Twisted Bonds (The Camorra Chronicles 4)

Nino looked at me for a long time and then he tilted his head, bringing my hand up and pressing a kiss to my wrist.

CHAPTER 10

NINO

My mind had been going over my last conversation with Kiara for the last two days and even as I climbed into the cage for my fight training with Remo, it was still very much at the forefront of my mind. I’d always known that marriage would lead to children eventually. I wanted them for the name Falcone to live on and right now I was the only one of my brothers who had a woman who was capable of becoming a good mother. I didn’t have a single doubt in my mind that Kiara would be a wonderful, caring mother.

Remo climbed into the cage. He looked eager for a fight. I was distracted and Remo landed a few hard hits in my side and stomach in the first few minutes before I used an opening and rammed my knee into his kidney. He jumped back with a groan, then did a roundhouse kick, which I barely managed to avoid.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

I held up my palm to stop the fight. “It’s Kiara.”

Remo frowned. “Is it because of yesterday?”

“Yesterday?”

Confusion showed on Remo’s face. “She asked me to train with her, had me chase her through the house.”

Kiara was getting more confident. It was reassuring to know that she was really taking her fight training seriously. “I assume it’s because she wants to be able to defend future children.”

Remo narrowed his eyes and leaned back against the mesh. “So, is she pregnant?”

“Not yet. She’ll stop taking the pill in January.”

“She told me she wants kids.”

My eyebrows rose. “She talked to you?”

He shrugged. “I got the feeling she was worried if I’d be okay with kids in the mansion.”

I looked at my brother, the scar on his face and his forearms. Scars from defending me and our brothers against our mother. Then the scars on the rest of his body, many he suffered in the time we were in hiding, fights that put food on our table. “And are you?”

He gave me a wry smile, which I returned.

“If anyone can be a good mother, then it’s Kiara,” he said. “She’s like a fucking mother hen, even to me.” He shook his head.

Kiara loved taking care of others. “Our children will be lucky to have her as a mother.”

“You’ll be a good father, too. Even when you didn’t feel a fucking thing, you managed to raise Adamo and Savio with me, and look how well they turned out, the little shits.” He grinned twistedly. “The house is big enough even if you decide to have ten kids.”

“Maybe you’ll have kids at some point as well?”

Remo’s face shut down. “No, I don’t have the necessary patience for a woman. I’m better off fucking whores.”

I narrowed my eyes at him in thought. We both knew there was a woman he couldn’t forget. Bringing her up would have led to a disagreement I wasn’t in the mood for.

Remo pushed away from the cage. “What about that fight you promised me?”

I prepared my tattoo machine in one of Savio’s vacant rooms, not wanting Kiara to overhear the sound of the needle.

When everything was in its place, I sat down and propped my left arm up on the table in front of me and turned on the machine. Savio leaned in the doorway and watched in silence as I began to outline Kiara’s name on my wrist over the scars and amidst the flames, then added a few music notes before I started filling each letter with ink.

“I never thought you could care about a girl,” Savio said. “And now you’re tattooing a name into your skin.”

I briefly glanced up from my work. “I don’t think it would have come this far with any woman but Kiara. She’s …” I couldn’t even find the right word to describe Kiara properly, and I was rarely rendered speechless.

“Yeah,” Savio murmured. “That girl makes it fucking hard to dislike her, and I put so much effort into it in the beginning. All for nothing.” He flashed me a grin. “She’s the only girl I talk to more than a few sentences without getting at least a blow job as reward.”

I cocked an eyebrow.

“Jealous?” he asked.

“Jealousy requires an aspect of insecurity. I know Kiara is only mine.”

“And people call me arrogant.”

Sighing, I returned to the task.

“I’ve been thinking about getting another tattoo.”

“Not a girl’s name, I assume,” I said dryly.

Savio scoffed. “The girl that puts a leash on me hasn’t been born yet.”

“What kind of tattoo do you have in mind?”

Savio grinned. “A bull’s head.”

“Where?” I asked suspiciously. Knowing Savio, I had a good guess where he’d want that kind of tattoo.

One corner of Savio’s mouth curled.