Twisted Pride (The Camorra Chronicles 3)

Remo was quiet and I risked a look at him over my shoulder.

Slowly he raised his eyes from my wings with a strange smile. “Wings.”

I smiled. “Because you gave me wings.”

He shook his head, his dark eyes softening. “Angel,” he said quietly, brushing his fingers over my tender skin. “You had wings all along. You only needed a little push to spread them and fly.”

I turned back to face him. “Maybe, but I wouldn’t have done it on my own.”

We kissed slowly at first, but Remo quickly deepened our kiss, and suddenly we were on the bed tugging at our clothes and stroking every inch of naked skin we could reach. I pushed Remo onto his back, smiling, and his answering smile, all desire and dominance, sent a stab of arousal through me. Leaning forward to claim his mouth for a kiss, I lowered myself on his erection, groaning at the feeling of fullness. Remo pushed up into a sitting position, bringing us chest to chest, racing heartbeat to racing heartbeat. I gasped at the shift of him inside of me, at the feel of his strength as his arms slung around my back. I rolled my hips, driving him deeply into me as we kissed.

We held each other’s gaze as we always did, and those dark eyes captivated me as they’d done from the very start. So often cruel and merciless but passionate and reverent when they rested on me, tender and caring when they regarded our twins.

When we’d both found our release, we stayed wrapped up in each other like that, our breathing ragged, bodies slick with sweat. I ran my fingertips over Remo’s back, tracing the spot where the wings of his fallen angel spread out. He trailed his own fingertips upwards, along my spine until he reached my new tattoo. I winced slightly and Remo’s touch turned even softer. My heart was ready to burst out of my ribcage from the look in his eyes.

Remo scanned my expression, his brows drawing together.

I sighed. “Sorry. Since my pregnancy I’m more emotional. I hope it’ll go away soon.” I cleared my throat then rested my palm over his shoulder blade. “What’s the meaning of your tattoo? You know why I got mine, but I wonder why you got yours.”

A hint of wariness flashed in Remo’s eyes, the walls he was used to keeping up wanting to lock back in place. “Nino did it. About seven years ago.”

I nodded to show him I was listening.

“It’s a fallen angel, like you said. It represents the fall Nino and I took on the day our mother tried to kill us.”

My brows snapped together. “Fall? You saved your brothers. How’s that falling?”

Remo’s expression was dark and twisted, his eyes far away, haunted, angry. “Until that day Nino and I were innocent. After that we weren’t. We’d already experienced our fair share of violence from our father, but it never affected us like that day did. The flames of that day they singed our wings and our fall into darkness began. We became who we are today. That’s why the fallen angel is kneeling in pools of blood.”

I’d noticed that the fallen angel knelt in pools of some kind of liquid, that a few of its singed feathered dipped into it, but I hadn’t realized it was blood. For a moment I wasn’t sure what to say, how to console Remo. Could words ever be enough to make the horrors of his past better?

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

Remo’s gaze focused on me, tore away from the images of the past. “You aren’t the one who should be sorry. And I won’t forgive her no matter how often she’d apologize. Not that she ever did.”

I froze. “Your mother didn’t die that day?”

“No. Even though I wanted her dead, I’m glad she survived that day or Adamo wouldn’t be here. She was heavily pregnant with him.”

I shook my head, completely at a loss over what Remo’s mother had done. “Where is she?”

“In a mental facility.” Remo’s voice dipped and turned vicious. “We are paying for it so she can live and breathe and exist, when she shouldn’t be doing either.”

“Why haven’t you killed her?” With anyone else I would have never asked something like that, but this was Remo. Killing was in his nature, and his words made it clear that he hated his mother.

Remo pressed his mouth to the crook of my neck. “Because,” he growled. “For some fucking messed up reason Nino and I are too weak to kill her. We haven’t seen her in over five years …”

“Do Savio and Adamo know what happened?”

“Savio has known for a while. And we talked to Adamo a few months after he got initiated.”

I stroked Remo’s neck. “Have you thought about visiting her again to try and find closure?”