Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 125243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
I’m so focused on the pain he’ll display when I remove his sleezy hands that I don’t hear Giovanni until he’s already halfway down the stairs.
“I thought the agreement was that he had to touch her…” His voice drifts into the room before he does.
When he steps inside, he observes the space as he always does. He scans the trophies with a mix of amusement and nostalgia. More than half of them I collected while he was by my side, torturing the fool with me.
I don’t acknowledge his presence until he says, “From what I saw, he didn’t do that.”
Dizzy, I balance my thigh against the pool table, feeling unsteady on my feet.
The Carusos truly do sell the best drugs on the market.
“But he wants to.”
And that right there is where my anger stems. It’s hot in my chest and makes my hands curl into fists even when I’ve snorted enough drugs to flatline both me and my pulse.
Antonio wants Azra, and worse than that, she wants him too. Not me. Never me. I was the placeholder, a distraction. I was the man she used to get to the man she wants.
Working my jaw side to side, I stare at the space on the shelf where I’ll put Antonio’s hands. “He wants her,” I say more to myself than to Giovanni. “And she wants him too.”
My eldest brother’s eyes burn a hole in the back of my head as the mounting tension between us makes me want to smash something.
Antonio has never been more enticing.
“I thought this was what you wanted, Matteo,” Giovanni says finally, his tone cautious but edged with confusion. “Isn’t this the point of the ruse? Make Antonio jealous so he comes groveling back?”
I laugh. It sounds wrong even to my drug-fucked ears. “Yeah. Exactly. This is what I want.”
“You could try to sound a little more convincing.”
“What the fuck do you want me to say, Vanni? That I’m dying to get back to my old life? That the thought of the same pussy for eternity makes me want to cut my dick off? Tell me what you want to hear, and I’ll tell you that.”
“Tell me the fucking truth.”
“I just did!” My roar bounces off the concrete walls. “But you don’t want to hear it because you think we’re all like you. That our first love is our only love. But that isn’t true, Vanni. If it were, Ma wouldn’t be dead. She’d still be here.”
The fact that I’m as cut up about this as I am about our mother’s death shows what a pathetic idiot I am. They shouldn’t compare, but the lies coming from me tonight are the equivalent of trying to patch a bullet hole with a Band-Aid.
I’m a fucking idiot, but there’s no way I’m gonna let my brothers know I got played, that I let myself feel something I shouldn’t have, or that a woman got under my skin like no one ever has. So I keep my back turned to Vanni and my voice steady while pretending everything’s exactly how I planned it.
Giovanni doesn’t buy my lies. In the silence after my confession, I can sense his frustration that I would lie to him, but he doesn’t push me. He allows me to lie because my dishonesty affects no one but myself.
“Okay,” he says at last, his one word heavy with disbelief. “If you’re sure this is what you want.”
“I’m sure.”
I imagine his sigh sinking his shoulders since I’m not brave enough to look at him. “All right. I’ll let them know your decision.”
Finally, I turn to look at him. His expression is more menacing than any punch he’s thrown at me. Sympathy fills his eyes, and I fucking hate it. It’s worse than the anger and judgment I was expecting. It’s worse than anything.
“Them?” I ask, voice sharper than I intend.
Giovanni hesitates, then says, “Antonio is in my office, negotiating for the contract to marry Azra to be returned to him.”
For the first time tonight, the world spins how I wanted it to when I strived to lose myself to drugs.
“He’s here,” I say slowly, “in my fucking house.”
Grateful I might stop bending over and taking it up the ass from a fuckface like Antonio Adami, Giovanni nods.
That’s all it takes for my fury to boil over.
I storm up the stairwell. Blood rushes in my ears, and my anger grows with every step. I am unsure of what I plan to do when I get there. I really want to smash his face in, but I want him alive when I rip his intestines out by the tiny slit at the top of his now cut dick.
The only thing I know for sure is that I’m not letting him walk into my home and take what belongs to me.
When I reach Giovanni’s office, the tornado whirling inside me tapers to a storm.