Copyright © 2019 by Bethany-Kris. All rights reserved.
CORRADO
THE GUZZI LEGACY, 1
PART ONE: BEFORE
Chapter One
Corrado
Koi no yokan.
Corrado read those words, inked in a script font and hidden on the inner elbow of his family priest’s arm. It was the only time he ever noticed the tattoo, and that said something considering he attended this church since he was a newborn. They had christened him in this place. His first communion had been an interesting experience as a kid with a church of more than four hundred parishioners watching. Catholicism for the Guzzis was a second skin—the church, a second home. He recognized these walls inside and out.
But not that tattoo.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
The priest—Father Gene, they called him—looked up from the papers he’d been moving aside on his desk. The office, a mixture of dark woods, richly colored tapestries, smelled of old leather, and even older books. Compliments of the row of texts that looked like they had seen better days lining the shelves behind the priest’s desk.
“What, Corrado?”
“That, there,” Corrado said, pointing at the black script on the priest’s inner elbow. “What do the words mean?”
Father Gene’s hand came up to cover the small spot of ink as a smile curved his lips. “Something you wouldn’t understand at seventeen, I assure you. And we’re not here to talk about tattoos I had done before I joined the priesthood.”
“How old were you, then?” Corrado tipped his head to the side. “When you joined?”
“I started the process at nineteen.”
“So, you had the tattoo before then, but you won’t tell me what it means because I won’t understand because of my age?”
Father Gene stared at him from across the desk, silent. His father, Gian, would say this was one of those times. Out of all his siblings, including his identical twin, Corrado was the one who spoke when he should stay quiet.
He’d rather talk about other shit than what he came here for.
“Are we asking about my tattoo because you’re attempting to avoid the conversation about your lack of confession for two years?”
Corrado stared at the cross over the window to his right rather than at the priest. “I don’t need to do confession.”
“But your father believes something is wrong … he’s the one who asked me to bring you in for a session of counsel, didn’t he?”
He was smart, so he stayed quiet when he had nothing good to say. Like right now.
The priest didn’t miss it.
“I’m worried about you,” the man across the desk admitted. “You graduated high school three weeks ago, and according to your father, you have yet to decide on a real path of what you want to do. And without getting into the specifics of your father’s business, because without me explaining that to you, he knows I don’t approve, I’m concerned you will flounder with no stability to hold on to. No work, no college … no faith.”
Corrado’s gaze snapped back to the priest. “I have faith.”
He was sure of that. The problem? His faith and doctrine had taught him that certain parts of himself weren’t right. He found comfort in church, but he also found confusion, too.
“If you tell me why you stopped confession, and why you’re struggling to move forward in your life, I will tell you what the tattoo means,” Father Gene said, grinning. “And whatever you tell me, that will never go beyond these walls.”
“Not even to my parents?”
“Not even to them, Corrado.”
He stared down at where he’d clasped his hands in his lap. This way, he wouldn’t fidget or distract himself. He didn’t need his nerves on display. Another thing being a Guzzi had taught him—the appearance of calm and confidence was most important, but especially in their life.
Corrado was far from stupid, and he could tell what people assumed when they saw him. They assumed because he ran around with Guzzi blood in his veins, that like his older brother, Marcus, and even his twin, Chris, he would be the same and go into the family business.
La famiglia.
The mafia.
His last name said so. The legacy that came with it kept the demand alive. Tradition. Men in this life followed their father’s footsteps, and even more so when one’s father just happened to be Gian Guzzi—Cosa Nostra Don, controlling the largest and most powerful crime family in Canada. It was expected of Corrado; history said so.
Except his father. Gian never said a word about it. Not to Corrado.
“You’re struggling,” the priest said, his French clear. Maybe because he assumed it would comfort Corrado. The only person who spoke French to him now, besides associates of his father, was Gian. He didn’t see his father’s French-Italian side of the family enough to speak anything with them. “I can see.”
“I’m not like them,” Corrado said.
Father Gene raised a single eyebrow high as he leaned forward to rest his clasped hands on the desk. “Why would you say that?”
He’d been ready to spill his secret, to admit why he was, in fact, struggling between life and business. The reason for his lack of a decision, and his waffling.
“Corrado?”
He swallowed hard and stared down at his hands again. “I stopped coming to confession at fifteen because I had sex.”
The priest sat back in his chair. “Oh.” And then, the man added with a laugh, “That’s not a reason to stop confessing, it’s a reason to confess, Corrado.”
“With another guy,” he added lower.
That quieted Father Gene.
Corrado shifted in the high-back leather chair the longer the silence dragged on. “That’s partly a lie. I had sex with a girl before that, but—”
“I understand,” the priest murmured.
“This is not … our way.” Corrado shrugged. “I hear what people say—inside this church, and outside, about people like me. In business, it’s a weakness. Here, it’s a sin. Except I can’t be different, and so, I don’t fit in.”
He’d always been this way.
At first, Corrado didn’t know what to label his sexuality. In high school, the only gay kid he was acquainted with—at the time—got treated like a second-class human. Because he liked girls, too, that helped to keep his attraction to guys under everyone else’s radar. He kept it to himself because if that was how people behaved with someone at school, what would happen outside?
And then a new student came in—a guy that Corrado watched from afar as he navigated the terrain of private, Catholic school. He wasn’t sure what clued him in about the fact the guy was more like him than the other students, or even the one gay student in their school, but it happened.
Corrado learned a lot about himself from that. Bisexuality was fluid, and hard to explain to someone who wasn’t like him. Being with a guy didn’t change the fact he still liked the way the girl’s legs looked in her skirt from the school down the road. Except to everyone else, it seemed like they didn’t get that.
Gay was gay. Straight was straight. There was no in between. That’s what people said.
Corrado was right in the fucking middle, trying to figure out what it meant, and what he should do. Stuck between a culture his family was deeply ingrained in that told him he would never belong—he couldn’t be—and the choice of disappointing those around him when he didn’t decide what they wanted for him.
He couldn’t win.
Guzzis always won.
“Corrado, if you want me to say sex before marriage is not a sin, I can’t do that,” the priest said, dragging him from his thoughts.
“It’s not the sex that worried me.”
The man across the desk smiled softly. “No, I imagine you worried about the other bits.”
He shrugged.
“If you want me to tell you homosexual attraction is not a sin, then I can’t do that, either,” the priest murmured.
Corrado let out a hard sigh, and readied to stand from the chair. The meeting was pointless. This wasn’t news. He hadn’t expected to get a different answer than the one he had.
He should have known better.
They all thought the same thing:
He was wrong.
He didn’t belong.
He was different.
And because he was a Catholic, and the son of an Italian mafia boss, his problem was on a more prominent display for him about just how much he didn’t fit in anywhere. He couldn’t explain that to those around him without giving away his secret though.
“Sit down,” Father Gene said.
Corrado passed the man a look. “I think we’re good here, yeah?”
“If you didn’t notice, allow me to point out to you what you missed about my statement,” Father Gene replied, pointing a finger at the chair. Corrado sat his ass back down because he didn’t have a choice, honestly. “I treated the sin of sex before marriage with the same tone and respect as I did homosexuality. Because sin is sin. And sin, no matter who is doing it, is all the same. The thing people seem to forget is that we do not get to weigh one sin against the other to bolster our own sanctity and pureness, Corrado. One sin does not trump another—sin is sin.”
The man shrugged, adding, “And we are all sinners. That is what Christ teaches us. It is why Jesus died on the cross for us. Because He recognized we were all sinners, and we would all need forgiveness not once, but throughout our lifetime. People wrongly assume that their faith, and the way they live within the truth of their faith is the same way everyone else should, too, but they don’t understand that isn’t how it works.”
Corrado chewed on his inner cheek. “How does it work, then?”
“Faith is a discipline for your own morality, Corrado, but it is not a right to dictate to others about theirs. And it would be ignorant for me to assume anything about someone else’s relationship with God, or their right to faith. I know my relationship with God; it is strong, and I hear Him, drawing me to my path and calling. So, because of that, I share His words, and I celebrate them—I do not dictate His words like a tyrant from the pulpit. That defeats the purpose of the Bible, and of Him.”
Corrado stared down at his lap, the gold Guzzi signet ring on his index finger glinting under the office light overheard. “So, what does that mean for me?”
“It means you are allowed to have faith, and your own relationship with God, and no one should expect to understand that relationship, or define it for themselves. They have their own faith to worry about before they need to even consider yours. It means you may be a sinner, and no one can or should tell you that your sins are worse than theirs because they don’t sin like you do. It doesn’t matter—sin is still sin. And yes, I believe you should aspire to live a life free of sin, but it’s impossible. Even Jesus sinned, Corrado.”
“Huh.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the priest smile again. “Not the answer you were expecting?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry that people seem to interpret the Word in their own way without seeing the bigger picture. That’s not your fault, Corrado. It is their own flaw.”
He nodded. “It doesn’t help me to make a choice, though.”
Father Gene cleared his throat. “About your father, and business?”
“Yeah, all of that.”
“Knowing Gian like I do, I think he will be happy as long as you are, young man. It is a matter of finding what makes you happy. Do you understand?”
Possibly.
“I think so,” Corrado said.
“Good. Confession after the New Year. I expect to see you here. Also, I hear you’re heading to Vegas this weekend—a trip for business with your father, yes?”
Yeah, a whole trip Corrado did not understand, if he were being honest. When Gian traveled for la familiga, he was quick to point out to his sons all the details of the organization they would be seeing. He liked for his boys to learn, so they never stepped out of line when it counted or caused a problem.
This time, his father said nothing.
Corrado wasn’t sure what to expect.
“Safe travels,” the priest told him, “I’ll pray for it.”
“Thank you, Father.”
Corrado pushed up from the chair, moving to leave. It was only Father Gene’s voice behind him that made his steps hesitate.
