Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Except not today.
Gio didn’t have the energy today.
“Don’t need your comments on how I look,” Gio muttered as the two climbed the stairs of their family’s church. The Bishop was already standing at the top and shaking hands with thier mother, and then their father, too. Cecelia always came first, though—something Antony demanded, likely. “Just let me get past Dad without him noticing—”
“That you came to church wasted?”
Jesus Christ.
“I’m not wasted, Dante.”
“Hungover, then,” Dante said. “Same fucking difference.”
Was it?
Gio found it hard to tell, now.
“At least you managed to throw on something relatively decent,” Dante added when Gio refused to respond to his last statement. “Ma will appreciate that you managed to find a suit for today.”
Yes, she would.
But very little else.
Cecelia would worry.
And fret.
Antony would rage.
And worry.
Same shit, different day.
Gio was fine. It didn’t matter how many times he said that, though, his parents still had some kind of hornet in their ass about his choices. And the more they tried to figure out what was wrong with him inside—nothing was wrong with him—that made him party like he was going to die tomorrow. Given his life, that was a real possibility. The more he wanted to forget he was going to wake up the next day regardless.
Because that was the fucking thing about this whole shit show—he could drink and drink and drink until he couldn’t think straight or see two feet in front of his own eyes. He could take pill after pill, or smoke whatever was going to make him feel good for the night.
Gio was still bulletproof.
Nothing was killing him.
Not yet, anyway.
He really was fine.
Too bad they wouldn’t figure it out, too.
“So, head’s up,” Dante murmured.
They were just ten steps away from their parents now, but neither Antony nor Cecelia had noticed the brothers’ arrival.
Thank Dio.
“What’s that?” Gio asked.
Jesus.
He couldn’t even hide how gruff and hoarse his voice sounded. He was so fucked—he should have just stayed in his bed, and ignored Dante when the asshole came around to get him up for church. Antony would have been pissed, sure, but he preferred it when Gio didn’t show up ... well, all right, wasted.
Plus, his father probably already knew.
If he didn’t suspect.
After all, Gio hadn’t showed up at his parents’ place the night before like he usually would—figured he could probably get away with it being Lucian had his dick in a knot over the chick he was shacking up with ... or fucking ... or saving ... or—what was he doing with that Jordyn girl again?
“Are you even listening to me?” Dante asked.
Gio passed his brother a look, and shook his head. “Not really.”
“Figures.”
“What was it?”
“Lucian is bringing her to church today,” Dante said. “That’s the important bit.”
Her.
Her ... like Jordyn, her.
The only her his oldest brother would be bringing around at the moment, although it took Gio’s wasted brain a minute to catch up to speed with what his brother was trying to get through his thick fucking skull.
God.
He needed to lay off mixing molly and liquor.
It was bad news.
Gio’s brow flew up high. “Like, here?”
“Where else do we go to church?”
“Yeah, but ... with Ma and Dad, and ... here?”
“Big thing, huh,” Dante muttered.
To say the least ...
The Marcello brothers knew the rules—their father had been repeating those same rules to them since they learned to look at Antony and listen. They weren’t to be bringing females around their parents unless it was women they intended to keep around their parents.
Simple as that.
“Do you think he—”
“I think Lucian is crazy,” Dante said.
Gio rolled his eyes upward. “Yeah, but that’s because everybody knows you’re not the marrying kind.”
“I’m the marrying kind. I just don’t want to fucking get married. See the difference?”
“Bite my fucking head off. Point is—do you think he’s really caught up in something with this Jordyn chick?”
Dante shrugged. “Who the fuck knows?”
Well, that was that.
“Giovanni.”
Ah, shit.
Those last ten steps went quickly.
Cecelia was frowning.
Antony was as cold as ice.
“Care to have a word, Gio?” his father asked.
“Not par—”
“Get in the church,” Antony snapped.
“Yeah, all right.”
*
“Jesus,” Antony grumbled as he dropped into the pew beside Gio, “you couldn’t even manage to put on a tie this morning?”
Gio cringed. “Well ...”
“What, son?”
“I did try.”
His hands had just fumbled too much, and he got pissed off. Especially when Dante started barking that they were going to be late, and ... yeah.
Antony sighed, and glanced over at Gio. “Take those damn sunglasses off, would you?”
“You probably don’t want me to.”
He could see his father’s deepening scowl out of the corner of his eye, but Gio figured if he just kept staring straight ahead, then he could pretend like he didn’t see it. A little stupid, maybe, but it served him well over the years.
“Bruises, or something else?”
“I just look ... like shit, according to Dante,” Gio admitted.