It would shatter what little honor I had left. People would start asking if the child was mine. And worse, how the fuck I could’ve been so blind. That the whore I once called my wife had been fucking my cousin right under my nose and got pregnant without me even knowing.
The thought was unbearable.
I stood up so fast my chair screeched across the floor, and I hurled my scotch glass against the wall. It exploded into shards, the sound slicing through the silence like a gunshot. Noah rose too, his hands raised, trying to calm me.
“No one in America has this information,” he said carefully. “The nurse is clean. She has no idea who Lucia really is, and she’s not suicidal enough to talk. Tony’s kept it under wraps this long, which means he doesn’t want it to leak. That leaves you and Maxim as the only ones who know.”
I smirked. “And that’s supposed to make me feel better? Nobody knowing would change what happened? Would it erase what that whore and that bastard did?”
My voice rose, slicing through the tension. “Would it wash off the shit they smeared on my name?”
I stepped closer to Noah, locking eyes with him. “If you really want to repay me, go back to the States. Find those two and bring them back to me alive, so I can burn them myself.”
He stared at me for a moment then nodded in silence. Maxim stepped forward, placing a firm hand on his shoulder. “The Bruni family will never forget what you’ve done for us. We stand behind you, Noah.”
Noah nodded again, then turned to me. “I’ll find them. Both of them. That’s a promise.”
He walked out without another word. Maxim followed, leaving me alone with the chaos building inside me.
I grabbed the bottle of scotch and tilted it back, swallowing mouthful after mouthful. The burn didn’t help. My rage kept climbing, boiling under my skin. My gaze swept the room, then I snapped. With a roar, I hurled the bottle at the glass doors. It shattered in a rain of splinters.
But it wasn’t enough.
I tore through the room like a storm, overturning chairs, flipping tables, ripping shelves apart, smashing anything in reach. Books, lamps, glass, none of it mattered. All of it fell under my wrath. And when there was nothing left to destroy, I stormed out, blood pounding in my ears, my mind a red haze of vengeance. Outside the room, Maxim and Lorenzo were standing guard.
“Set up a death match for me tomorrow night,” I barked at them then headed to the gym.
As I turned the hallway corner, Giorgio appeared, holding Emily’s hand. The shock on their faces, the way she looked at him like he was her protector, it all blurred into rage. My brain didn’t bother with logic. It leapt straight into fire. The next second, Giorgio was in a chokehold.
I didn’t even remember closing the distance. When I snapped back to reality, I realized I was killing him, and if Emily hadn’t thrown herself between us, I’d have finished the job without a second thought.
Deep down, I knew those two hadn’t crossed any line, but it didn’t matter. I just needed an outlet for the fury boiling inside me, someone to bleed it out on.
My eyes locked on Emily, and the rage twisted into something darker, hungrier, a raw, gnawing need to claim her entirely, body and soul. Like a predator fixated on its prey, nothing else existed, I burned with the urge to possess her, to scour every trace of another man from her mind until only I remained.
The struggle that followed was a blur, but when I finally pinned her down, I devoured her like a beast unchained, savage and unrelenting. I was determined to take her, it felt like the only way to quiet the chaos exploding inside my skull.
But the moment I heard her voice telling me to stop, everything inside me froze. What the hell was I doing?
What was I about to do to a girl who hadn’t done a damn thing to deserve this?
I stopped immediately. But it didn’t matter. The damage was already done.
That’s when I realized Emily’s body had gone stiff, like a piece of wood. Her arms hung limply at her sides, wrists bent at odd angles. Her breathing sounded like someone who’d been held underwater for minutes and was now struggling to drag air back into her lungs.
Panic tore through me as I turned her over. Her pupils had rolled so far back that the whites of her eyes were showing, and in that moment, I felt something I’d never felt before in my life. The feeling of losing everything.
“Maxim!” I roared in panic.
He must’ve been nearby, because he burst into the room almost instantly. The moment he saw Emily like that, he rushed to the desk inside the library and grabbed something, a crumpled brown bag.
Kneeling beside her, he tilted her head gently and pressed the bag over her mouth. I stood rigid, still kneeling, pants undone, useless and paralyzed. Stunned by the monster I’d seen in myself.
Her chest heaved under the bag, but after a few seconds her breathing slowed, steady, soft. When her eyes finally closed, Maxim removed the bag. I was still sitting on the floor, my cock hanging out of my pants.
My voice wavered. “Is she… dead?”
Maxim didn’t even glance down as he gently pulled her gym shorts back into place. “No, boss. Don’t worry. It was a panic attack. I already called the doctor. He’ll be here in a few minutes.”
