Vendetta: A DeLuca Family Novel (The DeLuca Family Book 2) (8 page)

Lifting her leg higher on my own, I positioned myself at her entrance and slid in on a groan. I heard her breath catch in her throat as I pushed fully into her. I took my time, lazily pumping into her at a slow and steady rhythm. We moved together slowly, letting our bodies leisurely build towards climax. It was perfect. Our hips rocked together unhurriedly, until we both shuddered with our own release. We fit in every way. She was my home, where I belonged.

I winced when I pulled out of her, feeling the loss of her around me all the way to my bones. Kissing her shoulder softly once more I rolled to my back, stretching out, completely content. I wanted to hold onto that feeling but I wasn't sure how. Everything had been so intense last night as if neither of us could keep it bottled up for another second. But in the light of day, once the lustful haze of this morning’s activities cleared, all the ramifications of what we'd done snapped back to slap me in the face.

It wasn't just the two of us in a room together. There were other people to consider—our families—Eddie. Lead filled my stomach at the thought of him. He was my brother in every sense of the word, and I’d have to find a way to make him understand because the alternative was not something I wanted to consider. There was no way we could go back to the way things had been; we’d all but spoken the words as we made love last night and this morning. Because that’s exactly what it had been—love. I’d worshiped her body last night and cherished it this morning. There was no denying my heart as I looked to the other side of the bed and took in her beauty—my wife.

“Frankie, we ne—” I started, wanting to ease any worry she may have, but she interrupted me.

“Don’t make it awkward,” she said quickly, pushing out of my arms and sitting up in the bed.

My heart shuddered, and I sat up. For some reason I didn’t want to be lying down for this conversation if she wasn’t with me; something told me it would put me at a disadvantage.

“Tha—” I started to respond, but once again she cut me off.

“Stop, really. I don’t want to have this conversation, there’s nothing to even talk about.”

“There’s not,” I replied in a monotone voice, sounding much less like a question than I’d meant it to. My stomach was sinking; the elation I’d felt when I’d first woke up quickly dissipating.

“Nope,” she agreed and then continued her rationalization without letting me respond. “It was just built up sexual frustration. You’ve been overseas and I’ve been too busy with school to have any sort of social life. We’re mature adults and it was just sex. It’s not like it meant anything; we were just two friends scratching an itch.”

Anger burned in my gut. She really didn’t give a shit. There wasn’t even a hint of vulnerability in her face. She was stone cold. I felt ice run through my veins, so apparently all the waxing-poetic shit running through my head a minute ago was completely one-sided.

“Right,” I nodded standing up and pulling on my jeans. “Do me a favor?” I asked over my shoulder.

“Sure, what’s up?” she asked adjusting the sheets around herself in an effort to cover up the body that I’d just been inside. More than anything, that move infuriated me.

“Let’s keep this under wraps; Eddie would be pissed,” I called out pulling my shirt over my head.

“Why would Eddie be pissed?” she asked slowly.

“Because we agreed neither of us would touch you, and obviously,” I said scanning her up and down, “I did.” It was a dick move and I knew it, but her attitude pissed me off, and for a minute, I just wanted to make her feel as shitty as she’d made me feel.

Her mouth dropped open in shock for just a moment, then her eyes narrowed and she started to scream. “Are you fucking kidding me? You guys made an agreement like I was fucking property?”

Shit.

“We just—”

“No! Fuck you, Enzo. Get the fuck out of my house!” she screamed, climbing from the bed and dragging the sheet along with her. She shrieked profanities at me while pushing me toward the front of the apartment.

I turned around as soon as we’d reached the front door, my pack having been unceremoniously shoved into my chest. “Would you calm the fuck down?” I yelled over her.

She went eerily silent. Squinting her eyes at me, her jaw locked down tight. “Get. The. Fuck. Out. Of. My. House,” she gritted out in a deadly calm tone.

