“This.” He gestures between us. “Your bullshit routine. Using men. Manipulating them with sex and food like some kind ofstrega. How many men have you pulled with this witch shit?”
“Vin.” Matti’s voice holds a warning.
“What?” Vin rounds on his brother. “You all saw it. Sweet little Sophie with her big eyes, quiet, manipulative. No one sees her coming, right?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Tommy snaps.
But Vin won’t stop. He’s a freight train hurtling at me, and I’m standing on the tracks.
A wave of sickly perfume, alcohol, and the cigarettes he said he was quitting hit me.
“Maybe you should go home,” I say softly. “Shower and come back when—”
“When what?” He steps closer, looming. “When I’m sober enough to pretend I give a fuck about you?”
I feel like the floor slips under my feet.
“I told you who I was.” His smile is cruel. “They all told you who I was. Are you really surprised? You knew this wasn’t going to last.”
“What’s happening right now, Vincenzo?” My voice barely works.
I don’t know why, but my response enrages him.
He grabs me, slams me against the wall, his hand wrapped around my throat.
Matti and Tommy shoot to their feet, on him in an instant, pulling him off me.
“Don’t fucking talk to me like that. My mother is the only woman allowed to talk to me like that.” He throws them off him and moves in close, his face inches from mine, breath reeking of whiskey. “Did you really think I’d be interested in you long-term? You’re acook, princess. I’m about to be the boss ofa family. I told you from the beginning: I’m marrying for an alliance. What the fuck did you think this was?”
Valentina’s watching with barely concealed glee. Giovanna looks ready to cry. Olivia stares at her lap. Siena is frozen, one hand on her belly, fury and helplessness warring across her face.
“So I’m no longer your queen?” I ask in Italian.
He blinks then slams his hands on the wall on either side of my head and towers over me, looking down at me with a sneer. “You never were.”
The look in his eyes, I’ve never seen it before, not even when he was being rough, degrading, using me. This is different. This is disgust. This is hate.
Matti and Tommy drag him back. Siena is screaming. Someone, Olivia maybe, puts a hand on my shoulder and ushers me away from Vin.
I can’t breathe.
Every man I’ve ever been with has treated me like this eventually. Good enough to fuck. Good enough to cook for them. Never good enough to keep. And some of them get physically aggressive, abusive. Just like this.
I swore I’d never let it happen again.
And I won’t.
47
Vin
Istare at the lease agreement, my signature still wet on the bottom line. Five years. Sixty fucking months of rent paid in full for a restaurant I’ll never walk into, for a woman I’ll never touch again.
The realtor is still talking, but I’m not listening. I’m looking at the building Sophie liked, the one with the apartment upstairs. The compromise we found together. Before I destroyed everything.
“Mr. Demonio?” The realtor shifts her weight. “Will Ms. Bellamorte be signing as well, or—”
“No.” The word comes out harder than I intend. “She doesn’t know about this yet. Send all future correspondence directly to her. I’m just handling the financials.”
