with me within six months.”
The casual cruelty of it hits me like a physical blow. Loriana’s innocence, her careful trust, her decision to wait for someoneworthy—all of it reduced to the terms of a casual wager between spoiled young men with too much time and too little conscience.
