“Absolutely not,” I said at the same time Valentino said, “Hell no.”
Isa seemed taken aback by our outbursts. She frowned, her eyes moving from her brother to me. My lips twitched with the urge to smile. Did she think that frown was going to scare us into giving her what she wanted? There was no way in fucking hell I would ever let Isa step foot into a bar.
“Why not?” she asked.
I looked at Valentino. He should take the lead on this. It didn’t look like he knew how to answer her, or at least, didn’t know how to answer her in a way that she would find acceptable.
“Please. It’s not like I could just go to a bar by myself, like otherwomenmy age.”
She placed a lot of emphasis on the word “women,” and I got it. With the kind of family she grew up in, there wasn’t a lot of freedom for her. Not like how it was for other people. Giulia was the same way. While she understood, I knew there was a small part of her that resented that. But there was nothing I could do except take my sister out when I could, giving her some pretenseof freedom. I didn’t blame Isa for wanting the same thing. But abar?
She turned to Valentino, who still looked like he didn’t know what to say to her. He felt guilty over how little freedom she had, and Isa could see that and pounced on it. “It would be completely safe. You will be there.” She turned and looked at me briefly. “So would Elio. I just want to see how it is.”
“You know how it is,” Valentino said, shooting her a pointed look. When she was younger, Isa was known to sneak out in the middle of the night and go off to wherever the hell she wanted. She was still too fucking young, but at least she wasn’t doing that shit anymore.
I lost count of how many times Valentino and I went out searching for her in the middle of the night, in a place known as Sin City.
“And it has been a long time. When was the last time you were in a bar?” she asked.
Valentino didn’t answer her right away. He couldn’t because the answer was last week.
“Please. You won’t let anything happen to me. I will be completely safe.” She looked from Valentino to me, her eyes staying. She had the “puppy eyes” perfected, and I felt my heart pinch.
“Maybe we can go for an hour or two,” I said.
Valentino shot me a look. I raised my hands and backed away a little. He shook his head as Isa tugged on his arm. “Tino.”
He let out a small sigh. “Fine. But you are not to stray from Elio’s or my side. Got it?”
Her smile widened, and again, that fucking pinch in my heart started. Her eyes moved around from her brother to me, then back to her brother, as a mischievous glint shone in them. “Got it.”
She didn’t fucking getit.
I frowned and watched as she made her way over to the bar top. I lost count of how much she had to drink, but it was obviously more than she could handle, considering she was stumbling.
I turned to Valentino, but the fucker wasn’t focused on his sister. He was eyeing a redhead across the room. And I knew he drank more than he should have. Not enough to fuck with his judgment, but enough that he wasn’t paying as much attention to his sister as he should. My grip tightened around the neck of my beer bottle before I took a huge sip, my eyes moving back to Isa. I nearly spit out my beer when I realized she wasn’t trying to get another drink, but was attempting to climb up on the bar top, with a few encouragements from some of the fuckers around.
I stood without thinking, moving over to her. I grabbed the back collar of the fucker who was holding out his hands to help her up and yanked him back. He stumbled and nearly fell, turning his angry eyes over to me until he got a good look at my face. He relaxed his expression and held his hands out in front of him, backing away from me. The other men around caught on and, lucky for them, backed away from Isa as well.
I wrapped my arms around her hips and pulled her back down, holding her against me. She let out a surprised squeak before it turned into anger.
“Hey, let go of me.”
I leaned down until my lips touched her ear, trying hard to ignore the floral scent on her skin, and said, “Calm down. It’s me.”
She froze in my arms for a beat before twisting her head around to look at me. Our eyes met, and I didn’t fucking know why it felt like something was tugging on my heart, as if trying to get this useless organ to plummet deep down into my stomach. I took in a huge inhale and walked us back to the table.
“I can walk,” she said quietly.
“Considering I’ve been watching you stumble around this bar for the past ten minutes, I don’t think that’s true.”
She let out a small gasp in outrage, causing me to smile, before I quickly schooled my expression.
“It’s the shoes,” she said. “They’re… unstable.”
“Your shoes are unstable?” I asked, glancing down at them. She had on black tennis shoes. They looked comfortable. And very stable.
She didn’t respond.