I’d seen pissed off Frankie, but this wasn’t her. The woman in front of me was enraged; livid even, and that was fine by me. She’d just taken something that I’d been sure was real and made it out to be meaningless.

“Fine,” I barked out, flinging open the door and stomping noisily down the stairs towards my car.

The drive back to Seattle was a blur, my mind racing over what I could have possibly misread. There was nothing, she was completely with me, present for every move, she’d wanted it just as bad as I had, but for some reason something had shifted for her in the light of day. Frankie had made our night together out to be a slip up, a lapse in judgment instead of our beginning.

To her, I was a mistake.

T
he blood seeped
out of her unmoving body and onto the concrete at an incredible rate, calming the chaos of my mind and thickening the metallic smell hanging in the air as the stain on the ground grew. I watched her tanned skin grow pale, her brown eyes hidden beneath her colorless eyelids. She was perfect, but when my eyes tracked up her lifeless form and landed on her hair, the buzzing started to build in my head again. It wasn’t right.

NO, NO, NO, NO! The hair isn’t right. It has to be right!

I took a step closer, then another, my breath coming out in pants with the anxiety my thoughts caused, mixed with the anticipation of what I needed to do to fix it. Once I was standing over her prone body, I crouched down, lowering a gloved hand into the scarlet puddle. I could feel it’s warmth through my glove, but it wasn’t enough. I knew I shouldn’t risk leaving any part of me here with her, but I had to know what her blood slicking my skin felt like.

Ripping the glove off my right hand, I tossed it to the side before lowering to my knees and straddling her thighs. Leaning farther over her until I was hovering directly above her, being careful to brace my left hand outside of the pool of her blood.

Slowly I let my ungloved hand slip into the thick, sticky fluid, excitement pulsing through my body at the sight of it against my skin. I rubbed my fingers together, closing my eyes at the satisfying slip and slide. It felt like stroking a piece of silk, and I was almost dizzy with the pleasure of it. I’ve killed before, but never this close—never like I’d dreamed and fantasized about for years.

I wanted to take my time enjoying the feel of it, and the absence of the noise in my mind, but I didn’t have the time. Glancing around the dumpster towards the end of the alley, I confirmed we were still alone. The dingy alley I’d forced her into was empty and silent; the dumpster blocked the light from the street, but the full moon hanging lazily above the tall buildings glowed bright, allowing me to admire my handiwork. The only sound I could register was my own heavy breathing and the rapid thumping of my heart.

The buzzing in my head was already starting to stir, my brief moment of peace slipping away from me. I needed to get out of there, but I had to make it right first. I couldn’t leave her here unless it was right. Dipping my hand back into the pool of blood, I coated my hand before gently caressing her hair back away from her face. I continued to spread the bright red blood over the blonde strands, my movements growing more frantic as I found pieces that I’d missed. It had to be
right
. She wasn’t
blonde
. Her hair was
red
. It
had
to be red.

Red. Red. Red. Red. Red. Red. Red. Red. Red. Red. Red. Red. Red. Red. RED.

I repeated it in my head until the word felt right, until her hair was saturated in her own lifeblood, until she was perfect. Standing up slowly, I stepped back, admiring my work and breathing in the heavy scent of her life that lingered around her for just a moment before I snatched up the previously discarded glove and headed for the street.

Even as I walked to my car three blocks down, I knew that this sated feeling I had would pass and the cravings would claw at me until I fed them. Already I was starting to feel the itch beneath my skin start to build; it wouldn’t be long before I needed another.

“
H
ere
, let me grab your bag,” Enzo said, reaching over me to retrieve the duffel—I’d hurriedly packed—from the trunk.

“It’s fine,” I protested, but it came out more forceful than I’d meant it to be. After all, I knew he was just trying to help, but everything that’d happened today had set my nerves on edge, and the last thing I wanted was to be coddled. At one time I may have appreciated Enzo’s fussing over me, but not anymore. I didn’t want to depend on him or anyone else, they’d just let me down.

“Sorry,” I said, “it’s just… I can do it myself, okay?”