“Don’t I owe you, now?”
Seemingly lighter on his feet, and like he could do something with what he learned here today, Corrado had no idea what he forgot. Giving the priest a glance over his shoulder, he asked, “And what’s that?”
“Koi no yokan,” the priest said, and Corrado’s gaze darted to the tattoo on the man’s inner elbow. “It’s Japanese, and it doesn’t have a meaning as much as what it is. A feeling, Corrado. It is the feeling upon meeting someone you know, eventually, you will fall in love with that person.”
“Like love at first sight?”
“No. It’s something else entirely.”
“Is it a real thing?”
“It was for me,” the man murmured.
He had a realization, then.
Like the priest said, they all sinned; their sins were simply different.
“You must tell me if it ever happens to you, too,” Father Gene said. “Gian is waiting for you, isn’t he? Have a blessed day.”
Chapter Two
Corrado
“What is this fucking place?”
Gian gave Christopher a look over his shoulder that quieted Corrado’s twin fast. The oldest between the two of them, Chris, was far more likely to toe the line and behave. Corrado, on the other hand, seemed to find some sort of trouble wherever he went.
Life wasn’t fun otherwise.
Today, both twins pushed their father’s limits.
Chris side-eyed Corrado when their father’s back was turned. If it were anyone else, he might have to ask what they were thinking in that moment. But it was his twin, and he never had to ask. When one shared the same face as someone else in the world, even their expressions could explain the things they didn’t say.
The two took after their father in appearance—brown eyes flaked with gold, straight noses with a sharp slope, full lips that always seemed to be smirking, and dark brown hair that, when not cut into a shorter style, seemed to be fucking unmanageable. They took the angular shaped faces from their mother, Cara, though.
The rest?
All their dad.
Corrado shrugged to answer his brother’s unspoken question about the building they were currently approaching. Deep in Nevada’s rural, dry land, they might as well be in the middle of nowhere. There weren’t even power lines out this far. It felt like they drove for hours after exiting their father’s private jet only to turn off on a gravel road that still led to fucking nowhere. Until all of the sudden, a tan building—or rather, what seemed like several buildings, although it was hard to tell—started to form on the horizon.
A few trees towered around the building that, partly looked like a warehouse but also brought to mind the word compound, when Corrado thought about it. The plain cement walkway didn’t give anything away about the place, but the very expensive cars parked any which way they wanted to stop next to the side of the building made him think something was happening here.
Out in the middle of the desert, apparently.
“Was that a fucking tumbleweed?” Corrado asked, his gaze drifting to the line of cars again and the dry item that skipped behind a black Hummer.
“If you two don’t fix your mouths and questions,” Gian murmured a few steps ahead. “Correct it before we go inside, s’il vous plait.”
“I’m just saying horror movies start like this, Papa.”
Gian made a noise under his breath but said nothing else. At the front of the building, there were no windows. Just a wall of tan-colored brick and a black door. Stark black, really. One couldn’t miss how it stood out blatantly compared to the rest of the yellow earth and walls surrounding it. Above the door rested a camera blinking with a red light.
Silently, Gian pulled a card from his pocket. Corrado glanced at it quickly, taking in the matte black cardstock, the wax seal on the back side with a cursive L stamped into it, and the white, classic lettering on the front.
What did it say?
The League, Corrado thought.
What in the hell was--
His thought process was interrupted by a buzzing noise that was loud enough to scare a scavenging bird sitting on top of the entrance door’s eave. It squeaked before flying off to rest somewhere else. By the time Corrado glanced at his father, both Gian and Chris were already heading inside the dimmed corridor of the tan building.
Ha.
Just like how the fucking horror movies started.
“Are you coming?” Chris called back to him.
Corrado didn’t think he had a choice, even if he didn’t like the feeling this strange place left him with in his gut. Like a heavy weight had come to rest there, and he wasn’t about to get rid of it anytime soon. He didn’t pretend to understand all his father’s business—being a criminal organization meant Gian did not dabble with just one thing. He had his hands in several pots, and Corrado was not aware of every single one of them.
Was this just another thing?
Why were they brought here?
Why not Marcus, their oldest brother?
He didn’t consider Bene or Beni, his youngest brothers—another set of identical twins in their family; their mother’s genes were strong, it seemed. Those two were wild, and there was no way they’d relax enough for something like this.
“Corrado!”
“I’m coming,” he snapped.
Not that he wanted to. He had the distinct feeling that once he stepped inside this building, something was going to change. Maybe for him, or his brother or father, he didn’t know. He just had that feeling, and Corrado wasn’t the type to ignore his gut when it acted up.
Slipping inside the building, but not before shooting one last look over his shoulder at the outside world, his gaze took a second to adjust to the dim lighting just beyond the black door. A door, which, closed without prompting once Corrado was out of the way while doing that annoying buzzing sound again.
Gian slipped the black card he’d flashed at the camera back into his pocket before turning to his sons, his expression a mask of nothingness. He didn’t give anything away before he said, “A couple of decades ago, I was approached by an old friend to … invest in something. He had a plan—he wanted a League of people who could do many things, and who had many skills. Did someone need a robbery done? He had a person for it. A hit in another country on a political figure? There was someone for that. A retrieval of someone that had been missing? He could make it happen.”
His father rubbed his hands together and glanced down a long hallway that led to yet another black door with a camera blinking red overhead. “The idea was interesting because imagine what someone could do with that kind of ability at their fingertips. I invested immediately. I invested a lot. And it has been incredibly beneficial for me in the long run. Here is where those people are trained.”
Beside Corrado, his twin blinked. “Like mercenaries?”
Gian chuckled, and waved a finger at the older of the two twins. “Mercenaries are choosey—they pick what they want to do or who they want to work for, and often, their work is for the greater good even if they are doing bad things.”
“Assassins,” Corrado said. “They train assassins here.”
“Smart boy,” his father returned. “We call it The League. This is the new complex that was finished three months ago, but I haven’t had time to make the trip to see how it turned out. I thought the two of you might enjoy getting a peek at another part of this business because you’re … at an age to come into the folds more than you already are.”
Gian said that like he honestly meant what he said—directed at both his sons—but he really only looked at Corrado. Was his father giving him another choice? Something other than what everyone else expected from him?
“This building is a living quarters, office, and training complex,” Gian said. “Behave while we’re here, oui, and try to stay out of trouble while I meet with my partner. Do you both understand me?”
Chris nodded first.
Corrado came second, but now, he didn’t have that heavy feeling about this place like he did when he first stepped inside. He just wanted to know more.
***
Corrado was enthralled with the fact that the deeper they went into the complex, the more it seemed like a maze of living areas for several people. He saw those people, too, but they barely spoke as they moved from room to room, doing their business.
He stopped just outside of one room and peered in as his father headed further down the hall with a laugh.
“Dare,” he heard Gian greet.
Corrado was busy staring at all the knives lining the wall inside the room in front of him. And when he meant a wall of knives, it was more like three walls. It wasn’t all knives, he realized as he took one step inside to get a slightly better look. No, it was several different kinds of weapons, but all meant to be sharp and deadly.
At the far end of the room, which looked to be at least thirty feet long, if he were to guess, was a wall of targets. Wooden, mostly, with paper figures taped across them. One in particular still had an axe right through the head of the paper figure.
He swallowed hard as he neared the wall of black knives with sleek, shiny blades. He didn’t know if his twin had continued to follow his father, or not. These knives were far more interesting to him than anything else at the moment.
Reaching up, he drifted his fingertips along the edge of a six-inch knife that he bet would be quite heavy in his hand. Wrapping his fingers around the hilt, he pulled the weapon down from its spot on the wall to get a better look at it. Eyeing the targets at the other end of the room, he wondered if he might be able to hit one--
“Careful with that. Rich hands aren’t meant to throw those; they’re meant to pay someone else to do it.”
Corrado spun around so fast, the navy-blue walls of the room were nothing more than a blur to his eyes. He found the source of the voice standing in the doorway of the room. The man standing there took Corrado by surprise. Not because he was strikingly handsome—he was—but because he didn’t look much older than Corrado’s seventeen.
The guy arched a thick, dark eyebrow when Corrado stayed quiet. The action made his strong features and stormy blue eyes all the more intense. His thin lips pulled into a sly smirk, making his square jaw, covered with a few days’ worth of stubble, tighten with the movement. A slight shake of his head made the shaggy hair that seemed a little too long around his ears fly in all directions. Corrado tried to shake off the strange hum buzzing over him the longer he stared at the guy. He wasn’t the first good-looking person he’d run into, and he wouldn’t be the last. He didn’t need to feel stupid or speechless just because this guy looked half decent.
Except, that wasn’t it at all.
It was the way the man looked at him. The way his gaze drifted over Corrado with the slowness that reminded him of a predator, maybe. Like this guy had just found prey, and he was considering whether the kill would be worth it.
It irked Corrado.
Irritated him like nothing fucking else.
He wasn’t prey.
“What did you just say?” Corrado asked.
The guy laughed and tipped his head to the side as he pointed at the knife in Corrado’s hands. “Be careful, we don’t need you cutting yourself because you wouldn’t know what to do with a knife unless you were paying someone else to do it for you. Clear enough?”
Okay.
Yeah.
Corrado wasn’t even going to act like that was a comment he could brush off as though it hadn’t been said at all. This guy wasn’t even trying to be subtle about it; he was outright insulting Corrado, and with a fucking smile at the same time.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
The guy peeked over his shoulder, looking at something down the hall. “Not yet, but you will.”
That humming sensation was back again. It kind of pissed Corrado off that the guy could be so dismissive and insulting to him, while at the same time, acting like he had better things to do than stand there and have a conversation with him. He remembered his father’s warning about behaving, but he was very close to telling this guy to fuck off right before he busted his mouth for those comments while he was at it.
