Page 83 of Beautiful Obsessions
It didn’t make a difference.
My body processed the alcohol the same way it processed everything else—efficiently.Ruthlessly.There was no mercy, even for myself.
I set the glass down harder than needed and motioned for another.
The bartender didn’t ask questions.Men like me didn’t come here to talk.
The club pulsed around me—low lights, bass vibrating through the floor, bodies moving too close, too careless.
My men were everywhere.
Scattered through the room like ghosts in tailored suits.At the bar.Near the exits.In the shadows where people didn’t look too closely.I’d called them in tonight the second I left Raze Cavalho’s estate.Because the threat of Baron Vilevski might be contained, but now I had the fallout with the Cavalho family to consider.So I recalled my men back to my side, where they belonged.
It also meant I could afford one night to lose myself.Except I couldn’t even manage that.
I stared into the next glass like there was poison in it.
All I could think about was Antonella and the last words she’d said to me.
I won’t.
I exhaled slowly through my nose, jaw tightening as I threw back the drink.I still felt nothing.
“Jesus Christ, you always drink like you’ve got a monkey on your back?”
I didn’t turn.
Gianni Cavalho dropped onto the stool beside me like he owned the place, which—given the territory—wasn’t far from the truth.
I slid the empty glass forward.“You here to lecture me, or you going to mind your own business and pray I drink myself into an early grave?”
Gianni Cavalho and I had a colorful history which could only be described as volatile at best.He was not my most ardent fan, nor was I his.
“A bit of both,” he revealed.
I finally looked at him.
Gianni Cavalho—hot-headed, unpredictable, a man who’d put two bullets into me without hesitation once upon a time.
Still would, if it came to it.But I’d be glad to return the favor, sometime.
His gaze swept over me, taking in the swelling, the split lip, the bruising already darkening beneath the surface of my skin.
He whistled low.“Raze really did a number on you.”
“You heard, huh?Raze got lucky I was in a forgiving mood.”
Gianni snorted.“Yeah, I’m sure that’s what it was.”
I didn’t bother answering.Instead, I picked up the next glass and drank.
“You know,” he continued casually, “being out in public right now isn’t exactly your smartest move.”
I tilted the glass, watching the last of the whiskey slide to the bottom.“The hit’s been dealt with.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It is the point,” I cut in, voice low.“Baron Vilevski is dead.His men are scattered or buried, meaning the hit died with him.”
