Page 148

Deacon’s eyes turned cold.

He sat up in bed, snatched the device from my palm, his broad shoulders locking into a rigid line.

‘Listen to me, you insecure prick,’ Deke snarled into the microphone, his deep voice vibrating with fury. ‘Just because you’re a cheating scumbag doesn’t mean the rest of the world operates like you. Ana is a woman of honor. She wouldn’t even touch me when she was with you out of respect for your marriage, so don’t you dare label her as the trash you are. Don’t bring her down to your gutter level.’

‘Yet she’s in bed with you right now, I imagine,’ Max sneered from the speaker.

‘None of your freakin’ business, Massimo,’ Deacon barked. ‘You signed the papers. You let her go. Your loss, my friend.’

The phone speaker crackled as Max’s desperate, shrill voice cut through the air.

‘You think you’ve won?’ he sneered, his breath hitching over the line. ‘I won’t back down, especially now that I know you’re back together, perhaps sleeping together all along, even when you gave me a hard time about disciplining your son. I’ve a mind to call Child Protective Services in Tennessee. Perhaps I’ll tell them Deacon keeps loaded firearms in his house where Raff sleeps and is surrounded by drugs, weapons, and pure negligence.’

Beside me, Deacon went motionless.

The air in the room seemed to plummet as Deacon’s jaw locked and his body coiled tight. The Glock in his lock box was strictly for home defense, fully licensed and tucked away, but Massimo didn’t care about facts.

He wanted blood.

‘You try sharing those fucking lies about me, and I will ruin you,’ Deacon murmured, his timbre lethal, sending dread crawling all over me. ‘You won’t work a day in America or Europe!’

A brief pause hung on the line before Massimo let out a weak, shaky scoff. ‘Sì? How will you ensure that?’

‘You forget, my friend, that I have access to the Knight family at Knight & King,’ Deacon growled. ‘Our management agency runs the biggest, most influential talent and entertainment conglomerate in the world. Breathe one word to CPS, and you’ll find every one of your cushy contracts disappearing. You won’t get a role ever again, no financing, no agent will want to touch you, and in under a year, you’ll be begging on the street!’

Deacon sneered as he moved in for the kill.

‘I also happen to know, because I researched you, you arrogant fucker, that you have a hidden criminal record back in Italy,’ he snarled. ‘You stole money from a businessman you befriended. When you got caught, you borrowed from the syndicate to avoid a prison sentence and repay your victim. You covered up the crime, and you’ve acted for free in movies for years to pay off your debt. That’s why you live in a rented townhouse in Milan instead of owning a grand estate. You act like you’ve got real money, but it’s all a pathetic show. That hidden criminal history will be made known to the whole freakin’ world, so go on, try me.’

I stared at Deacon, stunned, my heart hammering.

‘How do you know all this?’

He turned to me, chest heaving.

‘You think I didn’t have him checked out?’ my man said, his eyes still flashing. ‘When our son was under the same roof as him? While my woman was with him? What do you take me for?’

This man.

Deacon shook his head, turning his fury back to the speaker.

‘So what’s it going to be, fucker? You try to ruin my life, or I annihilate yours?’

A long silence stretched across the line before the man on the other end broke.

‘Vaffanculo!’ Max muttered, his voice hollow and defeated, spitting bitter Italian curses.

‘Use your words, Massimo,’ Deacon demanded. ‘I want to hear you say it. Will you drop this bullshit now?’

‘Sì. I will drop it,’ Max gritted, spitting a string of bitter Italian curses under his breath.

The line went dead.

Deacon tossed the phone onto the nightstand and smirked. ‘That’s right, run, coward, run.’

He turned his gleaming eyes toward me, his glare unmistakable.

‘You are never to see that bastard again,’ he grated.