The words stuck in my throat, but I forced them out. “I’m keeping you alive.”
She scoffed. “No, you’ve found a way to keep me close. Tell me, Vincenzo, do you really think the drive-by shooting was an assassination attempt?”
My breath hitched. She figured it out. That devilishly clever mind worked out the logic.
An admission slipped out before I could stop it. “Every time you walk away, I—”
My voice was fucking shaking.
Rage.
Fear.
Longing.
“Just don’t,” I ground out.
Her laugh was incredulous. “Don’t what? Call out your manipulative bullshit?”
“Don’t say another word,” I warned, voice low.
Amanda never listened. The rebuttal was soft, her words velvety and packed with danger. “We’re ancient history, Enzo.”
And yet, she was the one threatening just yesterday that I shouldn’t take a mistress.
Hot and burning cold.
Brutal and terrifyingly beautiful.
How was a sinner like me to survive against such odds?
“Why are you so angry tonight?” I barked.
In the silence, my heart thumped once. Twice.Fivetimes before she spoke.
“I have to help my sister, and you’re the monster standing in my way.”
There it was, a drop of truth.Fucking finally.
I whirled around. She jumped, but I was already moving. I took another step, closing in. She scrambled away until her back hit the wall. I bent, putting our faces inches apart.
Those eyes were the deepest of blues. Two brilliant sapphires, wide and dark.
“Maybe I’m a monster because you went to my brother instead of coming to me—” I stabbed my thumb against my chest.
Amanda jolted. Her mouth popped open, but the response cracked in her throat, fracturing and fraying as the wheels of her mind turned.
“He told you,” she managed to gasp.
“You should have told me.” Those words were shards. They echoed the pain swirling in my chest.
“Why?” she scoffed. “Because we used to date? As kids?”
This woman! This infuriating goddess made flesh, whom I had no business touching, yet fought with every breath to call mine!
“You drive me insane,” I growled, words tumbling out in a rush. “You think I don’t notice every time you look at me like you want to bite? Why are you fighting this? Why put on a show for the world? You really think you can convince yourself that you don’t want me? I know you, Mandy—you ache for me.”
Because I ache for you.
