Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77066 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77066 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
I immediately pull my eyes away and look at Marcello. “I was thinking about a joke I heard on the radio earlier.”
The lie comes easily, but I’ve become an expert at covering my ass in recent years.
“Yeah?” He grins in a way that tells me he knows I’m full of shit. “Tell me.”
I swallow, racking my brain for something, anything, to try and make him believe me.
“What do you call a pig that does karate?”
He blinks at me, but I’m committed now as I smile, praying my eyes sparkle with humor.
“A pork chop.” I chuckle, hoping he can see the laughter rather than hear it. He’d know how scared I am right now, not just for me, but the man he thinks I was staring at while imagining the death and destruction of his family.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” he says, but there’s a quick curl of his lip.
If I didn’t know him, I’d think he was trying not to laugh, that he honestly thought I was cute, but he’s in a dangerous situation and can’t appear at all vulnerable. Of course, I know better. I know the kind of monster that he is.
The dead look in his eyes when Alessio grabs his attention makes me wonder about my fate. Eventually, Marcello is going to have enough of being second. Although he smiled and shook Fernando’s hand when he was introduced as the younger Severino brother, he sat beside me simmering, probably thinking of all the ways he could kill Alessio and become the heir. It’s going to happen eventually. I don’t know how soon. I don’t know if Marcello will wait until Lucian dies and take leadership from his brother, or if he will kill the family’s heir and then wait patiently to come into power. I can only hope that I’ll be either married to Alessio by then or already dead. My marriage will guarantee I won’t have to spend my life with the younger brother, but I have no doubt my betrothal will move to Marcello if Alessio dies before we say our vows. There’s a very good chance that I won’t last too much longer after my father, after those words are spoken before God and our families.
They have fun taunting and torturing me now, but it’s my mother’s money they’re after. Until his death, my father has control of it.
I tug at the hem of my slinky dress as Marcello stands up to listen to whatever it is that Alessio is telling him. I make a point not to make eye contact with anyone, knowing Alessio is watching me as he speaks to his brother.
It isn’t long before Marcello stalks back to me, and, playing my part, I smile up at him as he towers over me, my heart racing when he jerks me up to stand.
My pulse pounds in my ears because he normally wouldn’t let his anger show so easily in public, especially not with it directed at me. I want to look back at Alessio and beg him for help, as Marcello leads me from the VIP area, but I know the man won’t help. He doesn’t know what Marcello makes me do. He only smiles when he sees his brother’s mistreatment of me. Although neither has left lasting scars, it’s not uncommon for either of them to strike me in the face or lead me around with a brutal grip like the one Marcello is using on my upper arm as he guides me out of the club.
My dress sticks to me the second we step out into the Monterrey humidity. It’s weird to leave a strange place with no one but Marcello. Protocol would have at least one of the other guards staying close, but the man leaving bruises on my skin right now balks protocol regularly. He couldn’t have witnesses to what he does. He’d never risk it getting back to Alessio until he’s ready to use the confession against his brother.
Despite his grip on my arm, I can already feel his fingers in my hair.
I don’t fight him as he opens the door to the SUV and waits for me to climb inside. I watch him as he looks around. He’s looking to see if he’s being set up by his brother. He doesn’t trust the man, and that has more to do with his own betrayals than anything Alessio has done. The older brother is completely blind to the bone-deep hatred Marcello has for him, and Marcello is too damn egotistical to think that anyone other than Alessio will come after him. It also proves that what I’m already thinking will happen is what he’s planning.
I could argue and beg, but I’ve tried that in the past. It only made things worse.
How the man knows where he’s going without GPS is beyond me, but he doesn’t pull up a map as he drives through the streets of Monterrey. I know better than to get my hopes up about the beach. The city is land-locked, not even close to a beach, but of course that’s not the information Marcello provided when he came into my bedroom uninvited this morning.