“How about,” Corrado started to say, “you go find someone else to—”
“Alessio.”
The guy’s gaze drifted back to Corrado, his eyebrow still arched high like he didn’t have a damn to give, as a new voice sounded right outside the doorway of the room. Almost as soon as the voice spoke, a new face came to the doorway, and clapped a hand on the guy’s shoulder. Right behind him stood Corrado’s father.
Gian stayed back a couple of steps, though.
He didn’t intrude.
“Introducing yourself, Alessio?” the man asked.
Alessio.
Corrado decided right then that he hated that name. And the man it belonged to, as well. The problem was, when Alessio turned his gaze back on Corrado, the humming was back. He couldn’t look away from the ocean of blue that stared back at him, or the way that as much as this guy rubbed him wrong … he wanted to know why.
Or anything about him at all.
“You’re not causing trouble, are you, Corrado?” his father asked out in the hallway.
“Define trouble.” Alessio chuckled. “Is he allowed to play with knives where someone can’t keep an eye on him at the same time?”
The man next to Alessio smacked him in the back of the head, making him glower back at him.
“Fuck off, Dare,” Alessio muttered.
“Play nice, Les.”
He looked back to Corrado again.
“But why, though? This is way more fun.”
Fuck him.
And the fact Corrado found he liked it.
Yeah, fuck that, too.
The other man, Dare, shook his head. “All right, Les, since you’re feeling chatty today, you can take Corrado around and show him the rest of the complex while I talk business with Gian.”
Alessio scowled. “I didn’t volunteer to be some mafia principe’s babysitter for the day.”
Dare smirked. “I’m sorry. Did I preface that with, if you feel up to it and it pleases your spoiled fucking ass to do it? No, so do it.”
“Fine.”
“Did you introduce yourself properly?”
“No,” Alessio said. “Because I didn’t think there was a point.”
Dare sighed and waved between the two boys. “Alessio, you already know Corrado Guzzi … or you know what I told you about today. Corrado, meet the pain in my ass, also known as Alessio Sorrento.”
“Thanks for that.”
“But not a lie,” Dare replied. “And now my good deed for the day is done. Gian, do you think these two will be fine alone?”
Corrado’s father smiled a bit, amusement playing in his gaze as he nodded. “I think they’ll be fine while we chat.”
“Good, let’s begin.”
Alessio passed Corrado another look as Gian and Dare drifted away from the doorway, disappearing altogether. “Are you going to stand there all day, or what?”
Corrado didn’t move. “I’m not doing anything with you.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to work. Dare said what he said.”
“Fuck him, and you.”
“Oh, he swears, too.”
Corrado’s jaw flexed with his annoyance. “What is your problem?”
Alessio looked him over again, his gaze slow and deliberate. All over again, Corrado felt that same flare of frustration and interest all rolled into one. It warred inside his mind, clashing together and making him want to punch this guy in the mouth just because.
“Do you like what you see, or …?”
“Why, because I stare?” Alessio asked.
“Because your stare lingers. So, that means you either like what you see, or you’re trying to decide if I’m a threat. I think you know who I am, and you think you know something about me.”
Corrado replaced the knife on the wall, and headed for the door, only stopping directly in front of Alessio. He knew what this guy was doing—trying to size him up, but also make him feel out of place. Screw that noise. He didn’t know his purpose for being here, but he wasn’t going to run because of Alessio.
He leaned in close to Alessio, but the guy didn’t move back an inch. If anything, he stayed firm in his spot, those blue eyes blazing with the same interest Corrado was sure reflected in his own gaze. “Let me be the first to fix that mistake of yours—you don’t know fuck all about me, Alessio.”
“I prefer Les.”
Corrado tipped his chin up. “And?”
“And right now I’m wondering what your face might look like if I roughened it up a little. Do you box?”
He blinked.
“What?”
Alessio shrugged. “I didn’t stutter.”
He hadn’t.
“Do you want to get your ass kicked?” Corrado asked. “Because that’s what’ll happen if we spar.”
The man laughed.
And all Corrado could think was that he looked fucking amazing doing it. That smirk on his face? Entirely bad for him given the way his chest tightened at the sight of it.
Oh, yeah.
He was in a lot of trouble here.
It all started and ended with Alessio.
He knew it by the annoyance still trickling through his bloodstream, but also the humming that continued to buzz over his skin. A part of him wanted to tell his guy to fuck off somewhere, and another part wanted to find out all he could about him. He had a feeling the more he learned about Alessio, the less annoyed Corrado would feel, and the more interesting the man would become.
All it took were a few words, and blue eyes. Something about Alessio Sorrento drew Corrado in and made every single one of his nerves turn on in a good and bad way. He wanted to run away as much as he wanted to stay right there and do it all over again.
Was this what the priest meant?
Was this koi no yokan?
Because it felt like something.
It felt like change.
It felt important.
Well, fuck that noise.
Corrado didn’t like it at all.
“Guess we’ll see what you can do, principe,” Alessio said, grinning just enough to show off his white teeth. “Or, I’ll have a lot of fun watching you try.”
Chapter Three
Alessio
By the age of ten, Alessio had learned the most important lesson he figured life had to teach him. It wasn’t an easy one, or even nice. Very little about life was easy or nice, though. That lesson was simple, too.
Blood didn’t always make family.
When he was two, his father died from a heart attack. A man he never really remembered, and only vaguely knew from the stories of others. Maximo Sorrento—mafia Don to a Cosa Nostra faction controlling Vegas, who also seemed to have a taste for women who were a fraction of his age. Like Alessio’s mother, Elizabeth.
His father dying wasn’t the memory that stood out to him the most, but rather how everyone else treated his mother, the man’s mistress, after the fact. She’d lived comfortably, Alessio had been told, cared for and kept because she was a favorite of Maximo’s, and she had given him a son, even if the boy was illegitimate.
Then, he was no more.
No, Alessio didn’t remember his father dying, and he didn’t have many feelings about it, but he vividly recalled the years that followed the death. Like how his mother spiraled, her young life wasted with every pill she popped, and every needle she put into her veins. Empty bottles littering the floor and the faint smell of old cigarette smoke accompanied Alessio’s dreams every time he closed his eyes.
That was how he remembered his mother.
And that he never mattered to her.
Whether it was because she was so entirely heartbroken that she had lost Maximo, despite the fact he was three times her age, or because she had lost her status and importance without him there to give it to her … she forgot about Alessio in the process.
He was ten when his mother overdosed.
Ten when he buried her.
Yet, it felt like he’d been in the process of burying her for years before that. Life had a funny way of reminding the forgotten and the neglected at the worst of times that they weren’t worth very much to the people who weren’t faced with their struggle every single day. That had never been more apparent to Alessio than after his mother’s death.
That was when Dare came in.
And Cree, another high-ranking member of The League.
Alessio was never sure when they found him after his mother’s death, because the days passed by in a confusing blur that he’d rather not revisit, but they were a saving grace for him if there ever was one. Dare, having known Alessio’s mother before Maximo, took him in.
For all purposes, Dare was his family.
The League, his home.
Here, he struggled more. Here, he learned to be something and someone. Behind these walls, he was given a purpose and stability. He was not the forgotten bastard son of a man who he didn’t remember, or the child of an addict who died not knowing her son would be the one to find her cold on the floor the next morning.
Here, he was better.
At seventeen, almost eighteen now, Alessio spent much of his life feeling as though he didn’t belong to any one person or place. Until Dare, Cree, and The League. He held this place so close to that thing in his chest that people called a heart, no one would ever understand. If someone thought to fuck with it, he was going to rip them apart.
And so, it pissed Alessio off to see some privileged prick like Corrado Guzzi walking around the place with a curious eye like he had any business being there in the first place. Sure, Dare was smart enough to explain to Alessio the week before the Guzzis arrival that Gian would be visiting to check out the new complex, with two of his five sons, but it hadn’t bothered him until he saw one of those sons in that training room.
One of many training rooms here, really.
People didn’t get an inside look at The League. If someone was brought in, it was because they were a client using one of the assassins for a job, or it was a prospect who had signed on to be trained.
No one was allowed here.
It was his home.
Except, there came the fucking Guzzis like they owned the place, and that just rubbed him all kinds of wrong. But especially Corrado—who thought to speak to Alessio like the two were on equal footing in some kind of way. Like he wasn’t any different from him.
They were not at all the same.
He doubted a rich, spoiled mafia principe like Corrado had ever understood struggle, and The League certainly wasn’t a place made for someone like him. They weren’t here to coddle men and women—they were here to break them.
So yeah, the guy just rubbed him wrong.
The other thing pissing him off currently?
The fact he found Corrado attractive, and that he might like the guy even more if he could shut him the fuck up by either kissing him, or stuffing something in his mouth. Like maybe his cock …
“Are we even supposed to be in here doing this?” Corrado asked from inside the boxing ring.
Alessio made a harsh noise under his breath—the only sign of his irritation, really. He suspected Corrado believed it was because he questioned Alessio’s choice to have them spar for fun in the gym section of the complex, but that wasn’t it at all.
It was that he’d interrupted a nice picture.
He wasn’t about to admit that out loud, though. Thing was, just because he felt attraction to someone didn’t mean they felt the same way. Sometimes, it was obvious, and he could tell when a guy liked one thing or the other—or both. Maybe it was the way a guy would look him over, or when a hand on his shoulder lingered a beat longer than a straight guy would when it came to friendly actions. But with Corrado, he didn’t know.
It was fucked up.
He hated him on sight.
And he didn’t hate him at the same time.
It didn’t help that Corrado was attractive in a way most men weren’t. Something that Alessio recognized about him straight away—an air of confidence and cockiness followed him around whether he knew it or not. Like he’d been born with it. Most people had to learn that shit. And that was before Alessio got too detailed in Corrado’s physical features, from the strong lines of his face that made up an angular jaw line, to the dark brown eyes that didn’t seem to give anything away, not even when he smirked.
