The Sweetest Oblivion by Danielle Lori

“We are all born mad. Some remain so.”

—Samuel Beckett

“SOMEBODY HAD BETTER START EXPLAINING what the fuck’s going on right now!” Papà snapped. When his gaze flicked to me at the top of the staircase, he paused and then his expression became even stormier. He shook his head, gesturing toward me with his gun. “Go to your room, Elena.”

On instinct, my feet began to comply.

“Stay.” Nico’s voice was a deep timbre of control.

He was the don right now. No soft edges.

I halted, my blood going cold with indecision.

Nico stepped away from Benito and faced my papà. My cousin and father had a gun aimed at his head while he held his by his side. A cold sweat drifted down my back.

Papà and Nico stared at each other, communicating with their eyes. Something only dons could understand.

“You’ve gone too fucking far,” Papà spit. “Elena is not yours until the marriage. And if you’ve somehow forgotten—that hasn’t fucking happened yet.”

“Let me enlighten you, Salvatore,” Nico growled. “As soon as the contract was signed she was mine.”

“Fuck the contract and. Fuck. You. Ace.”

Nico ran a hand across his jaw with sardonic amusement. “You’re backing out?”

“That’s what I said.”

My heart threatened to beat out of my chest.

Nico took a step toward my papà. “You want to know how to start a war with me, Salvatore? This would be how to do it.”

My eyes widened. This can’t be happening . . .

Papà’s jaw tightened. Tony and Dominic remained silent and unreadable, their attention and guns unmoving from the Russos in the foyer.

“Come here, Elena,” Nico demanded.

Papà shot me a narrowed gaze. “You’ll go to your fucking room. Now!”

Indecision twisted so violently in my stomach it felt like I might be sick. I didn’t know what to do, who to listen to. Why this was happening to me. I wrote a note . . . I should have known Nico wouldn’t have found that sufficient.

Nico’s gaze flicked to me. His eyes were dark around the edges, but the irises were shimmering depths. Awareness ran through me. He said nothing, though he didn’t have to. He wanted me to choose him and he was letting me see it. It was the most vulnerable thing I’d ever seen him do, and the fact that he might show me a side of him not many had before sent a throb to my chest.

As my hands grew clammy and my breaths short, I did the thing that had been ingrained in me since I was a child. I listened to my papà and took a step toward my room.

But something stopped me.

If I picked my papà’s side, it could mean violence and death. Possibly war.

Although, that wasn’t only it.

A tug deep in my stomach pulled me in the other direction. A place near my heart grew cold and empty with the small step I’d taken.

As I hesitated, the tension hung over my head like a formidable cloud.

My papà sold me to Oscar Perez.

Nico killed him for me.

I avoided my papà’s gaze as I descended the stairs, but his anger was strong enough it burned my skin. I sucked in a shallow breath as Luca reached out and wrapped a heavy arm around my waist as though I might change my mind.

My gaze met Tony’s. While he was usually the first one to pull out a gun at the word war, he didn’t seem to want the same thing as Papà, or he wouldn’t have let me by him. Maybe he and Nico were on better terms now that they’d beaten the crap out of each other. Whatever it was, I was grateful.

I’d already been the cause for one man’s death.

I couldn’t survive another.

Luca walked me like a prisoner to the car, his arm a warm shackle around my waist.

Nico and the others were still inside, and I prayed they were doing the Made Man version of hugging it out, which usually involved violence of some kind, but not war.

“Instead of running off next time,” Luca said dryly, “I’m betting if you ask him for something he might just give it to you.”

“I didn’t run off. You were a little busy”—my gaze hardened—“so I left a note on the island.”

His eyes narrowed. “There was no note.”

I blinked. What?

He watched my expression before giving his head a shake, muttering, “Fucking Isabel.”

I sat cross-legged on my bed, flicking the Zippo open and closed.

If you ask him for something he might just give it to you.

I’d come to the conclusion that Nico made me as crazy as he was. Because asking was an easy fix to a problem I wouldn’t have hesitated to utilize with anyone else. It was simple: when Nico was in the equation, all rational thoughts were lost.

I flicked the lighter open, and hope ignited with the new flame.

Perhaps I didn’t have to see him with other women, to share a bathroom with one. The hope was only an ember, barely flickering with light, because the idea that there would be other women at all cut me straight through the chest, leaving a raw and bleeding ache behind.

However, infidelity was a fixed denominator in a Made Man. Like a surfer and a board. A writer and a pen. You couldn’t separate the two. And asking would be a fruitless endeavor.

Out of sight, out of mind, as the saying went.

I could live with not knowing.

My grip on the lighter faltered when the quiet purr of an engine drifted to my ears. I walked to the window to see Nico get out of his car and head into the garage. Luca had hung out in there since we’d gotten back close to an hour ago.

