Chasing Stars - A Midnight Mafia Novel

Chapter Twelve

He raised an eyebrow. "Sarah Mitchell?"
My stomach dropped, the churning nervousness quickly plummeting into a nearly fatal pit. I was going to throw up, literally, I was going to hurl. I nodded. My phone vibrated. Alessio glanced to it with distaste, he hated to be interrupted, and then back to me. I reached for it and was surprised to see my hands shaking as I picked it up.

That's enough for tonight. Pull back.

Too late Nash, I'd started a war and with every war, there are casualties. It would be me, or Alessio, this relationship or...well I couldn't say for certain.

"I don't believe I remember a Sarah Mitchell."

Nothing he could have possibly said would have pissed me off more. "You don't remember her?" I demanded.

"Should I?" He leaned back in his chair pursed his lips thoughtfully. I scoffed loudly. "Was she one of the girls I'd slept with before you and I?"

"Oh God." I groaned and leaned forward with my hand to my head. "You don't even remember the names of the girls you've slept with?" This was one of the things we had not discussed at all. Previous sex lives. I knew Alessio didn't date, I knew he was clean, and I knew he was very, very skillful. But neither of us had ever placed an actual number to our previous sexual experiences.

He shrugged. "It has been quite a few, most not worthy of remembering."

"As much as I'd love to go into detail about how many random floozies you've hooked up with, that's not what this is about."

He raise a brow as if to ask me what it was about without actually having to admit he needed to know just as badly as I needed him to know.

"Perhaps I can give you a little reminder of Sarah. She was, uh, about my age, year younger actually. Four of your men violently beat her and ràped her. Went to trial and all were acquitted."

He was thoughtful for a few moments. He sat silently tapping his index finger on his chin in silence. "Ah yes, I remember hearing something or other about that."

My mouth dropped open. "You heard something about it? That's it?"

He shrugged.

"You're...you're...you're..."

"What? Why are you acting like this?"

"This? This is exactly what I mean! I don't know you!" I threw my hands out my voice raised to a way I knew better than to use in public like this with Alessio but was doing so anyway. "I never would have picked you as the kind of man that let women, innocent women get rapėd!"

"Katherine."

"Oh my God. I can't even believe this." My phone vibrated again but I didn't make any move towards it. I couldn't pull my gaze from Alessio. Our relationship was under fire. I could hardly stand to sit across from him, I was disgusted.

"Katherine." It came out as a sighed.

"I can't even eat. I'm too disgusted."

"Of course you can eat."

"No! What the hell is wrong with you?"

"How old is Sarah?" He finally said sharply, obviously annoyed at having been interrupted more than once.

"Twenty-three."

"No, that's how old she was, how old is she now?"

His words didn't register. Or maybe they did and I just didn't want to accept them. "W-what?"