Classically handsome.
Disgustingly so, really.
Add that to the whole confidence shit and Alessio had a big problem here. Mostly, the fact that he noticed at all.
Dare was always clear when it came to Alessio and relationships or sex. As long as it didn’t fuck up The League and the shit they were doing here, he was free to explore and do what he wanted. He couldn’t remember how old he was when he figured out he liked boys as much as he liked girls—nine, maybe?
He was lucky that he didn’t find confusion or pain in his sexuality swinging both ways like he knew some did when they realized they were bisexual. Here, he had been free to explore and find out what it meant to be a sexual being with varied interests. No one ever stepped in to shame him as long as it was consensual, and he was being safe. That was all Dare ever cared about when it came to Alessio.
“Are you listening to me?” Corrado asked.
Alessio clenched his teeth to stay quiet as he finished wrapping up his fists before slipping the leather, fingerless gloves overtop. Turning to find Corrado lingering in the far corner of the ring, ready to go, he used his teeth to tighten the wrist straps on the gloves.
“Are you used to just saying something, and people jumping to give you what you want?” Alessio asked back.
Corrado’s brow dipped before he scowled.
Fuck.
Why’d he look good doing that, too?
Alessio ignored the clenching of his gut as he stepped up into the ring and dipped under the ropes to get into position. He figured this sparring match probably wouldn’t end well for Corrado, all things considered. He doubted the guy knew he’d been training with The League from the time he was twelve.
Weapons.
Fighting.
Recon.
Killing.
All of it, he could do.
And he was only seventeen.
He doubted Corrado could say the same.
“What is it that gets under your skin the most?” Corrado asked back. “The fact that I have money, or the fact you don’t?”
Alessio sucked air through his teeth.
Damn.
That was a good one.
Pretty boy mafia prince could cut with words, and Alessio liked that way more than he was willing to admit. His respect notched up a bit—this would have been incredibly boring for him if after everything, Corrado just laid down and took the shit Alessio threw at him. When someone became uninteresting to him, Alessio was quick to move the fuck on.
Not right now, though.
“You assume I don’t have money,” Alessio returned.
He did.
Probably not as much as Corrado, but he had enough to be more than comfortable. The longer he stayed with The League, the more money he would have, too. Not that money had ever been a motivating factor for his choice to train here. He’d gone for years without money—it was just paper to get someone by, nothing more.
He’d be fine either way.
Corrado shrugged before he tugged his T-shirt up over his head, and then tossed it to the side of the ring. Even from all the way across the ring, Alessio couldn’t help but admire the hard lines that made up Corrado’s body—or how those muscles shifted as he moved from one foot to the other.
Shit.
Yeah, he needed to move away from that thought.
Now.
“I say it,” Corrado returned, “because you keep needling at me like something about me pisses you off. Maybe it’s my money, privilege … my last name. Which one is it?”
Nope.
He wasn’t falling down that rabbit hole.
Alessio grinned, removing his own shirt and enjoying the way Corrado’s gaze drifted over the ink on his arms, and the Bible passage written in script down his rib cage. His stare lingered a beat too long, but he wasn’t going to point it out to the man, not when he still wasn’t sure. He waved two fingers at Corrado as if to tell him let’s go. “Don’t worry, I’ll go easy on you.”
“No need. I have four brothers. If you think you’re the first person who thought they could kick my ass because you had a problem with me, you’re not even the fourth.”
“Do you annoy your brothers just by being there as much as you do me?”
Corrado smirked and cocked his head to the side. “Do I annoy you, or unsettle you?”
That irked Alessio like nothing else.
Because the asshole wasn’t wrong.
Back to the sparring, he figured. It was better than where his mind was trying to go, not to mention the way he was sure Corrado was looking at him. Like maybe he didn’t need to wonder if the guy swung both ways like Alessio did …
“No cheap shots,” Alessio warned.
“But your face is fair game, right?”
“Just like yours, Corrado.”
Corrado nodded. “Fair enough.”
Alessio intended for this little sparring match to be a quick thing for him—a way for him to knock Corrado down a few pegs, and nothing more. Yet, when the two young men met at the middle of the ring and tapped fingerless gloves together, he knew this wasn’t going to be easy or clean between them at all.
They’d barely even moved their hands apart before Corrado came in with a jab to Alessio’s right kidney. Who the fuck knew, but maybe he thought Corrado wouldn’t know how to throw a half decent punch to save his life.
Ha.
He’d been so wrong.
That knocked the wind out of him.
“Shit,” he grunted, backing up a quick step.
Corrado laughed, his tongue coming up in his sneer to touch his upper lip as he stepped back and forth from foot to foot.
He just looked too arrogant.
Too confident.
Too good.
It all looked too damn good to Alessio.
A challenge, even.
And fuck him, he liked those.
“Just one cheap shot,” Corrado said, “don’t fault me for doing it. You deserved it.”
Alessio nodded and pointed his fist at his opponent. “You’re going to regret that when I fuck up your face, asshole.”
“But then what would you stare at when you think I’m not looking, Alessio?”
Yep.
So entirely fucked.
“I told you, it’s Les.”
Corrado nodded. “That’s nice.”
All right, Alessio was done fucking around now. He wasn’t wrong—Corrado didn’t give up easily. And yeah, he didn’t have the sharply honed skills with hand-to-hand combat like Alessio did, but he could still hold his own. He wasn’t so stupid that he didn’t know to protect his face, and he was quick on his feet, moving from one side of the mat to the other when he really wanted to get Alessio pissed off.
They were supposed to keep it clean, and Alessio fully intended on doing that until he realized this wasn’t going to teach Corrado shit. So, when he had the chance and was close enough after tossing hits back and forth for a few minutes, he made his move. Spinning a bit on his left heel, he raised his right foot from the mat, and came back around with a roundhouse that landed flat to the middle of Corrado’s chest.
The force of the kick sent him hitting the mat, all the air rushing out of his chest in a loud whoosh at the same time. Alessio might have enjoyed the sight of the other man on the mat, blinking like he was trying to gain his bearings and figure out how this happened to him, but he didn’t get the chance.
Corrado swung his leg out, and swept Alessio’s feet right out from under him. In the next breath, he found himself on the mat, too. A rookie mistake, really. He never should have gotten close to a man on the ground unless he was willing to get down there with him.
Lesson number one.
Not that Alessio had the time to reflect on his mistake. Corrado had rolled over just as fast to pin him to the mat as fists rained down on his face—one after the other; smack, smack, smack, smack. The guy was fucking relentless, never letting up for even a second. Through his gloved hands, Alessio was struck by the intensity that sharpened Corrado’s features as he focused on his goal.
Alessio, that was.
And beating the hell out of him.
He’d be a damned liar if he said that hardness roughening the strong lines of Corrado’s face as he clenched his teeth—blood dripping down his full lips from an earlier punch compliments of Alessio—and the muscles of his arms and shoulders flexing with every punch didn’t do something for him.
Because it did.
Wicked things.
Sinful fucking things.
Godly things.
Alessio used a common maneuver that he’d been taught to flip the two of them over by wrapping his legs around Corrado’s back. Now, with him on top, he focused his efforts on getting the image of Corrado on top of him out of his mind and replacing it with the sight of him beating the hell out of him, instead.
Not that it worked.
Of course, it didn’t fucking work.
And unlike Alessio, Corrado didn’t use a move to try and right himself again, or to get the upper hand. Because he wasn’t trained, and he didn’t know how to get out of this. Instead, his body arched upward, all of his weight pressing against Alessio as he tried to force the man off. It didn’t work. Just like when he used his knees to push against Alessio’s stomach, it too was a dead effort.
All it served to do was get their bodies closer.
His fists rained down.
Corrado protected his face and tried harder to get away.
Still, hard lines met hard lines. Alessio was hyper aware of the way Corrado felt moving under him, never mind the fact that something felt hard against the curve of the backside of his thigh.
Alessio pushed his fingerless gloves hard against Corrado’s chest, his breaths coming out hard and fast because fuck … why was his body this tense—this hot? Beneath him, Corrado panted, too, his bloodstained teeth still clenched as he glared up at Alessio.
Corrado shifted again.
Alessio felt that again.
Time slowed, or that’s what it felt like. There was no hiding the erection he was sitting on, or the fact that his own cock was pressing against the seam of his jeans. He swore if he moved again—or Corrado, for that matter—he was going to explode.
What in the hell just happened?
“I fucking knew it,” Alessio whispered as Corrado tried to force him off again, but it only served to have the ridge of his erection pressing against his body again. “I knew it.”
Corrado’s gaze darted away. “Get off me.”
He would have.
But he leaned in close, instead.
A bloody sneer answered him back.
“Do you really want me to?” Alessio asked.
Corrado let out a hard breath. “Fuck you.”
He kissed him, then.
Brutal, and fast.
Unforgiving.
He didn’t know what made him do it. God knew Alessio had more control than this, but here he was, and he couldn’t really complain when Corrado answered him back with a kiss of his own that had his whole body feeling like it was on fire.
Corrado tasted like blood and heat. His tongue lashed against Alessio’s without shame, his fingers coming up to drag against the muscles of his chest like he wanted more. He understood that need—it was currently driving him insane, too.
There was nothing easy about the kiss.
Nothing soft.
No sweetness.
It felt like war.
Teeth biting his lower lip, and stubble dragging across his skin. It all felt like a fight he wasn’t going to win but fuck him if he didn’t try. Kissing never felt like war before—it didn’t feel like his body was going to rip itself in half if he didn’t get what he wanted right now.
Until this moment. With Corrado.
It was then that Alessio should have known what was going to happen here between him, and Corrado when this was all said and done. Corrado Guzzi was a fucking problem. One he was never going to escape.
Then, someone cleared their throat.