“Okay,” Enzo said cautiously, eyeing me as I hoisted my bag from the back.

He led me up the walk to a small house just outside of Seattle. I was suddenly struck with the realization of how much we’d grown apart over the past six years. There was a time when we knew everything about each other, down to what kind of toothpaste the other preferred. I hadn’t even known he’d moved out of his apartment in the city, let alone bought a house. It broke my heart all over again knowing how close we had once been and how quickly it all fell apart.

“When did you get this place?” I asked as he guided me through the front door.

“Few years back, not here much though,” he said offhandedly.

He wasn’t home often? Was he staying with someone else? Did Enzo have a girlfriend I didn’t know about? I’d have to look into his credit card statements and see if I could find something. I’d forced myself not to use my skills to snoop through his life for the past several years, but I wasn’t sure I could stop myself this time—not with the possibility of Enzo spending his time with another woman.

“Stop,” Enzo ordered, interrupting my thoughts.

“Stop what?” I asked, thoroughly confused. We hadn’t even gotten up the small staircase to the main level of the house yet. I had no idea what I could have possibly done wrong already.

“I can see the gears turning in your head. I’m not here often because I spend a lot of time either at the hotel in the city or at the compound.”

“Oh,” I said lamely, I didn’t have anything else to say in response. I couldn’t argue that I wasn’t thinking about where he was staying when he wasn’t home. He knew me too well. We may not have discussed the finer points of our personal lives in the past few years, but Enzo still knew me better than anyone else. Time or distance didn’t matter—not when someone knew your soul.

“And no, I’m not seeing anyone,” he added under his breath as he took my bag and led me the rest of the way into the house.

“I didn’t ask,” I snapped back, instantly cringing at my sharp tone. It made me sound defensive and gave way too much insight to my actual feelings on the subject.

“You didn’t have to. I knew that’s what you were wondering. Here, you can sleep in my room and I’ll take the couch. Sorry it’s not much, but I don’t have a bed in any of the spare rooms or anything.”

“I can take the couch; it’s
your
bed,” I argued, only for the sake of my own sanity. Even if I stripped off all the blankets and washed them, I knew as soon as I got into that bed I’d be surrounded by his scent and I’d never get any sleep.

“Franny, please don’t fight me on this, okay?” He sounded exhausted. For the first time, I noticed the dark circles under his eyes—he wasn’t sleeping. Maybe this whole stalker thing was wearing on him more than I’d thought.

“Yeah, okay,” I relented.

“All right, I’ll let you get settled. I’m going to order a pizza,” he said moving to leave the room.

“Hey, Enzo,” I called out after him.

“Yeah?” he asked turning to me in the doorway.

“How’d you know?”

“Know what?”

“What I was thinking about…before,” I hedged, not wanting to come right out and admit I was curious about his romantic life, because I didn’t have any right to be.

“Because it’s what I would have been wondering if you’d said something like that to me,” he said with a tight-lipped smile before heading back down the hallway from where we’d come.

I watched his back until he disappeared around the corner. My nose started to tingle and hot tears pricked my eyes. No matter how angry I was with him, watching him walk away always broke my heart all over again. I was confused, angry even. What gave him the right to say something like that to me? He’d made his choice a long time ago. Had he changed his mind? He wasn’t allowed to change the rules on me like that.

“
W
hat are you doing
?” Enzo's voice came from somewhere behind me, making me jump. 

“Dude, what the fuck? How many times have I told you not to sneak up on me like that?” I yelled, swiveling around to give him a piece of my mind. But I stopped dead in my tracks. My throat was suddenly dry and I couldn’t swallow. He was hanging in the doorway. At least it looked like that. His arms were raised above his head, his hands resting on the top of the doorframe as he leaned into the kitchen. He was shirtless—again. His tan skin taut against bulging muscle. His jeans were slung low on his hips revealing a happy trail that made me anything but. Remembering my annoyance, I flicked my eyes back to his face ready to read him the riot act only to see an infuriatingly sexy grin gracing his lips. 

