Novels by Odessa Blue

LEONThe moment I jerk awake, I know something is wrong.First, my head is pounding. The terrible ache makes it almost impossible to open my eyes, but I do, equally forcing myself to stand from the sofa.The second thing I notice is that my legs take a second longer than they should to cooperate. I brace myself against the armrest and wait for the room to stop spinning. The apartment is dark except for the city light coming in through the curtains.Thirdly, the house is quiet. It always is, considering there are just two of us living here, but something about this particular silence makes my back stiffen.My hand goes to my waistband out of habit, my fingers closing around the gun I always keep there, and I step forward and try to remember how I ended up asleep on the sofa. My neck aches from the angle my head had fallen asleep in, and my body feels unnaturally heavy.I look at my watch. It’s a few minutes past midnight.Without thinking, I move to Gabriella's side of the apartment.I

GABRIELLAThe bass hits me before anything else does. The music is thumping and the disco is dizzying. Lisa's hand tightens around mine as she pulls me into the crowd.I've been to parties before, if you count Papa’s exquisite dinners where I had to watch from my bedroom window.This is vastly different from those formal events. There are bodies everywhere. Some are dancing, some are doing…other things in the dim corners of the floor, pressed up against walls and each other in corners where the lights are low enough, and none of them seems to care who's watching. Smoke hangs in the air, sweet and heavy, and I have to fight the urge to cough or press my hand to my nose. I don't want to look like what I am.A girl who's never been to a real party in her life.Lisa weaves through the crowd like she's done this a hundred times, and maybe she has, and I follow with my fingers locked around hers, my heart thumping in rhythm with the music.We reach a table near the back where the lighting

GABRIELLAThe pills are in my apron pocket, and every time I move, I feel that small weight against my hip. It’s not physically heavy, but the potency of what I’m about to do makes it so. Nicole folded them into a tissue and pressed it into my palm outside the studio after class today, calm as anything, like she was handing me a stick of gum. ‘Put it in his drink, not his food,’ she’d warned.I nodded and shoved it in my jacket pocket and didn't look at it again until tonight when I slipped it into my apron pocket.I turn back to the cutting board. The recipe on my phone says "finely diced," and what I've produced after ten minutes looks more like a battleground. My eyes are watering, and I tell myself it's only because of the onion, even though I know my hands are shaking for another reason entirely.In two hours I'm going to do something I can't take back, something that could possibly go wrong.When Nicole handed me the pills, I wanted to back down. I wanted to tell her I was not

GABRIELLAThe music cuts out for the fourth time in twenty minutes."Again," Instructor Reyes says from the center of the studio, and no one in the room breathes.We reset our positions. I roll my shoulders, trying to shake out the tension that has been building since the second run-through. The overhead lights in the department dance studio are unforgiving at this hour, and the mirrors lining the far wall give us nowhere to hide. Every mistake in one’s movement or position is right there to be seen by everyone, including yourself.The music starts again.We get through the first sequence cleanly, then the second. When we reach the lift combination in the third movement, the one that has been destroying us all week, we all hesitate before moving forward.My partner's hands find my waist, and I go up, but when I come down, my movement is slightly off-axis, and the whole formation on my side lands in the same graceless manner.Instructor Reyes raises a hand. The music stops and heavy si

GABRIELLANice.I turn the word over in my head the entire ride home, sitting in the back seat with my arms crossed and my jaw tight.‘I was nice enough to, but don’t expect it all the time.’I scoff internally. If this is him being nice, then I genuinely don't want to know what the alternative looks like. My mind drifts, unhelpfully, to the other night. To his voice dropping an octave, to the warm press of his hand against my throat. Be very careful about the things you say to me. You wouldn't want to see me truly angry.If that wasn't anger, then what was his anger truly like?What is he actually capable of when he stops holding back?And why does my curiosity about him grow by the second?I shift in my seat and look out the window, watching the city blur past. My neck still feels warm. It's been days. Days since he touched me, days since I stood there like an idiot with nothing to say, and my skin still remembers it like a fresh burn. I reach up and press two fingers to the side o

LEONMy hand won't stop shaking.The tremor is faint, but I feel it all the way up my arm and down the rest of my body.I had her throat in my hand.Two thoughts hit me at once, and they've been circling my head ever since I walked away from her.The first: how easy it would have been to kill her.The second: how impossible it would have been to kill her.Fuck! I couldn't even press hard enough to leave a mark. The thought of choking her, of actually hurting her, felt like trying to breathe underwater. My hand just… refused. My whole body refused. And that terrifies me more than anything else about tonight.I immediately drop to the floor and start doing push-ups. There is an inbuilt gym in the penthouse beside Gabriella’s studio, but I don’t feel like leaving the room right now. If I mistakenly stumble across her, I don’t know how I’ll react. I move to the weights I keep in the corner of my bed, lifting them and going at them until my muscles burn, my lungs ache, and there's nothing

