He opens his bleary eyes and tries to focus on my face. “Vinicius? Let’s have a drink. Acid, get us some vodka.”
“You don’t need any more vodka.”
“I need a fuckin’ drink!” he roars in my face, blasting me with stale alcohol breath.
I wince and angle my face away. “Fine. Acid’s downstairs in my car.”
“Is he? Let’s goooo.”
Out front, I pour Lorenzo into the passenger seat of my car and buckle him in. When I turn around, a figure has appeared noiselessly in front of me, and I jump. I recognize the man’s black clothes, black hair, and silver jewelry. “Jesus, Thane. Are you part fucking bat?”
Thane looks balefully from Lorenzo to me, his eyes very dark in his pale face, and his voice even darker. “He’s a disaster waiting to happen to us.”
If the gangs in the southwest find out that he’s like this, they’ll get ideas about expanding into his territory. The Strife men are doing their best to hold the line, but it’s Lorenzo the gangs have learned to be afraid of.
Salvatore and Cassius haven’t said anything to my face, but I know they’re wondering whether Lorenzo is washed up and if we should partition his territory among the three of us. The only thing stopping them is the hope that Lorenzo will pull through this—that and the fact they don’t know how to run the roughest quadrant in Coldlake or manage the Strife men. Only Lorenzo can do that. The Strife men don’t respect Cassius or Salvatore’s lineage, and as well as we know each other they don’t respect me enough, either. I’m not a leader and I don’t want to be. I work by myself or as part of a team.
If Lorenzo can’t recover from Sienna’s death we might be forced to give this quadrant to Acid, though my mouth sours at the thought of him strutting into Salvatore’s house, Cassius’ penthouse, or my converted factory as a fully-fledged member of the Coldlake Syndicate and our equal. Lorenzo once quipped that he’s called Acid because he gets under your fucking skin.
I glare at Thane, but he doesn’t move back. He’s got five inches on me but I’ll be damned if I’ll be intimidated by him. I put my hands against his chest and shove. He moves back half a pace, but that’s all.
“Lorenzo’s still your boss. You keep your mind on your job, which is running Strife and putting down every gang member who steps into your territory. Now, get out of my fucking face.” I push past him and get into my car, my heart pounding in my chest, but I refuse to let Thane see how much I’m rattled by the state Lorenzo is in. I rev the engine and roar away with a squeal of tire rubber and a cloud of smoke.
It’s a lot of arguing and shoving to get Lorenzo inside his apartment. The place is a mess of empty vodka bottles, but I’m surprised to find he still isn’t smoking. He started when he was fifteen and was a solid pack-a-day man until just after Sienna died. If he can kick that habit, why can’t he kick the binge drinking?
“Fuckin’ hate this place!” Lorenzo shouts, and a neighbor bangs on the wall and tells him to shut the hell up.
“Then move,” I growl, and push him toward the bedroom. When he’s collapsed face-down on the bed, I do a lap of the apartment, collecting every bottle of alcohol I can find and pouring it down the sink.
Back in his room, I sit down on the mattress beside his prone body, and he stirs. “Lorenzo, you’ve got to cut this out.”
“It’s my best fr—” He hiccups and rolls onto his back. “My best friend. What are you doing here?”
I’ve been asking myself the same question.
He strokes a clumsy hand down my cheek and smiles. “You’re so pretty. Every time I look at you, I think, you’re so fucking pretty. I bet your dick is pretty, too.”
My stomach swoops. It’s not the first time he’s talked about me being attractive or good-looking. His flattery, if you can call it that, has become cruder and more suggestive the more I haul his drunk ass out of Strife. He stuck his hands beneath my shirt last week and wondered aloud how I taste. Drunk Lorenzo touches me.
Sober Lorenzo can’t even look at me.
“In the morning I’ll be drunk, but you’ll still be pretty.” He frowns. “You’ll be pretty but I’ll…how does that saying go?”
“Idiot,” I mutter.
Lorenzo has always been fiercely beautiful. A vital, proud man who energizes me just by being in his presence. Seeing him so broken shatters my heart.
My throat thickens and my eyes burn. If the others have been doing any crying, it’s been in secret. Either they’re too proud, or they’re too miserable to even cry. As for me, I’ve been sobbing my guts out and I don’t have the strength to hide it any longer.
“I shouldn’t have let you watch those videos alone. I’m so sorry.” My voice cracks and tears slip down my face. If I hadn’t been such a coward then, Lorenzo wouldn’t be like this. I could have shared that horror with him and then I would understand what he’s going through. “You shouldn’t have been alone. No one should be alone with something like that.”
I think of Amalia tied to a chair, shaking and screaming and slowly dying over days and days in pain, fear, and misery, and I really start to cry. I put my hand over my face and just let it out.
“Fuck, please don’t cry. I won’t drink anymore.”
“We should just give it all up,” I say thickly, swiping tears from my face. “I don’t want to do this anymore. Salvatore and Cassius can run Coldlake. They already know what they’re doing. You and me, we’re just a couple of street brats and we’re fucked. Look at us.”
I can’t do this anymore, but even as I try to stand up I can feel my heart being ripped in two.
“No, Vinicius, no, no, no.” Lorenzo grabs a fistful of my shirt and drags me down onto the bed with him. “You have to stay. I won’t drink anymore.”
His arms lock around me tightly.
“You always say that. You never mean it.”
Lorenzo’s face is wedged against the pillow. His eyes close slowly and he passes out, still with his arms around me. Exhaustion sweeps over me and I lay down beside him. I’ll get up and go in a minute but I need to rest my eyes.
The next thing I know, a shard of light stabs through the open curtains and right into my bleary eyes. Lorenzo has rolled onto his back and he’s snoring, his blond hair tangled on the pillow.
I sit up and pull the curtains closed, then move to get up.
Without opening his eyes, Lorenzo grabs my shoulder and pulls me back down. In a voice like gravel, he says, “Don’t get up. If you get up you’ll be mad at me.”
I end up with my head on his shoulder, and I hate myself for liking how it feels to have his heart beating beneath my cheek and his arms around me. My eyes close once more. “I can still be mad at you while we’re laying down.”
“Shut up,” he mumbles.
Tentatively, I rest my hand against his chest. He cups the nape of my neck and tucks me tighter against his shoulder. Is he sober? I’m aching to enjoy this and so I tell myself he is.