Page 58 of Cardinal House
His black on black slacks and shirt, shined dress shoes, polished belt buckle. His appearance perfect in every way.
Mostly, I am his opposite. My chin-length, straight, black hair is scraped back with my fingers, tied in a bun at the crown of my head. There’s a spliff tucked behind my ear, my chest is bare, and I wear loose gym shorts on my legs, feet bare.
Normally, I’d be going for a run now. Follow it up with weights in the small room I use as a gym, even if one of my brother’s had stayed the night before like Thorne, but I don’t want to stray too far this morning.
Having Luna in my bed for the first time last night was like a fucking dream. I almost feel weightless this morning. Floating on a cloud.
“We are having an engagement party,” Thorne announces as I slump into the old rocking chair beside the wicker armchair in which he sits. “On the seventeenth.” Looking up from his phone, he peers over the top of the thick framed, black, reading glasses he wears on his nose, flicking his gaze down the raised red claw marks etched into my skin. “I want everyone there.”
“Okay.”
“It is going to be at Lucia’s. Haisley likes it there,” he explains, even though he needn’t bother, I know my future sister-in-law likes eating at that Italian. “Bring Luna.”
“Thorne,” I caution.
Not because I don’t want to take Luna out.
Last night was a big risk. One I’m going to have to explain momentarily to my brother, because he’s the boss, but taking her out to a restaurant owned by Vito Gambino, the Italian Don himself. After assaulting one of his drivers right outside his own bar, feels like pushing it a little. Especially considering we could bump into literally anyone that knows Luna, and we won’t know it.
Neither will she.
“I know the risks, the entire family will be there. There are far more of us than there is one Nolan Nicholas Beaumont.” My elder brother scoffs as he says it, returning his gaze back to his phone, just like our father does.
Taking the joint from behind my ear, I slip it between my lips and light it with the lighter always left out here beside the ashtray.
“I left a body in the bushes outside of his house last night,” I say on an exhale, smoke billowing out of my nostrils.
My gaze on the orange-pink sky, I scratch at the lumpy, red scar over my heart and think of Luna’s teeth sinking into it in the middle of the night. She swung her legs across my hips and sunk herself down onto my cock before even waking me up, I nutted in three minutes flat.
Not that I’m complaining.
Thorne sighs heavily, removing his glasses from his face and twiddling the arm of them between his finger and thumb, his elbow resting on the arm of the wicker chair.
“Why must you do these things at a time like this,” he says, looking out at the hills, not as a question, and definitely not to me. I think my brother finds leading this family just as exhausting as our dad does. “You are a disposals expert, Wolf, why on earth would you leave the body there?”
I shrug, the joint hanging on my bottom lip as I lean my head back against the wood of the chair, rocking it back and forth with a creak, “It’s only the shoulders down.”
Thorne tuts sharply, but he doesn’t sound the least bit surprised, we’re all killers in this family, some of us are just flashier about it than others.
“And the head?” he asks, another sigh of exhaustion that makes me want to laugh.
“Threw it in the furnace when we got home last night.”
“Wonderful,” he chimes sarcastically, but because he’s nothing if not well spoken, he clears his throat and purses his lips, his black eyes coming to mine. “We are dealing with enough messes right now without this, Wolf.”
“I know.”
“Then why?” he huffs, stilling the frantic twirling of his glasses, pinching them between his fingers instead.
“Luna wanted his head.”
“Luna was there?” he asks sharply, “I assumed you had both retired for the night.”
Now I’ve got his attention, “Nope.”
“Explain.” One word, and he’s about to pull his hair out, it makes me smile around the butt of the joint.
I tell him what happened, a brief version of the events, but he still frowns at me when I finish the story.