Page 38 of Runaway Queen

She scowled at me and then turned her attention to her keys. She slid the key into the ignition and turned it. Nothing happened. A chuckle left me.

“This car is a real piece of shit, you know that? Antonio De Sanctis doesn’t care about his only daughter riding around in this death trap.”

“My father has nothing to do with my life.”

“Clearly.”

On the third attempt, her engine turned over, and she pulled out. The lot was packed, but no one looked in the car as she drove slowly through the crowd.

“Have you seen Kirill? I wonder what he’d think of what you’re doing.” She took a shot, and I appreciated the effort, but she clearly had no idea how my brother had wooed his wife.

“Not yet. He has children, you know. Two of them. I haven’t met them. I can’t be trusted around kids, or his wife, apparently.”

“Why?” She seemed to turn even paler.

“I wasn’t a good boy in jail. Chances are that Kirill thinks I’m too unhinged. Too violent.”

“Is he right?”

I bared my teeth at her. It could have been a smile, but it wasn’t. “What do you think?”

She tore her gaze from me and focused on the road. Her hands were clenched tightly on the wheel. “So, where are we going? I’m not taking you to my house.”

“How rude. Your hostess skills really need work, prom queen. Turn right up here.”

She shot me a look that was half worried, half pissed off, but followed my command. We drove through the little town she had settled in. The ring on her finger caught my attention, winking in the late afternoon sun.

“Are you married?” No one had come home to save her from me last night, so I thought it unlikely.

“No.”

“Have you ever been?”

“No.”

“You better not be lying, prom queen. I’ll find out if you are. It would be easier for us both if you told the truth and gave me his name. Save me the trouble of hunting him down myself. I’ll only be angrier then, and he won’t go peacefully to the afterlife.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Yes. I am,” I stated flatly. “You wanted to speak last night… now’s your chance. Tell me your excuses.”

She hesitated. She was thinking so hard, I could practically hear it. It drove me crazy that she was full of secrets and I had no way to pry them out of her. If I couldn’t threaten them out, or scare them out; I had no idea how to find out what had really happened in the past. Had her father threatened her? Had she just decided to make a clean break from all the devilish men in her life, and my name was on the list? Had she stopped loving me? Had she ever really loved me in the first place?

She was silent so long, I knew I wouldn’t get my answers right now.

“You’ve nothing to say? Last night you seemed desperate to speak… changed your mind after that little game in the woods?”

She stayed mulishly silent. If I knew Sofia at all, and I did, I knew she could be stubborn as fuck. It used to be endearing. Now I wanted to strangle her.

“Pull over here,” I instructed.

She did, turning on her blinker. We stopped just off the road.

I stared straight ahead, flipping my butterfly knife around in my hand, playing with it. She watched me, her body rigid with tension.

“Now’s your chance. I won’t stop you.” I nodded to the squat, one-story building across the street.

Cop cars were parked outside the precinct, and a few boys in blue were hanging out on the front steps, talking.

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