Ah, fuck.
CORRADO
THE GUZZI LEGACY, 1
PART ONE: BEFORE
Chapter One
Corrado
Koi no yokan.
Corrado read those words, inked in a script font and hidden on the inner elbow of his family priest’s arm. It was the only time he ever noticed the tattoo, and that said something considering he attended this church since he was a newborn. They had christened him in this place. His first communion had been an interesting experience as a kid with a church of more than four hundred parishioners watching. Catholicism for the Guzzis was a second skin—the church, a second home. He recognized these walls inside and out.
But not that tattoo.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
The priest—Father Gene, they called him—looked up from the papers he’d been moving aside on his desk. The office, a mixture of dark woods, richly colored tapestries, smelled of old leather, and even older books. Compliments of the row of texts that looked like they had seen better days lining the shelves behind the priest’s desk.
“What, Corrado?”
“That, there,” Corrado said, pointing at the black script on the priest’s inner elbow. “What do the words mean?”
Father Gene’s hand came up to cover the small spot of ink as a smile curved his lips. “Something you wouldn’t understand at seventeen, I assure you. And we’re not here to talk about tattoos I had done before I joined the priesthood.”
“How old were you, then?” Corrado tipped his head to the side. “When you joined?”
“I started the process at nineteen.”
“So, you had the tattoo before then, but you won’t tell me what it means because I won’t understand because of my age?”
Father Gene stared at him from across the desk, silent. His father, Gian, would say this was one of those times. Out of all his siblings, including his identical twin, Corrado was the one who spoke when he should stay quiet.
He’d rather talk about other shit than what he came here for.
“Are we asking about my tattoo because you’re attempting to avoid the conversation about your lack of confession for two years?”
Corrado stared at the cross over the window to his right rather than at the priest. “I don’t need to do confession.”
“But your father believes something is wrong … he’s the one who asked me to bring you in for a session of counsel, didn’t he?”
He was smart, so he stayed quiet when he had nothing good to say. Like right now.
The priest didn’t miss it.
“I’m worried about you,” the man across the desk admitted. “You graduated high school three weeks ago, and according to your father, you have yet to decide on a real path of what you want to do. And without getting into the specifics of your father’s business, because without me explaining that to you, he knows I don’t approve, I’m concerned you will flounder with no stability to hold on to. No work, no college … no faith.”
Corrado’s gaze snapped back to the priest. “I have faith.”
He was sure of that. The problem? His faith and doctrine had taught him that certain parts of himself weren’t right. He found comfort in church, but he also found confusion, too.
“If you tell me why you stopped confession, and why you’re struggling to move forward in your life, I will tell you what the tattoo means,” Father Gene said, grinning. “And whatever you tell me, that will never go beyond these walls.”
“Not even to my parents?”
“Not even to them, Corrado.”
He stared down at where he’d clasped his hands in his lap. This way, he wouldn’t fidget or distract himself. He didn’t need his nerves on display. Another thing being a Guzzi had taught him—the appearance of calm and confidence was most important, but especially in their life.
Corrado was far from stupid, and he could tell what people assumed when they saw him. They assumed because he ran around with Guzzi blood in his veins, that like his older brother, Marcus, and even his twin, Chris, he would be the same and go into the family business.
La famiglia.
The mafia.
His last name said so. The legacy that came with it kept the demand alive. Tradition. Men in this life followed their father’s footsteps, and even more so when one’s father just happened to be Gian Guzzi—Cosa Nostra Don, controlling the largest and most powerful crime family in Canada. It was expected of Corrado; history said so.
Except his father. Gian never said a word about it. Not to Corrado.
“You’re struggling,” the priest said, his French clear. Maybe because he assumed it would comfort Corrado. The only person who spoke French to him now, besides associates of his father, was Gian. He didn’t see his father’s French-Italian side of the family enough to speak anything with them. “I can see.”
“I’m not like them,” Corrado said.
Father Gene raised a single eyebrow high as he leaned forward to rest his clasped hands on the desk. “Why would you say that?”
He’d been ready to spill his secret, to admit why he was, in fact, struggling between life and business. The reason for his lack of a decision, and his waffling.
“Corrado?”
He swallowed hard and stared down at his hands again. “I stopped coming to confession at fifteen because I had sex.”
The priest sat back in his chair. “Oh.” And then, the man added with a laugh, “That’s not a reason to stop confessing, it’s a reason to confess, Corrado.”
“With another guy,” he added lower.
That quieted Father Gene.
Corrado shifted in the high-back leather chair the longer the silence dragged on. “That’s partly a lie. I had sex with a girl before that, but—”
“I understand,” the priest murmured.
“This is not … our way.” Corrado shrugged. “I hear what people say—inside this church, and outside, about people like me. In business, it’s a weakness. Here, it’s a sin. Except I can’t be different, and so, I don’t fit in.”
He’d always been this way.
At first, Corrado didn’t know what to label his sexuality. In high school, the only gay kid he was acquainted with—at the time—got treated like a second-class human. Because he liked girls, too, that helped to keep his attraction to guys under everyone else’s radar. He kept it to himself because if that was how people behaved with someone at school, what would happen outside?
And then a new student came in—a guy that Corrado watched from afar as he navigated the terrain of private, Catholic school. He wasn’t sure what clued him in about the fact the guy was more like him than the other students, or even the one gay student in their school, but it happened.
Corrado learned a lot about himself from that. Bisexuality was fluid, and hard to explain to someone who wasn’t like him. Being with a guy didn’t change the fact he still liked the way the girl’s legs looked in her skirt from the school down the road. Except to everyone else, it seemed like they didn’t get that.
Gay was gay. Straight was straight. There was no in between. That’s what people said.
Corrado was right in the fucking middle, trying to figure out what it meant, and what he should do. Stuck between a culture his family was deeply ingrained in that told him he would never belong—he couldn’t be—and the choice of disappointing those around him when he didn’t decide what they wanted for him.
He couldn’t win.
Guzzis always won.
“Corrado, if you want me to say sex before marriage is not a sin, I can’t do that,” the priest said, dragging him from his thoughts.
“It’s not the sex that worried me.”
The man across the desk smiled softly. “No, I imagine you worried about the other bits.”
He shrugged.
“If you want me to tell you homosexual attraction is not a sin, then I can’t do that, either,” the priest murmured.
Corrado let out a hard sigh, and readied to stand from the chair. The meeting was pointless. This wasn’t news. He hadn’t expected to get a different answer than the one he had.
He should have known better.
They all thought the same thing:
He was wrong.
He didn’t belong.
He was different.
And because he was a Catholic, and the son of an Italian mafia boss, his problem was on a more prominent display for him about just how much he didn’t fit in anywhere. He couldn’t explain that to those around him without giving away his secret though.
“Sit down,” Father Gene said.
Corrado passed the man a look. “I think we’re good here, yeah?”
“If you didn’t notice, allow me to point out to you what you missed about my statement,” Father Gene replied, pointing a finger at the chair. Corrado sat his ass back down because he didn’t have a choice, honestly. “I treated the sin of sex before marriage with the same tone and respect as I did homosexuality. Because sin is sin. And sin, no matter who is doing it, is all the same. The thing people seem to forget is that we do not get to weigh one sin against the other to bolster our own sanctity and pureness, Corrado. One sin does not trump another—sin is sin.”
The man shrugged, adding, “And we are all sinners. That is what Christ teaches us. It is why Jesus died on the cross for us. Because He recognized we were all sinners, and we would all need forgiveness not once, but throughout our lifetime. People wrongly assume that their faith, and the way they live within the truth of their faith is the same way everyone else should, too, but they don’t understand that isn’t how it works.”
Corrado chewed on his inner cheek. “How does it work, then?”
“Faith is a discipline for your own morality, Corrado, but it is not a right to dictate to others about theirs. And it would be ignorant for me to assume anything about someone else’s relationship with God, or their right to faith. I know my relationship with God; it is strong, and I hear Him, drawing me to my path and calling. So, because of that, I share His words, and I celebrate them—I do not dictate His words like a tyrant from the pulpit. That defeats the purpose of the Bible, and of Him.”
Corrado stared down at his lap, the gold Guzzi signet ring on his index finger glinting under the office light overheard. “So, what does that mean for me?”
“It means you are allowed to have faith, and your own relationship with God, and no one should expect to understand that relationship, or define it for themselves. They have their own faith to worry about before they need to even consider yours. It means you may be a sinner, and no one can or should tell you that your sins are worse than theirs because they don’t sin like you do. It doesn’t matter—sin is still sin. And yes, I believe you should aspire to live a life free of sin, but it’s impossible. Even Jesus sinned, Corrado.”
“Huh.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the priest smile again. “Not the answer you were expecting?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry that people seem to interpret the Word in their own way without seeing the bigger picture. That’s not your fault, Corrado. It is their own flaw.”
He nodded. “It doesn’t help me to make a choice, though.”
Father Gene cleared his throat. “About your father, and business?”
“Yeah, all of that.”
“Knowing Gian like I do, I think he will be happy as long as you are, young man. It is a matter of finding what makes you happy. Do you understand?”
Possibly.
“I think so,” Corrado said.
“Good. Confession after the New Year. I expect to see you here. Also, I hear you’re heading to Vegas this weekend—a trip for business with your father, yes?”
Yeah, a whole trip Corrado did not understand, if he were being honest. When Gian traveled for la familiga, he was quick to point out to his sons all the details of the organization they would be seeing. He liked for his boys to learn, so they never stepped out of line when it counted or caused a problem.
This time, his father said nothing.
Corrado wasn’t sure what to expect.
“Safe travels,” the priest told him, “I’ll pray for it.”
“Thank you, Father.”
Corrado pushed up from the chair, moving to leave. It was only Father Gene’s voice behind him that made his steps hesitate.
“Don’t I owe you, now?”