When I’d come inside, I found my crumbled note in the trash. Fucking Isabel was right. I hadn’t gone about anything the right way, but I hadn’t left without telling anyone, as Nico must have believed.

Shame became a heavier weight on my shoulders with every minute I waited. I’d been upset, and the choice to leave was rash and not me.

Luca left the garage and rubbed his jaw before getting in his car. I stood there, waiting for Nico to make an appearance, but he didn’t. I’d spent the last hour wondering how he would react, what I was going to say to him, and now that he was here, a restlessness inside me demanded I get it over with.

I headed down the stairs and out the back door. The cement was hot against my bare feet as I stood in front of the garage. Nico’s hands were braced on the worktable, a glass of whiskey sitting nearby. His shoulders tensed when he realized I was here.

His gaze came to me. It was dark, warm, every emotion in between. A shiver danced across my spine, and before I knew what I was doing I walked toward him. I didn’t expect a rough palm to cup my face and brush across my cheek. My heart glowed like a Zippo flame.

He made a quiet noise of satisfaction when I pressed my face into his chest. His hand slid from my cheek to the back of my head, his fingers threading through my hair.

He smelled so good. Felt so good. Like comfort, security, and need, all in one. There was a name to it, but I didn’t know what.

“I’m sorry,” I breathed. “I didn’t mean for any of that to happen.”

He let out a breath in between disbelief and amusement, and I thought he muttered, “So this is the Sweet Abelli.”

He’d done something no other Made Man should do and paraded his mistress in front of his fiancée, and somehow, I had ended up apologizing for the outcome.

My nonna and mamma were right.

This man would eat me alive.

But he was so warm, felt so right, it was hard to even care.

His fist tightened in my hair, tilting my face to his. His gaze hardened.

“Where’s your cell phone?”

I suddenly realized I hadn’t taken it with me when I left. I hadn’t had one for so long it was hard to remember. “I forgot it.”

“Convenient.”

I swallowed. “I wrote a note.”

“So I heard.” His gaze fell to my hand. “Where did you find that?”

I glanced at the lighter, recognizing I’d brought it with me. “On the floor after you got into it with my brother.”

“You kept it.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I hesitated, a lie forming on my tongue before I swallowed it down. I felt bad enough about today that I couldn’t stand to be untruthful.

“It was yours,” I breathed.

It went so quiet I could hear the beats of my heart.

Bu-bum.

Bu-bum.

“You’re forgiven,” he rasped.

A heavy pressure drifted off my shoulders.

His tone was harsh. “You won’t leave this house again without talking to me first, do you understand?”

I nodded.

“Say it.”

I forced myself to meet his gaze. “I won’t leave the house without talking to you first.” My lungs tightened because it wasn’t a promise I could keep. Not yet.

“If you want to see your family, I’ll take you.”

I chewed my bottom lip. “My papà might shoot you.”

“Maybe.” He seemed unconcerned.

Something twisted in my chest at the thought. Made me feel hollow.

He pressed my back to the workbench, braced his hands on either side of me, and then he leaned in and kissed my throat. I sighed and tilted my head. I hadn’t expected it to go like this, but it could be said I never was that great at guessing what Nico would do.

“Can I ask for something?”

“Shoot,” he drawled against my neck.

I said it before I could stop myself. “I want Isabel gone.”

His lips traced my ear, and seconds passed as I held my breath.

“Done.”

My heart ached.

His hand ran up my thigh and around to my ass, pulling my body against his. He kissed a line down my throat.

“Can I ask for one more thing?” I breathed.

I felt a smile on my neck. “You’re awfully needy today.”

I swallowed. “No women . . . not here, okay?”

He stilled for a moment, and with a sinking sensation in my belly I wondered if I’d taken it too far. If he would say no.

“That’s what you want?”

No. I want to be enough for you.

I want you to want only me.

“Yes.”

In the next moment of silence, the anticipation of his answer wrapped around my lungs and squeezed.

His face came up to mine. Our gazes met. Lips inches apart.

I wouldn’t take a simple ring off when he’d asked, nor would I kiss him. The knowledge settled between us, mixed with the smell of motor oil and summer.

What he didn’t know was that soon I would ruin everything to the point he’d never trust me again.

A thumb ran across my lips, down my chin. “Done.”

The band around my lungs released, though a tainted feeling remained. Thick as tar and black as night. Like a venomous snake in a tropical paradise.

“So loyal to your family,” he said quietly. “Yet you listened to me and not your papà. Why? Preventing a war?”

That’s what he expected. I could read it in the way he looked at me with a sort of forced detachment.

I did it because it felt right.

An unfamiliar ache began in my chest. A need for him to know.

I met his gaze, as golden as the glass of whiskey beside me.

“Maybe I wanted to,” I whispered.

He watched me for so many seconds it made my pulse race. He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Come on. Let’s go inside.” He grabbed my hand and tugged me along.

I followed.

He was comfort, security, and need, all in one.

It had a name.

Home.