CHAPTER ONE HUNDREDEPILOGUE (Eight Months Later)ARIA“Maximo,” Dr. Marini said, adjusting her glasses as she peered at him from across the table. “We’ve talked about this. You can’t solve everything with threats.”Maximo, sitting beside me in a perfectly tailored suit, crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t threaten,” he said smoothly. “I give options. It’s not my fault people don’t like the consequences of the second one.”I stifled a laugh, earning a sharp look from Dr. Marini. She was one hell of a woman. Soft when she needed to be, but also scary nonetheless. It was why she was the only woman in the Cosa Nostra who could call my husband by his first name. I still wasn’t sure how I should feel about that.“Aria,” she turned her attention to me, “how do you feel when Maximo behaves this way?”“Honestly?” I said, tilting my head. “It depends. Sometimes, it can be infuriating..."“I didn’t even do anything,” Maximo grumbled beside me. “Do you know what other dons do

CHAPTER NINETY-NINEARIAThe sting in my hand was nothing compared to the ache in my chest. Maximo stood frozen for a moment, his cheek reddening from where my palm had connected. And then, to my utter disbelief, he laughed—a low, bitter sound that rumbled deep in his chest.“Wow. And here I was thinking you would be happy I’m offering you an easy way out,” he murmured.An angry snarl slipped past my lips as my hand shot up again, ready to slap him a second time. But before I could bring my hand down on his cheek again, he caught my wrist in midair. His grip was firm but not rough, and despite everything, a small, pathetic part of me was happy that he was touching me again.Piercing, grey eyes bored into mine with a mix of frustration and something else I couldn’t quite place.“Aria,” he said sharply, his voice edged with irritation, “I thought you’d be pleased.”“Pleased?” I yelled, my voice rising as tears burned in my eyes. I wrenched my hand free from his grasp, glaring at him th

CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHTARIAIt had been five days. Five days since Maximo killed Lorenzo. Five days since Maximo last spoke to me or looked at me.The house felt colder than usual, and the silence pressed down on me like a suffocating blanket. I’d spent the entire day trying to distract myself from the ache in my chest, but nothing worked.I had tried cleaning the kitchen even though everything was already spotless, scrubbing every surface until my hands were raw. Maria panicked when she saw me, and when she tried to shoo me away from the kitchen, I reminded her that I was her boss’s wife. I did it a little too harshly, I’ll admit, but I’ve been on an uncomfortable edge ever since.I prepared lunch with the rest of the kitchen staff. At first, there was an uncomfortable silence due to my presence in the room. But after I urged them to ignore my presence, a soft conversation amongst the maids followed, and I drowned myself in the city gossip I never knew could distract me.By mid-afterno

CHAPTER NINETY-SEVENMAXIMOA sharp scream pierced the room as Aria crouched to the floor. My heartbeat thudded in my ears as Lorenzo’s head snapped back, crimson blood staining the wall behind him as his body crumpled to the floor.Silence followed, but it was so loud that it felt like a roar.I stared at the lifeless heap on the ground, at the way his blood—my blood—pooled beneath him. My hand stayed clenched around my gun, trembling as I tried to make sense of what was in front of me. The pure rage that had driven me seconds ago evaporated. It was now replaced by a hollowness that spread through my chest like poison.I did it. I killed my brother.The realization ripped through my chest, leaving behind a void so vast that it threatened to swallow me whole. Lorenzo’s face was frozen in a blank state. I stared at his once-sharp features—features that were almost identical to mine—and the slack and lifeless face stared back at me. His eyes—eyes that used to glint with mischief, love,

CHAPTER NINETY-SIXMAXIMOI stood there, gun in hand, staring at my brother as his smirk spread and his mocking laughter echoed around the room. It wasn’t the laugh of someone remorseful or regretful. It was the sound of someone who had nothing left to lose.“You’ll have to be more specific,” I said through clenched teeth. “What exactly did you mean when you said you’ve been behind everything?”Lorenzo tilted his head, his smirk widening. “Do you really want me to go into detail? Are you sure your heart would be able to handle it?” He asked with a mocking pout.My anger burned hotter in my chest, and I tightened my grip on my gun. “Start talking.”“Fine,” he huffed, but then his eyes glinted with malice as he began to speak. “Do you remember when we were boys? How I did everything right? I trained harder, studied more, followed all the rules of the Cosa Nostra, and yet..." He waved a hand as his voice took on a bitter edge. “Yet you—the reckless, weak son—were chosen to lead.”“Yo

CHAPTER NINETY-FIVEMAXIMOI couldn’t wrap my mind around what Aria had just said. Her words echoed in my mind, loud and jarring like a bullet through the air. It didn’t make sense. It couldn’t be true.“I don’t believe you,” I finally said, and I saw the way her eyes fell.“I’m telling the truth, Maximo. What will I gain by lying about this?”I gritted my teeth and stepped away from her, needing to clear my head. The woman I loved just told me that my own blood brother, whom I’ve known my whole life, is planning to have us killed. What the fuck was I supposed to make of that?She took a step towards me, and I raised my head to look at her again. My eyes narrowed at her as I tried to understand if she was lying, if she had misheard something, if this was some kind of sick joke. “Have I ever done anything to break your trust?” She asked, and I could hear the hurt in her voice. The fear in her eyes and the slight wavering in her voice were too raw to be fake.“Are you sure?” My voice