Naz wasn’t exactly fucking surprised to find Luca leaning against the entrance door of his apartment complex.
Luca cocked a brow at the sight of him, and flicked the ash from his cigarette over the railing. “Took you long enough, didn’t it?”
Naz laughed under his breath. “Seriously?”
His friend kept staring at him … like he was waiting for something. “Yeah, Naz.”
It’d taken him a good hour and a half to get back to the city after saying goodbye to his parents—who both looked like they had questions about where he’d gone with Roz, but also chose not to ask. At least, not yet. His parents tended to mind their own business where he was concerned, and he liked that just fine. That way, when they did ask something, he found it easier to tell them.
But he certainly hadn’t been gone long enough that Luca should be acting like a cocksucker. Then again, Naz had kind of taken his best friend’s sister away from the party without much of a word.
“I walked her home, asshole,” Naz said, tugging the apartment keys from his pocket. Luca slipped in behind him as he unlocked the front door to the apartment complex. He preferred living in the city when it came to work. He was always running for his father or Zeke when it came to the Donati Cosa Nostra, and that business never stopped. It was almost always in the city, too.
Luca cleared his throat as the two of them stepped into the main entrance. Naz shot his friend another look, this time, one that silently said, Get it out, or shut the fuck up.
“Just so you know, Dad has cameras all over that property,” Luca muttered.
Ah, yeah.
“Forgot about that,” Naz murmured.
He shouldn’t have forgotten about it, though, to be fair. Men like Zeke—and even his own father—tended to keep a close eye on their properties because the very nature of their business meant the first thing an enemy attacked was wherever a man called home. Plus, made men were just paranoid in general. That couldn’t be helped.
“Well, damn,” Naz added under his breath. “Let’s hope he doesn’t watch very much, I guess.”
Luca’s fist slammed into the back of Naz’s shoulder with a sharp snap. Naz jerked forward from the hard punch with a choked laugh. Because shit yeah, while it was funny, it still fucking hurt, too.
“Fucker,” Naz said, a little breathless.
“You’re the fucker. Who shouldn’t be messing around with my sister!”
Really?
That’s what they were going to do?
Naz didn’t think so. “Shut up until we get into my place. I don’t feel like getting another noise violation fine because you wanna be a shithead, Luca.”
His friend followed behind him, and thankfully, mostly stayed quiet. Except for the occasional grumble under his breath, that was. Naz could practically feel Luca’s glare burning into his back, though.
Luckily for Luca, his friend didn’t have to wait very long before he was able to open his mouth, and go off again. Naz lived on the bottom floor—his father hated that for a number of reasons—and close to the end of the hallway.
The moment the apartment door closed behind them, Luca started bitching. Naz basically tuned his friend out as he shrugged off his leather jacket, and pulled the beanie from his head. He didn’t need to actually listen to Luca to know what the guy was saying, so, what was the fucking point in wasting time with that?
Naz pulled the pair of black-rimmed reading glasses out of the inner pocket of his jacket before hanging it up on a rack. He only really needed those damn glasses when he was going to read in bed, or he planned to stare at a computer screen for longer than a couple of hours at a time. Less strain on his eyes, or some goddamn bullshit. But who knew where he was going to be from today to the next—his situation was always changing—so he kept them on him just in case.
Luca was still barking off behind Naz as he headed deeper into his Brooklyn apartment. The place wasn’t much to look at, as far as that went. Hardwood floors with a few too many scuffs, and standard white paint on every wall and ceiling. Even the light fixtures weren’t anything interesting, really. Two decently sized bedrooms—which wasn’t all that easy to find in New York—the standard living room, kitchen, and bathroom.
It certainly wasn’t the Marcello mansion, from his mother’s side of the family. Or even the large Donati home from his father’s side of the family. The shitty little apartment wouldn’t hold a flame to his parents’ home which had been designed and decorated by the best of the very best interior designers in New York.
But it was his place. And it did the job considering how often Naz had to come and go from the apartment. He never actually got to enjoy his place for very long before he was up to do someone else’s business for Cosa Nostra, or he was taking a trip out of the country for a month on the next gun run for his father.
He did manage to get the extra bedroom set up into his home gym. He desperately needed that. And he was able to get some shit up on the walls to decorate. The art he liked, and things he’d collected over the years. A hand drawing of a brain stem. A conceptual painted piece of what someone believed DNA to look like. And things that had nothing to do with that kind of shit, too.
So yeah, the place wasn’t much … he could absolutely afford the penthouse suite in the middle of Manhattan if he wanted it, but this was perfectly fine.
For now.