“I'm making dinner,” I snapped turning back to my chopping. 

“Is there a special occasion?”

“No. It's been two solid weeks of pizza and takeout. I just wanted a decent home-cooked meal. I don't know how you can eat the way you do and still look like...” I trailed off, not wanting to finish my sentence and give him any more reason to keep that smug look on his face. 

“Look like what?” he pressed, and if I knew anything about Enzo, it was that he was a persistent fucker and wasn’t going to let it go.

“Healthy. With the way you eat, I’m surprised you’re not sporting a beer gut,” I said evenly, picking up the cutting board and dumping the onions in the pot.

“I work out,” he said simply.

“Mmm hmm,” I murmured looking around for the olive oil, finally finding it in the cupboard above the stove. “Jesus, seriously who puts shit above the stove? It’s like putting stuff in the cupboard above the fridge, only a giant can reach that high,” I complained straining to reach the bottle. Suddenly, he was at my back, one hand braced on my hip as he reached over my head and easily pulled the bottle down.

“You’re welcome,” he whispered in my ear as he placed the oil on the counter before stepping away. I instantly missed the warmth of his body pressed against mine. My skin broke out in goose bumps as I instinctively remembered another time when his body had been pressed against mine like that; except back then, there had been significantly less clothes involved. Bracing my hands against the counter I took a deep breath.

“Don’t do shit like that,” I said, my voice hard. Straightening I went back to the task at hand, pouring oil into the pan to sauté the onion for the sauce. If I kept moving, maybe he wouldn’t see my hands shaking.

“Shit like what?” Enzo asked, leaning a hip on the counter beside me and crossing his arms over the broad plane of his chest.

I glared at him as I added the garlic to the pot, which just earned me a smirk. Having a giant, half-naked man in the kitchen while trying to cook was not as fun as it sounded. I worked around his bulk in silence while his eyes tracked my every move as I continued to build the sauce adding crushed tomatoes and spices.

“We ever going to talk about it?” Enzo asked peering over my shoulder as I stirred the sauce.

“Talk about what?”

“About what happened,” he said.

“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” I hedged for what felt like the millionth time. I didn’t know what exactly he wanted to talk about, but I could bet that it was something I most definitely did not want to discuss. “Please move. I need to start on the meatballs,” I said grabbing a bowl and dumping ingredients in with more force than necessary.

Enzo sighed heavily, “About everything. Hell, about anything. We haven’t talked about anything important in years!”

My head whipped around towards him. “Aren’t I the woman here? I’m the one that’s supposed to want to ‘talk’—not you,” I grumbled.

“How very modern of you,” Enzo deadpanned, and I couldn’t help it, but I laughed.

“The past is the past, Enzo. I’d rather just leave it there, if you don’t mind.”

“I do mind. I’m sick of acting like we barely know each other when we’re the two people in the world that know each other the best. I want to be able to talk to you and not worry about what I say,” he urged.

“So you want to move on?”

“Yeah, I guess. I just want us to get back to normal. It’s been a long time. You can’t possibly still be mad at me.”

I froze, my hands stilling in the bowl as a lump formed in my throat. My nose started to tingle, but I sniffed and squeezed my eyes shut willing the tears back. After a moment, I cleared my throat and whispered, “I was never mad; I was hurt.”

Enzo’s eyebrows slammed down over his eyes, “What?” he asked incredulously.

“You heard me.”

“No,” he said firmly, shaking his head emphatically from side to side.

“Excuse me? No?”

“Yeah, no. That is bullshit! In case time has warped your memory, I’ll give you a refresher.
You
threw
me
out of your apartment.
You
didn’t want anything to do with
me
when I got back. Not the other way around.”

“You promised someone that you wouldn’t be with me. You humiliated me, and you left me,” I said moving to the sink to wash my hands.

“You threw me out!”

