As if none of this had anything to do with him. He tugged the cuff of his left sleeve down over his wrist, a gesture so small and so automatic that only someone who had watched him for eighteen years would catch it. I caught it. I always caught it.
Then his gaze shifted, catching sight of someone pushing through the crowd. A tall man in a sharply tailored navy suit, moving quickly toward us. The soldiers near the door hadn't stopped him. No one had stopped him. He moved through that room the way only a man with his own army at his back could move through another family's territory: without permission and without apology.
"Lorenzo Marchetti?" Nico narrowed his eyes, clearly annoyed. "What the hell are you doing here? Don't tell me you're interested in Seraphina now. She's not exactly in demand anymore."
Lorenzo and Nico had come from the same place. The same dirt-poor fishing village on the southern coast, the same nothing beginnings. Back then, Nico had always looked down on him, mocking him, calling him a nobody, a peasant who would never amount to anything.
Lorenzo simply offered a calm, polite smile. Cool. Controlled.
He didn't even bother looking at Nico.