There was even a little set of glass French doors that led out to a small, fenced private section where Naz could chill outside.
That was the part his father hated.
Someone could break in.
Someone could get at Naz.
Right.
Fuckers could try.
Naz invited anyone who thought they were quick enough and smart enough to attack him to make the attempt, and see how that fucking worked out for them. He didn’t come from regular men—he didn’t think or act like one, either.
Luca was still going on even as Naz pulled a bottle of water from the fridge, cracked it open, and took a long swig of the cool liquid. He hadn’t been listening to anything his friend was saying because none of it mattered. Who gave a shit if Luca was stuck in his feelings about Naz taking an interest in Roz?
It didn’t make a difference. Frankly, Luca and Naz had been friends long enough that Luca should already know that Naz was going to do whatever the fuck he wanted to do. Nothing anyone said ever made a difference to what Naz wanted. And right now, he really wanted Roz.
It was only a passing comment from Luca that finally made Naz start listening a little closer to his friend’s rant.
“And she’s not even supposed to be dating right now, for fuck’s sake,” Luca bitched, grabbing his own bottle from the fridge. “And, because there’s more, I know how you are with females, Naz. You jump from one to the next, and you don’t stay with any for very goddamn long. My sister isn’t like some chick you pick up at the club—you can’t be messing with her like those women.”
“Go back a second,” Naz said.
Luca shot him a look. “What? Are you going to fucking deny you don’t even actually date when it comes to women, you just bust a nut, and move the hell on? Try to deny it.”
Nah, he wasn’t going to deny that at all.
“First of all,” Naz said, giving his friend a raised brow, “you know my life is chaotic, and busy. I don’t have time to be giving a shit about making sure the same woman wakes up in my bed every day, or that a woman even wakes up in my bed, for that matter. I don’t bring them here. Second, I don’t fill those females’ heads full of bullshit, either. They know exactly what they’re getting when it comes to me. I don’t pretend it’s something else, Luca. So, fuck off with the judgment, huh? Let’s not act like you’re a fucking saint, asshole.”
“I didn’t say I was, but there you go.” Luca waved at him with a dismissive gesture. “You said it, man. That is what you like to do—you’re not looking for more. Roz can’t be like that for you. Don’t use my sister, got it?”
“Just …” Naz shook his head. “Fucking relax, Luca. I like her. It’s not about the rest. I walked her home, and kissed her goodnight. By far the most innocent shit I have ever done with a girl, all right? Chill the hell out.”
Luca cleared his throat, and eyed Naz in that way again that made him feel like a bug under a microscope. Too many people in his life did that shit. Like they didn’t know what to make of him, and they were trying to figure him out.
“What?” Naz snapped.
Luca shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Really, nothing? Because you just ranted and bitched for ten minutes, and now it’s nothing, Luca?”
“Swear you’re not fucking around with her just to fuck around?”
Naz sighed, and glanced up at the ceiling. He had a good mind to tell his friend to mind his fucking business like he would any other time, but Naz understood why Luca was being a sensitive little ass right then. It wasn’t any other girl. It was his sister.
Naz wasn’t fucking with Roz, though.
Not like that, anyway.
“Swear it,” Naz said, “it’s not like that.”
“All right,” his friend murmured.
“Now go back—why the fuck can’t she date?”
“Because her whole life is basically controlled and dictated by furthering herself as a pianist, Naz?”
He simply stared at his friend and waited for Luca to explain more. Because that shit right there made no sense. He didn’t see why Roz couldn’t further her career, but also have a goddamn life. He did exactly that as a man trying to get his button for the mafia, running guns on the weekend, and a genius that constantly needed to feed his need for knowledge.
Surely, letting Roz have a bit of fun—she wasn’t even eighteen yet—wasn’t going to do anything bad for her career or focus.
Or would it?
Naz had no idea.
Luca made a noise in the back of his throat. “Her mentor sent her here for a while to relax and prep for the upcoming audition in Australia. He’s an asshole, but he’s the best one to teach her. Or, that’s what everybody else says.”
Naz’s gaze narrowed. “That plays in to the no dating thing how—”
“His rules. That’s one of them.”
He tipped the water bottle up as the phone in his pocket buzzed, and took another sip of water. Pulling the phone out, Naz grinned at the name lighting up his screen.
Roz.
She decided to text him, apparently. Nothing particularly earth-shattering or whatever, but still. A text was a text, and the night wasn’t even over yet.
Hey, it read.
“Sucks for her mentor, then,” Naz said. “Because I think that rule is shot to hell after tonight.”
Luca just laughed, and shook his head. “You’re so good at stirring shit.”
He really was.
That’s not what this was, though.