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My eyes widen. “Where?!”

Damiano eyes me coolly. “Team?”

I want to say no so badly. But Lester DiPapas is such a massive piece of shit that I might be willing to say yes if it meant covering him in super glue and fire ants or maybe shoving a concussion grenade up his ass and pulling the pin.

Fuck it.

“Team,” I mutter.

Damiano nods and sticks out his hand. I take it, carefully ignoring how freaking strong his big, thick fingers are.

“I’ll pick you up at the front gates at eight pm.”

I smirk. “It’s a date.”

“It’s not.”

He neatly packs up his books and papers and files them in order in his bag, like a fucking psycho.

“It’s kind of a date.”

Damiano shoots me a look and turns to walk away.

“I mean, we’re married,” I sigh. “And you’ve seen my tits! So…totally a date.”

“Not a date,” he growls over his shoulder as he leaves.

I glance at the time. Shit, I need to get going. I’ve got class, then some prep work to do, and I told Galina I’d meet her downtown for boba tea. After that, I need to get back here and get ready.

After all…

I’ve got a date.

15

DAMIANO

I don’t typically feel guilt.

I mean, okay. When I snatched Cenzo’s popsicle in Bryant Park when we were kids and he started bawling, I felt…not guilty, per se…but I didn’t like the sounds he was making, and I didn’t like that it appeared he was in pain and that I was arguably the cause of it.

A few years later, when dad found me standing over the dead squirrel in our backyard cleaving it in half with a garden shovel, I also felt bad, but only because of the look of pure horror and alarm he gave me.

I’m well aware that killing animals is usually the first sign of psychopathy in children. And yes, I did kill that squirrel with that shovel. But what Sofia, who was five at the time, was finally able to tell Dad was that the squirrel had been “walking funny and scaring her with all the toothpaste in his mouth.”

He’d been rabid, and when I saw him coming toward my little sister, I just…acted, I guess.

Again, I didn’t feel guilty. But I was aware that I wasn’t meant to be the cause of my parents looking at me the way they did, even after they knew the rabies part.

The closest I’ve really felt to guilt was on the day I took my first human life, but not for the reasons you’d assume.

I was eleven. Cenzo and I were out in the city late with Mom. Dad always made sure we had some of his men with us when we went out. But that night, the three of us purposefully ditched them to “have an adventure”.

It was dark and we were cutting through Central Park when the man with the knife stepped out of the trees. He told us not to be scared, he just wanted Mom’s purse and jewelry. But then he kept looking at her with a glint in his eyes I didn’t like. Kept smiling at her. Licking his lips.

When he told Cenzo and I to “run on home“ because he and our mom “had a date“, I just…acted. Like he was that squirrel foaming at the mouth.

I grabbed mom’s phone out of her hand as she was handing it over, slammed the metal edge of its case into his balls, then smashed it into his face as hard as I could.