Seemingly lighter on his feet, and like he could do something with what he learned here today, Corrado had no idea what he forgot. Giving the priest a glance over his shoulder, he asked, “And what’s that?”
“Koi no yokan,” the priest said, and Corrado’s gaze darted to the tattoo on the man’s inner elbow. “It’s Japanese, and it doesn’t have a meaning as much as what it is. A feeling, Corrado. It is the feeling upon meeting someone you know, eventually, you will fall in love with that person.”
“Like love at first sight?”
“No. It’s something else entirely.”
“Is it a real thing?”
“It was for me,” the man murmured.
He had a realization, then.
Like the priest said, they all sinned; their sins were simply different.
“You must tell me if it ever happens to you, too,” Father Gene said. “Gian is waiting for you, isn’t he? Have a blessed day.”
Chapter Two
Corrado
“What is this fucking place?”
Gian gave Christopher a look over his shoulder that quieted Corrado’s twin fast. The oldest between the two of them, Chris, was far more likely to toe the line and behave. Corrado, on the other hand, seemed to find some sort of trouble wherever he went.
Life wasn’t fun otherwise.
Today, both twins pushed their father’s limits.
Chris side-eyed Corrado when their father’s back was turned. If it were anyone else, he might have to ask what they were thinking in that moment. But it was his twin, and he never had to ask. When one shared the same face as someone else in the world, even their expressions could explain the things they didn’t say.
The two took after their father in appearance—brown eyes flaked with gold, straight noses with a sharp slope, full lips that always seemed to be smirking, and dark brown hair that, when not cut into a shorter style, seemed to be fucking unmanageable. They took the angular shaped faces from their mother, Cara, though.
The rest?
All their dad.
Corrado shrugged to answer his brother’s unspoken question about the building they were currently approaching. Deep in Nevada’s rural, dry land, they might as well be in the middle of nowhere. There weren’t even power lines out this far. It felt like they drove for hours after exiting their father’s private jet only to turn off on a gravel road that still led to fucking nowhere. Until all of the sudden, a tan building—or rather, what seemed like several buildings, although it was hard to tell—started to form on the horizon.
A few trees towered around the building that, partly looked like a warehouse but also brought to mind the word compound, when Corrado thought about it. The plain cement walkway didn’t give anything away about the place, but the very expensive cars parked any which way they wanted to stop next to the side of the building made him think something was happening here.
Out in the middle of the desert, apparently.
“Was that a fucking tumbleweed?” Corrado asked, his gaze drifting to the line of cars again and the dry item that skipped behind a black Hummer.
“If you two don’t fix your mouths and questions,” Gian murmured a few steps ahead. “Correct it before we go inside, s’il vous plait.”
“I’m just saying horror movies start like this, Papa.”
Gian made a noise under his breath but said nothing else. At the front of the building, there were no windows. Just a wall of tan-colored brick and a black door. Stark black, really. One couldn’t miss how it stood out blatantly compared to the rest of the yellow earth and walls surrounding it. Above the door rested a camera blinking with a red light.
Silently, Gian pulled a card from his pocket. Corrado glanced at it quickly, taking in the matte black cardstock, the wax seal on the back side with a cursive L stamped into it, and the white, classic lettering on the front.
What did it say?
The League, Corrado thought.
What in the hell was--
His thought process was interrupted by a buzzing noise that was loud enough to scare a scavenging bird sitting on top of the entrance door’s eave. It squeaked before flying off to rest somewhere else. By the time Corrado glanced at his father, both Gian and Chris were already heading inside the dimmed corridor of the tan building.
Ha.
Just like how the fucking horror movies started.
“Are you coming?” Chris called back to him.
Corrado didn’t think he had a choice, even if he didn’t like the feeling this strange place left him with in his gut. Like a heavy weight had come to rest there, and he wasn’t about to get rid of it anytime soon. He didn’t pretend to understand all his father’s business—being a criminal organization meant Gian did not dabble with just one thing. He had his hands in several pots, and Corrado was not aware of every single one of them.
Was this just another thing?
Why were they brought here?
Why not Marcus, their oldest brother?
He didn’t consider Bene or Beni, his youngest brothers—another set of identical twins in their family; their mother’s genes were strong, it seemed. Those two were wild, and there was no way they’d relax enough for something like this.
“Corrado!”
“I’m coming,” he snapped.
Not that he wanted to. He had the distinct feeling that once he stepped inside this building, something was going to change. Maybe for him, or his brother or father, he didn’t know. He just had that feeling, and Corrado wasn’t the type to ignore his gut when it acted up.
Slipping inside the building, but not before shooting one last look over his shoulder at the outside world, his gaze took a second to adjust to the dim lighting just beyond the black door. A door, which, closed without prompting once Corrado was out of the way while doing that annoying buzzing sound again.
Gian slipped the black card he’d flashed at the camera back into his pocket before turning to his sons, his expression a mask of nothingness. He didn’t give anything away before he said, “A couple of decades ago, I was approached by an old friend to … invest in something. He had a plan—he wanted a League of people who could do many things, and who had many skills. Did someone need a robbery done? He had a person for it. A hit in another country on a political figure? There was someone for that. A retrieval of someone that had been missing? He could make it happen.”
His father rubbed his hands together and glanced down a long hallway that led to yet another black door with a camera blinking red overhead. “The idea was interesting because imagine what someone could do with that kind of ability at their fingertips. I invested immediately. I invested a lot. And it has been incredibly beneficial for me in the long run. Here is where those people are trained.”
Beside Corrado, his twin blinked. “Like mercenaries?”
Gian chuckled, and waved a finger at the older of the two twins. “Mercenaries are choosey—they pick what they want to do or who they want to work for, and often, their work is for the greater good even if they are doing bad things.”
“Assassins,” Corrado said. “They train assassins here.”
“Smart boy,” his father returned. “We call it The League. This is the new complex that was finished three months ago, but I haven’t had time to make the trip to see how it turned out. I thought the two of you might enjoy getting a peek at another part of this business because you’re … at an age to come into the folds more than you already are.”
Gian said that like he honestly meant what he said—directed at both his sons—but he really only looked at Corrado. Was his father giving him another choice? Something other than what everyone else expected from him?
“This building is a living quarters, office, and training complex,” Gian said. “Behave while we’re here, oui, and try to stay out of trouble while I meet with my partner. Do you both understand me?”
Chris nodded first.
Corrado came second, but now, he didn’t have that heavy feeling about this place like he did when he first stepped inside. He just wanted to know more.
***
Corrado was enthralled with the fact that the deeper they went into the complex, the more it seemed like a maze of living areas for several people. He saw those people, too, but they barely spoke as they moved from room to room, doing their business.
He stopped just outside of one room and peered in as his father headed further down the hall with a laugh.
“Dare,” he heard Gian greet.
Corrado was busy staring at all the knives lining the wall inside the room in front of him. And when he meant a wall of knives, it was more like three walls. It wasn’t all knives, he realized as he took one step inside to get a slightly better look. No, it was several different kinds of weapons, but all meant to be sharp and deadly.
At the far end of the room, which looked to be at least thirty feet long, if he were to guess, was a wall of targets. Wooden, mostly, with paper figures taped across them. One in particular still had an axe right through the head of the paper figure.
He swallowed hard as he neared the wall of black knives with sleek, shiny blades. He didn’t know if his twin had continued to follow his father, or not. These knives were far more interesting to him than anything else at the moment.
Reaching up, he drifted his fingertips along the edge of a six-inch knife that he bet would be quite heavy in his hand. Wrapping his fingers around the hilt, he pulled the weapon down from its spot on the wall to get a better look at it. Eyeing the targets at the other end of the room, he wondered if he might be able to hit one--
“Careful with that. Rich hands aren’t meant to throw those; they’re meant to pay someone else to do it.”
Corrado spun around so fast, the navy-blue walls of the room were nothing more than a blur to his eyes. He found the source of the voice standing in the doorway of the room. The man standing there took Corrado by surprise. Not because he was strikingly handsome—he was—but because he didn’t look much older than Corrado’s seventeen.
The guy arched a thick, dark eyebrow when Corrado stayed quiet. The action made his strong features and stormy blue eyes all the more intense. His thin lips pulled into a sly smirk, making his square jaw, covered with a few days’ worth of stubble, tighten with the movement. A slight shake of his head made the shaggy hair that seemed a little too long around his ears fly in all directions. Corrado tried to shake off the strange hum buzzing over him the longer he stared at the guy. He wasn’t the first good-looking person he’d run into, and he wouldn’t be the last. He didn’t need to feel stupid or speechless just because this guy looked half decent.
Except, that wasn’t it at all.
It was the way the man looked at him. The way his gaze drifted over Corrado with the slowness that reminded him of a predator, maybe. Like this guy had just found prey, and he was considering whether the kill would be worth it.
It irked Corrado.
Irritated him like nothing fucking else.
He wasn’t prey.
“What did you just say?” Corrado asked.
The guy laughed and tipped his head to the side as he pointed at the knife in Corrado’s hands. “Be careful, we don’t need you cutting yourself because you wouldn’t know what to do with a knife unless you were paying someone else to do it for you. Clear enough?”
Okay.
Yeah.
Corrado wasn’t even going to act like that was a comment he could brush off as though it hadn’t been said at all. This guy wasn’t even trying to be subtle about it; he was outright insulting Corrado, and with a fucking smile at the same time.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
The guy peeked over his shoulder, looking at something down the hall. “Not yet, but you will.”
That humming sensation was back again. It kind of pissed Corrado off that the guy could be so dismissive and insulting to him, while at the same time, acting like he had better things to do than stand there and have a conversation with him. He remembered his father’s warning about behaving, but he was very close to telling this guy to fuck off right before he busted his mouth for those comments while he was at it.
“How about,” Corrado started to say, “you go find someone else to—”
“Alessio.”