“I was upset. We’d just spent the night together, and then you told me you’d already promised Eddie that you’d never be with me so we had to keep it to ourselves!” I rallied back.

“You’re the one that said we were scratching an itch. You’re the one that acted so fucking callous. What the fuck was I supposed to do? You acted like it was fucking nothing—like I meant nothing!” he roared, backing me into the counter.

Tears sprang to my eyes. I hated that just being around him caused every one of my emotions to hover at the surface, waiting for the absolute worst time to make an appearance.

“It wasn’t nothing,” I whispered, my voice cracking on the last word.

“I didn’t know that. All I knew was that I had to think of something to protect myself, because you’d just ripped my fucking heart out and shit all over it!”

I reared back, my face a mask of shock. He was still looming over me, panting with the effort of barely-controlled rage. My head spun and my vision tilted sideways.

You’d just ripped my fucking heart out and shit all over it.

You’d just ripped my fucking heart out.

It was like someone coming to you and telling you that the color you’d always known as blue was actually yellow. For the past six years, I’d held on to one truth: Enzo never wanted more. He’d never loved me like I loved him. But now, the same man was standing in front of me telling me that I broke his heart. It didn’t make sense.

“I tried to call you,” I blurted out. “After, I mean. I wrote to you, I called, and nothing. Why?”

“I needed time,” he said evenly.

“And I needed you,” I whispered, pushing away from the counter and forcing him to take a step back. I wanted to run, I wanted to take off and find somewhere to hide out, but I couldn’t; he’d just follow me. So instead, I did what I did best. I pretended.

“What does that mean?” he asked coming to stand directly behind me at the stove.

“It doesn’t matter now. Back up. It’s hot and you’re not wearing a shirt,” I warned as I put the first few meatballs into the pan to brown.

At the pop and sizzle of the oil Enzo backed up a step but he was like a dog with a bone and just wouldn’t fucking let it go.

“What is it?” he asked softly. “Obviously I did something, otherwise you would’ve forgiven me by now. I want to fix it. Just tell me so I can fix it.”

“It’s not something you can fix!” I yelled. My nerves were frayed at the ends and every time he opened his mouth, it felt like a shock to my system.

“What happened? Tell me what the fuck happened!” he shouted back.

“Nothing! Absolutely nothing changed, everything stayed exactly the fucking same. You left, like you always do.”

He reared back as if I’d slapped him. “That’s not fair.”

I scoffed. “Well, in case you haven’t gotten the memo yet, life’s not fair.”

“I was in the military. I couldn’t just go AWOL because you wanted me to stay home.”

“What about after you got out? You didn’t have to go back overseas; that was a choice.”

“It was the only job that I had experience doing. I had to make money, Frankie. I didn’t hear you complaining about it when your tuition came due.”

It was my turn to be shocked. I shouldn’t be surprised though; they say that the people you love the most have the power to hurt you the worst, and from the pain his words caused, I’d say they were right.

“I never asked you to do that; you offered,” I gritted out.

“FUCK!” he screamed and paced the length of the kitchen, his hands rubbing angrily over his head. After a few laps he came back to stand next to me. “Franny, I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

I sighed, suddenly exhausted from bleeding out all our old wounds. “It’s fine. Can we just stop talking about this shit, please?”

“Yeah, for now,” he nodded.

“Enzo, there isn’t anymore—” I started but he cut me off.

“There is. I’m not going to stop until we talk this all out. I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t have you so close and still feel like we’re a million miles apart. But for now, let’s take a break and enjoy dinner, yeah?”

“Fine,” I said, closing my eyes, already weary for the part of the conversation that hadn’t even begun.

A
fter dinner
, Enzo insisted that I go sit down while he cleaned up. It didn’t take much persuasion on his part. After the emotional hurricane we’d gone through earlier I was exhausted. I slumped on the leather couch and clicked on
The Avengers
. I’d seen the movie a hundred times but I never got sick of watching it. It seemed like a good choice since I was wearing my comic book panel leggings, sporting a riot of different heroes in different situations.