“I don’t care!” The admission echoes in the room. “I don’t care if he was forced or threatened or desperate. All I care about is that Marco is dead and someone has to pay for it.” I shove a finger in her face. “You’rethat payment, Giuliana.You’rethe price your father owes for taking the only person who ever mattered to me.”
Her face goes pale, but her eyes blaze with indignation. “So you’re not even pretending this is about justice anymore. You’rejust a jackass who destroys innocent people to fill the emptiness inside you.”
“Enough.” The word comes out roughly, my throat raw from the yelling and screaming. “Don’t you presume to understand my grief or judge my methods.”
“Why not?” She moves closer to me again and the air is charged with electricity. “You’ve judged me guilty for my father’s sins. You’ve sentenced me to this nightmare without trial, without mercy, without caring that I never hurt anyone. You’re no better than the men who killed Marco. You’re just another criminal who thinks violence solves everything!”
My control is rapidly slipping “Careful,cara,” I say mockingly. “You’re treading dangerously close to a line you don’t want to cross.”
“Or what?” She’s in my face now, all five-foot-four inches of her facing down six-foot-two of barely controlled rage. The smell of her perfume and shampoo makes my head spin. “You’ll hurt me? Destroy me? You’ve already done that! There’s nothing left for you to take!”
“You have no idea what I could take from you,” I respond, my voice low.
“Then do it!” She shoves against my chest, hard enough that I rock back on my heels. “Stop pretending this elaborate revenge is about justice and just admit you’re a monstrous piece of shit who?—”
I grab her wrists before she can shove me again. Suddenly we’re frozen—her hands trapped in mine, both of us breathing hard, fury and something darker crackling in the air between us.
“You’re right,” I say, my voice rough. “I am a monster. But you already knew that.”
“I hate you,” she whispers, but her eyes drop to my mouth.
“I know.” My grip on her wrists tightens. “But that doesn’t change anything between us, does it?”
Her eyes flash. “There’snothingbetween us?—”
I kiss her to shut her up, to stop the words that are cutting too close to truths I’m not ready to face.
Or maybe I kiss her because I’ve been wanting to since I saw her in that goddamn blue dress nearly two weeks ago, looking like temptation.
Or maybe it’s because every other man in that ballroom looked at her and I need to remind both of us who she belongs to.
She makes a sound against my mouth—protest or surrender, I can’t tell—and then she’s kissing me back with the same fury she brought to our argument.
Her hands, freed from my grip, tangle in my hair and pull hard enough to hurt.
I back her against the nearest wall, my hands fisting in her t-shirt, and this isn’t gentle or romantic or anything resembling affection.
This is rage and possession and three years of grief finding an outlet.
When we finally break apart, both breathing hard, I see my own confusion reflected in her eyes.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Noneof this was supposed to happen.
“Luca,” she starts, but I silence her with another kiss, rougher this time.
I can’t think.
I can’t process what’s happening or what it means.
All I know is that I need to possess her, to claim her, to make her yield in ways that have nothing to do with my carefully calculated revenge plan and everything to do with this…thisneedburning in my chest.
I push her toward the bed, and when the backs of her knees hit the mattress, she falls.
I follow her down, but the bed is too comfortable, too much like something she might want.
I pull her up and press her against the wall instead, making her stand, making her feel the hard surface against her back.