The guy’s gaze drifted back to Corrado, his eyebrow still arched high like he didn’t have a damn to give, as a new voice sounded right outside the doorway of the room. Almost as soon as the voice spoke, a new face came to the doorway, and clapped a hand on the guy’s shoulder. Right behind him stood Corrado’s father.
Gian stayed back a couple of steps, though.
He didn’t intrude.
“Introducing yourself, Alessio?” the man asked.
Alessio.
Corrado decided right then that he hated that name. And the man it belonged to, as well. The problem was, when Alessio turned his gaze back on Corrado, the humming was back. He couldn’t look away from the ocean of blue that stared back at him, or the way that as much as this guy rubbed him wrong … he wanted to know why.
Or anything about him at all.
“You’re not causing trouble, are you, Corrado?” his father asked out in the hallway.
“Define trouble.” Alessio chuckled. “Is he allowed to play with knives where someone can’t keep an eye on him at the same time?”
The man next to Alessio smacked him in the back of the head, making him glower back at him.
“Fuck off, Dare,” Alessio muttered.
“Play nice, Les.”
He looked back to Corrado again.
“But why, though? This is way more fun.”
Fuck him.
And the fact Corrado found he liked it.
Yeah, fuck that, too.
The other man, Dare, shook his head. “All right, Les, since you’re feeling chatty today, you can take Corrado around and show him the rest of the complex while I talk business with Gian.”
Alessio scowled. “I didn’t volunteer to be some mafia principe’s babysitter for the day.”
Dare smirked. “I’m sorry. Did I preface that with, if you feel up to it and it pleases your spoiled fucking ass to do it? No, so do it.”
“Fine.”
“Did you introduce yourself properly?”
“No,” Alessio said. “Because I didn’t think there was a point.”
Dare sighed and waved between the two boys. “Alessio, you already know Corrado Guzzi … or you know what I told you about today. Corrado, meet the pain in my ass, also known as Alessio Sorrento.”
“Thanks for that.”
“But not a lie,” Dare replied. “And now my good deed for the day is done. Gian, do you think these two will be fine alone?”
Corrado’s father smiled a bit, amusement playing in his gaze as he nodded. “I think they’ll be fine while we chat.”
“Good, let’s begin.”
Alessio passed Corrado another look as Gian and Dare drifted away from the doorway, disappearing altogether. “Are you going to stand there all day, or what?”
Corrado didn’t move. “I’m not doing anything with you.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to work. Dare said what he said.”
“Fuck him, and you.”
“Oh, he swears, too.”
Corrado’s jaw flexed with his annoyance. “What is your problem?”
Alessio looked him over again, his gaze slow and deliberate. All over again, Corrado felt that same flare of frustration and interest all rolled into one. It warred inside his mind, clashing together and making him want to punch this guy in the mouth just because.
“Do you like what you see, or …?”
“Why, because I stare?” Alessio asked.
“Because your stare lingers. So, that means you either like what you see, or you’re trying to decide if I’m a threat. I think you know who I am, and you think you know something about me.”
Corrado replaced the knife on the wall, and headed for the door, only stopping directly in front of Alessio. He knew what this guy was doing—trying to size him up, but also make him feel out of place. Screw that noise. He didn’t know his purpose for being here, but he wasn’t going to run because of Alessio.
He leaned in close to Alessio, but the guy didn’t move back an inch. If anything, he stayed firm in his spot, those blue eyes blazing with the same interest Corrado was sure reflected in his own gaze. “Let me be the first to fix that mistake of yours—you don’t know fuck all about me, Alessio.”
“I prefer Les.”
Corrado tipped his chin up. “And?”
“And right now I’m wondering what your face might look like if I roughened it up a little. Do you box?”
He blinked.
“What?”
Alessio shrugged. “I didn’t stutter.”
He hadn’t.
“Do you want to get your ass kicked?” Corrado asked. “Because that’s what’ll happen if we spar.”
The man laughed.
And all Corrado could think was that he looked fucking amazing doing it. That smirk on his face? Entirely bad for him given the way his chest tightened at the sight of it.
Oh, yeah.
He was in a lot of trouble here.
It all started and ended with Alessio.
He knew it by the annoyance still trickling through his bloodstream, but also the humming that continued to buzz over his skin. A part of him wanted to tell his guy to fuck off somewhere, and another part wanted to find out all he could about him. He had a feeling the more he learned about Alessio, the less annoyed Corrado would feel, and the more interesting the man would become.
All it took were a few words, and blue eyes. Something about Alessio Sorrento drew Corrado in and made every single one of his nerves turn on in a good and bad way. He wanted to run away as much as he wanted to stay right there and do it all over again.
Was this what the priest meant?
Was this koi no yokan?
Because it felt like something.
It felt like change.
It felt important.
Well, fuck that noise.
Corrado didn’t like it at all.
“Guess we’ll see what you can do, principe,” Alessio said, grinning just enough to show off his white teeth. “Or, I’ll have a lot of fun watching you try.”
Chapter Three
Alessio
By the age of ten, Alessio had learned the most important lesson he figured life had to teach him. It wasn’t an easy one, or even nice. Very little about life was easy or nice, though. That lesson was simple, too.
Blood didn’t always make family.
When he was two, his father died from a heart attack. A man he never really remembered, and only vaguely knew from the stories of others. Maximo Sorrento—mafia Don to a Cosa Nostra faction controlling Vegas, who also seemed to have a taste for women who were a fraction of his age. Like Alessio’s mother, Elizabeth.
His father dying wasn’t the memory that stood out to him the most, but rather how everyone else treated his mother, the man’s mistress, after the fact. She’d lived comfortably, Alessio had been told, cared for and kept because she was a favorite of Maximo’s, and she had given him a son, even if the boy was illegitimate.
Then, he was no more.
No, Alessio didn’t remember his father dying, and he didn’t have many feelings about it, but he vividly recalled the years that followed the death. Like how his mother spiraled, her young life wasted with every pill she popped, and every needle she put into her veins. Empty bottles littering the floor and the faint smell of old cigarette smoke accompanied Alessio’s dreams every time he closed his eyes.
That was how he remembered his mother.
And that he never mattered to her.
Whether it was because she was so entirely heartbroken that she had lost Maximo, despite the fact he was three times her age, or because she had lost her status and importance without him there to give it to her … she forgot about Alessio in the process.
He was ten when his mother overdosed.
Ten when he buried her.
Yet, it felt like he’d been in the process of burying her for years before that. Life had a funny way of reminding the forgotten and the neglected at the worst of times that they weren’t worth very much to the people who weren’t faced with their struggle every single day. That had never been more apparent to Alessio than after his mother’s death.
That was when Dare came in.
And Cree, another high-ranking member of The League.
Alessio was never sure when they found him after his mother’s death, because the days passed by in a confusing blur that he’d rather not revisit, but they were a saving grace for him if there ever was one. Dare, having known Alessio’s mother before Maximo, took him in.
For all purposes, Dare was his family.
The League, his home.
Here, he struggled more. Here, he learned to be something and someone. Behind these walls, he was given a purpose and stability. He was not the forgotten bastard son of a man who he didn’t remember, or the child of an addict who died not knowing her son would be the one to find her cold on the floor the next morning.
Here, he was better.
At seventeen, almost eighteen now, Alessio spent much of his life feeling as though he didn’t belong to any one person or place. Until Dare, Cree, and The League. He held this place so close to that thing in his chest that people called a heart, no one would ever understand. If someone thought to fuck with it, he was going to rip them apart.
And so, it pissed Alessio off to see some privileged prick like Corrado Guzzi walking around the place with a curious eye like he had any business being there in the first place. Sure, Dare was smart enough to explain to Alessio the week before the Guzzis arrival that Gian would be visiting to check out the new complex, with two of his five sons, but it hadn’t bothered him until he saw one of those sons in that training room.
One of many training rooms here, really.
People didn’t get an inside look at The League. If someone was brought in, it was because they were a client using one of the assassins for a job, or it was a prospect who had signed on to be trained.
No one was allowed here.
It was his home.
Except, there came the fucking Guzzis like they owned the place, and that just rubbed him all kinds of wrong. But especially Corrado—who thought to speak to Alessio like the two were on equal footing in some kind of way. Like he wasn’t any different from him.
They were not at all the same.
He doubted a rich, spoiled mafia principe like Corrado had ever understood struggle, and The League certainly wasn’t a place made for someone like him. They weren’t here to coddle men and women—they were here to break them.
So yeah, the guy just rubbed him wrong.
The other thing pissing him off currently?
The fact he found Corrado attractive, and that he might like the guy even more if he could shut him the fuck up by either kissing him, or stuffing something in his mouth. Like maybe his cock …
“Are we even supposed to be in here doing this?” Corrado asked from inside the boxing ring.
Alessio made a harsh noise under his breath—the only sign of his irritation, really. He suspected Corrado believed it was because he questioned Alessio’s choice to have them spar for fun in the gym section of the complex, but that wasn’t it at all.
It was that he’d interrupted a nice picture.
He wasn’t about to admit that out loud, though. Thing was, just because he felt attraction to someone didn’t mean they felt the same way. Sometimes, it was obvious, and he could tell when a guy liked one thing or the other—or both. Maybe it was the way a guy would look him over, or when a hand on his shoulder lingered a beat longer than a straight guy would when it came to friendly actions. But with Corrado, he didn’t know.
It was fucked up.
He hated him on sight.
And he didn’t hate him at the same time.
It didn’t help that Corrado was attractive in a way most men weren’t. Something that Alessio recognized about him straight away—an air of confidence and cockiness followed him around whether he knew it or not. Like he’d been born with it. Most people had to learn that shit. And that was before Alessio got too detailed in Corrado’s physical features, from the strong lines of his face that made up an angular jaw line, to the dark brown eyes that didn’t seem to give anything away, not even when he smirked.
