“I’m more man than all of them together. I’ve killed more men, have fucked more women, and I have bigger balls.”
“Careful with the ego there,” Matteo said, chuckling.
“You’ve got a zit on your forehead,” I muttered. It was a lie, but given Matteo’s vanity, I knew it was my best bet to pay him back for being an insufferable asshole most of these days.
As predicted, Matteo immediately felt his skin for the offending flaw, then narrowed his eyes and dropped his hand. I rolled my eyes with a chuckle. We arrived in front of the bouncer of the Sphere. He greeted us with a curt nod and stepped back to let us through when a guy at the front of the long queue waiting to be allowed inside shouted. “Hey, we were here first! And that guy’s not old enough to be in a club.”
Matteo and I both looked at the idiot. He had been referring to Matteo, and of course, he was right. At fifteen, Matteo was definitely not allowed to be in a night club like this, but neither was I—only with my size, everyone assumed I was older.
Matteo and I exchanged a look and walked over to Big Mouth. Some of his bravado slipped off when I stopped right in front of him. “Got a problem there?”
“There are laws,” he said.
Matteo flashed his shark-grin he’d perfected recently after spending too many hours in front of a mirror. “Maybe for you.”
“Since when are boys allowed in clubs? Is this prom or what?” Big Mouth said to our bouncer.
Matteo was about to draw his knife right in front of everyone, and I had half a mind to let him for the fun of it when a woman in the queue spoke up. “He doesn’t look like a boy to me,” she said flirtingly in Matteo’s direction.
“And you look like my next conquest,” added the girl beside her with a smile at me.
I cocked an eyebrow. Matteo with his sunny boy charm was always a girl magnet, but my rougher predator charm definitely had its perks as well. Both women were tall, blond, and sex on legs.
“Let them in,” I told our bouncer. He opened the barrier so they could slip through. “And he and his friends are banned from the Sphere,” I added.
The sound of their protests followed us into the club, but I didn’t give a fuck. I wrapped my arm around the blond at my side, who squeezed my butt and gave me a seductive smile.
Matteo and his girl were already tongue wrestling for all its worth.
“Is there a place where we can fuck?” Blond asked me, pressing herself against me.
I smirked. That’s how I liked it best. Women who weren’t work, easy lays, no questions asked. “Sure,” I told her, reaching for her own ass and squeezing it.
“Is your cock as big as the rest of you?” she asked as I led her through the back door into a storage room.
“Find out for yourself,” I growled, and she did. The moment the door closed, she got down on her knees and sucked any sane thought out of my brain. Her lipstick stained my cock red as she blew me like a fucking pro. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.
“Fuck,” I hissed as she worked me deep into her mouth. She was better than most of the whores I’d been with, and those women had spent years perfecting their craft. I relaxed against the door, getting closer and closer to spill my cum down her throat.
She shifted and tensed in a way that raised my suspicions. Instinct made my eyes shoot open a moment before she jerked something toward my thigh. I lashed out, hitting her arm. She dropped a syringe and scrambled for it again. Grabbing her throat, I hurled her away from me. The back of her head collided with the storage shelves with a sickening crunch, and she slumped to the ground. Breathing harshly, I stared down at the syringe. What kind of shit did she try to inject me with?
I pulled up my pants and staggered over to her. I didn’t bother feeling for her pulse; her neck was twisted at an angle that left no doubt about her death. I bent over her and tugged her pants down, revealing her hipbone. There was a scar where someone had burnt away a tattoo. I knew what kind of sign had been on her skin: the crossed Kalashinkovs of the fucking Bratva that they inked onto the skin of every single one of their whores.
“Fuck,” I snarled. This had been a trap, and I’d walked straight into it, had let my dick rule over my thinking, had lowered my guards. Shouldn’t the incident with my cousin have taught me better?
I jerked upright. Matteo. Fuck. I rushed out of the room and searched the other back rooms. No sign of him or the other no-doubt traitorous whore. I stormed across the dance floor, searching the crowd for a sign of my brother, but I didn’t see him anywhere. Where was he?
I headed outside past the waiting crowd and around the corner until I reached the small back alley behind the Sphere. Matteo was busy getting head. His eyes, too, were closed. We were fucking stupid idiots. No goddamn blowjob was worth forgetting about the first rule in our world: don’t trust anyone.
The whore reached for something in her bag.
“Matteo!” I shouted, pulling my gun. His eyes shot open, his expression a mix of annoyance and confusion before he registered what she was holding in her hand. He reached for his knife and she raised the syringe to strike. I pulled the trigger and the bullet tore straight through her head, throwing it back. She fell to her side, the syringe tumbling out of her palm.
Matteo stared down at the woman, knife in hand and his fucking boner still on display. I moved toward him and revealed the burnt skin over her hipbone.
“I really wish she would have waited for me to come before she tried to kill me,” he muttered.
I straightened, then grimaced. “Why don’t you pull up your pants? There’s no reason to present your junk anymore.”
He dragged his pants up his legs and fastened his belt, then he looked at me. “Thanks for saving my ass.” He gave me a smirk, but it was off. “Did you at least have your happy ending before your conquest tried to end you for good?”
I shook my head. “The Bratva almost got us. We both acted like fucking fools, letting those stupid whores lead us around by our dicks like randy teenagers.”
“We are randy teenagers,” Matteo joked as he sheathed his knife.
I glared down at the dead women.
“The other whore’s dead as well?” Matteo asked.
I nodded. “Broke her neck.”
“Your first two women,” he said with a hint of wariness, his eyes scanning my face, looking for God knew what. “You feel guilty?”
I regarded the blood staining the concrete and the lifeless eyes of the woman. Anger was the prevailing emotion in my body. Anger at myself for being an easy target, for thinking a pretty woman was no threat. And burning fury at the Bratva for trying to kill me—and worse, Matteo.
“No,” I said. “The only thing I regret is that I killed them before they could answer a few questions. Now we’ll have to hunt down a few Bratva assholes and get info out of them.”
Matteo picked up the syringe and I tensed, worried he could get some of the poison on his skin by accident. I had no doubt that whatever was in there would lead to an excruciating death. “We need to find out what’s in there.”
“First, we need to get rid of the two bodies before guests or the police find them.” I raised my phone to my ear, calling Cesare. “I need you at the Sphere. Fast.”
“All right. Give me ten minutes,” Cesare said, sounding as if I’d woken him.