Classically handsome.
Disgustingly so, really.
Add that to the whole confidence shit and Alessio had a big problem here. Mostly, the fact that he noticed at all.
Dare was always clear when it came to Alessio and relationships or sex. As long as it didn’t fuck up The League and the shit they were doing here, he was free to explore and do what he wanted. He couldn’t remember how old he was when he figured out he liked boys as much as he liked girls—nine, maybe?
He was lucky that he didn’t find confusion or pain in his sexuality swinging both ways like he knew some did when they realized they were bisexual. Here, he had been free to explore and find out what it meant to be a sexual being with varied interests. No one ever stepped in to shame him as long as it was consensual, and he was being safe. That was all Dare ever cared about when it came to Alessio.
“Are you listening to me?” Corrado asked.
Alessio clenched his teeth to stay quiet as he finished wrapping up his fists before slipping the leather, fingerless gloves overtop. Turning to find Corrado lingering in the far corner of the ring, ready to go, he used his teeth to tighten the wrist straps on the gloves.
“Are you used to just saying something, and people jumping to give you what you want?” Alessio asked back.
Corrado’s brow dipped before he scowled.
Fuck.
Why’d he look good doing that, too?
Alessio ignored the clenching of his gut as he stepped up into the ring and dipped under the ropes to get into position. He figured this sparring match probably wouldn’t end well for Corrado, all things considered. He doubted the guy knew he’d been training with The League from the time he was twelve.
Weapons.
Fighting.
Recon.
Killing.
All of it, he could do.
And he was only seventeen.
He doubted Corrado could say the same.
“What is it that gets under your skin the most?” Corrado asked back. “The fact that I have money, or the fact you don’t?”
Alessio sucked air through his teeth.
Damn.
That was a good one.
Pretty boy mafia prince could cut with words, and Alessio liked that way more than he was willing to admit. His respect notched up a bit—this would have been incredibly boring for him if after everything, Corrado just laid down and took the shit Alessio threw at him. When someone became uninteresting to him, Alessio was quick to move the fuck on.
Not right now, though.
“You assume I don’t have money,” Alessio returned.
He did.
Probably not as much as Corrado, but he had enough to be more than comfortable. The longer he stayed with The League, the more money he would have, too. Not that money had ever been a motivating factor for his choice to train here. He’d gone for years without money—it was just paper to get someone by, nothing more.
He’d be fine either way.
Corrado shrugged before he tugged his T-shirt up over his head, and then tossed it to the side of the ring. Even from all the way across the ring, Alessio couldn’t help but admire the hard lines that made up Corrado’s body—or how those muscles shifted as he moved from one foot to the other.
Shit.
Yeah, he needed to move away from that thought.
Now.
“I say it,” Corrado returned, “because you keep needling at me like something about me pisses you off. Maybe it’s my money, privilege … my last name. Which one is it?”
Nope.
He wasn’t falling down that rabbit hole.
Alessio grinned, removing his own shirt and enjoying the way Corrado’s gaze drifted over the ink on his arms, and the Bible passage written in script down his rib cage. His stare lingered a beat too long, but he wasn’t going to point it out to the man, not when he still wasn’t sure. He waved two fingers at Corrado as if to tell him let’s go. “Don’t worry, I’ll go easy on you.”
“No need. I have four brothers. If you think you’re the first person who thought they could kick my ass because you had a problem with me, you’re not even the fourth.”
“Do you annoy your brothers just by being there as much as you do me?”
Corrado smirked and cocked his head to the side. “Do I annoy you, or unsettle you?”
That irked Alessio like nothing else.
Because the asshole wasn’t wrong.
Back to the sparring, he figured. It was better than where his mind was trying to go, not to mention the way he was sure Corrado was looking at him. Like maybe he didn’t need to wonder if the guy swung both ways like Alessio did …
“No cheap shots,” Alessio warned.
“But your face is fair game, right?”
“Just like yours, Corrado.”
Corrado nodded. “Fair enough.”
Alessio intended for this little sparring match to be a quick thing for him—a way for him to knock Corrado down a few pegs, and nothing more. Yet, when the two young men met at the middle of the ring and tapped fingerless gloves together, he knew this wasn’t going to be easy or clean between them at all.
They’d barely even moved their hands apart before Corrado came in with a jab to Alessio’s right kidney. Who the fuck knew, but maybe he thought Corrado wouldn’t know how to throw a half decent punch to save his life.
Ha.
He’d been so wrong.
That knocked the wind out of him.
“Shit,” he grunted, backing up a quick step.
Corrado laughed, his tongue coming up in his sneer to touch his upper lip as he stepped back and forth from foot to foot.
He just looked too arrogant.
Too confident.
Too good.
It all looked too damn good to Alessio.
A challenge, even.
And fuck him, he liked those.
“Just one cheap shot,” Corrado said, “don’t fault me for doing it. You deserved it.”
Alessio nodded and pointed his fist at his opponent. “You’re going to regret that when I fuck up your face, asshole.”
“But then what would you stare at when you think I’m not looking, Alessio?”
Yep.
So entirely fucked.
“I told you, it’s Les.”
Corrado nodded. “That’s nice.”
All right, Alessio was done fucking around now. He wasn’t wrong—Corrado didn’t give up easily. And yeah, he didn’t have the sharply honed skills with hand-to-hand combat like Alessio did, but he could still hold his own. He wasn’t so stupid that he didn’t know to protect his face, and he was quick on his feet, moving from one side of the mat to the other when he really wanted to get Alessio pissed off.
They were supposed to keep it clean, and Alessio fully intended on doing that until he realized this wasn’t going to teach Corrado shit. So, when he had the chance and was close enough after tossing hits back and forth for a few minutes, he made his move. Spinning a bit on his left heel, he raised his right foot from the mat, and came back around with a roundhouse that landed flat to the middle of Corrado’s chest.
The force of the kick sent him hitting the mat, all the air rushing out of his chest in a loud whoosh at the same time. Alessio might have enjoyed the sight of the other man on the mat, blinking like he was trying to gain his bearings and figure out how this happened to him, but he didn’t get the chance.
Corrado swung his leg out, and swept Alessio’s feet right out from under him. In the next breath, he found himself on the mat, too. A rookie mistake, really. He never should have gotten close to a man on the ground unless he was willing to get down there with him.
Lesson number one.
Not that Alessio had the time to reflect on his mistake. Corrado had rolled over just as fast to pin him to the mat as fists rained down on his face—one after the other; smack, smack, smack, smack. The guy was fucking relentless, never letting up for even a second. Through his gloved hands, Alessio was struck by the intensity that sharpened Corrado’s features as he focused on his goal.
Alessio, that was.
And beating the hell out of him.
He’d be a damned liar if he said that hardness roughening the strong lines of Corrado’s face as he clenched his teeth—blood dripping down his full lips from an earlier punch compliments of Alessio—and the muscles of his arms and shoulders flexing with every punch didn’t do something for him.
Because it did.
Wicked things.
Sinful fucking things.
Godly things.
Alessio used a common maneuver that he’d been taught to flip the two of them over by wrapping his legs around Corrado’s back. Now, with him on top, he focused his efforts on getting the image of Corrado on top of him out of his mind and replacing it with the sight of him beating the hell out of him, instead.
Not that it worked.
Of course, it didn’t fucking work.
And unlike Alessio, Corrado didn’t use a move to try and right himself again, or to get the upper hand. Because he wasn’t trained, and he didn’t know how to get out of this. Instead, his body arched upward, all of his weight pressing against Alessio as he tried to force the man off. It didn’t work. Just like when he used his knees to push against Alessio’s stomach, it too was a dead effort.
All it served to do was get their bodies closer.
His fists rained down.
Corrado protected his face and tried harder to get away.
Still, hard lines met hard lines. Alessio was hyper aware of the way Corrado felt moving under him, never mind the fact that something felt hard against the curve of the backside of his thigh.
Alessio pushed his fingerless gloves hard against Corrado’s chest, his breaths coming out hard and fast because fuck … why was his body this tense—this hot? Beneath him, Corrado panted, too, his bloodstained teeth still clenched as he glared up at Alessio.
Corrado shifted again.
Alessio felt that again.
Time slowed, or that’s what it felt like. There was no hiding the erection he was sitting on, or the fact that his own cock was pressing against the seam of his jeans. He swore if he moved again—or Corrado, for that matter—he was going to explode.
What in the hell just happened?
“I fucking knew it,” Alessio whispered as Corrado tried to force him off again, but it only served to have the ridge of his erection pressing against his body again. “I knew it.”
Corrado’s gaze darted away. “Get off me.”
He would have.
But he leaned in close, instead.
A bloody sneer answered him back.
“Do you really want me to?” Alessio asked.
Corrado let out a hard breath. “Fuck you.”
He kissed him, then.
Brutal, and fast.
Unforgiving.
He didn’t know what made him do it. God knew Alessio had more control than this, but here he was, and he couldn’t really complain when Corrado answered him back with a kiss of his own that had his whole body feeling like it was on fire.
Corrado tasted like blood and heat. His tongue lashed against Alessio’s without shame, his fingers coming up to drag against the muscles of his chest like he wanted more. He understood that need—it was currently driving him insane, too.
There was nothing easy about the kiss.
Nothing soft.
No sweetness.
It felt like war.
Teeth biting his lower lip, and stubble dragging across his skin. It all felt like a fight he wasn’t going to win but fuck him if he didn’t try. Kissing never felt like war before—it didn’t feel like his body was going to rip itself in half if he didn’t get what he wanted right now.
Until this moment. With Corrado.
It was then that Alessio should have known what was going to happen here between him, and Corrado when this was all said and done. Corrado Guzzi was a fucking problem. One he was never going to escape.
Then, someone cleared their throat.
Ah, fuck.
