Page 14 of Cage of Thorns and Blood

She laughs. “Nah, I get stage fright.”

“You didn’t that night at karaoke.”

As soon as I have said it, I realize my mistake. Shit. She has no idea I was there.

She turns slowly in her seat and looks at me. “You were there? I’ve only done karaoke once in this country, in a bar one night. With Jilly.”

I can’t lie about it now, so I nod. “I was in the back of the bar and saw you sing. You didn’t seem nervous, and you were amazing.”

“You were there, and you didn’t come and say hello?” Hurt filters through her voice, turning it deeper.

“You were with your friends. I didn’t think you’d want to talk to me, and I had to leave. I had a meeting,” I lie.

She shrugs one shoulder and flicks her hair back. “I still would have said hello, but whatever. I wasn’t nervous singing then because it was a half-empty bar, and I’d had three vodkas.”

“Still,” I tell her, “vodkas or not, you were very good. You have an incredible voice.”

“Thank you,” she says with heartfelt sincerity in her tone. “I don’t often get the chance to show it off as Mamma thinks it is uncouth. Even if I had wanted to be a singer, can you imagine my family letting me?”

She has a point there. No way would a Mafia princess be allowed to pursue a career as a singer. It would shine a spotlight on the family that nobody would want.

“I suppose not,” I say.

“Of course not,” she says with a bitter tinge to her tone. “The same way that I couldn't be a vet, even though I loved animals so much. The same way that I've never been allowed a bike. The same way that when I was a child, and I used to wear trousers, my mother would almost faint, as if I'd done something so terribly wrong. The same way I was made to marry a man I never loved.”

The air in the car has grown heavy, and I realize we're talking about things that could lead us down a dangerous path. The land we are walking on is filled with mines, and I don't want to step on one before I've gotten her into my bed.

If I blow this up now, I might never get a chance to truly possess her.

What should worry me more is how much this bothers me. This whole thing was always meant to be about me being in control. This is my game, so why am I already unsure of the rules? After just one night sitting opposite her beautiful face in that darkly lit restaurant, and having her scent fill my car, along with her smoky voice, I'm already craving her more than any other woman I’ve ever encountered.

I’m more disturbed by the idea that I might never get her into my bed if I fuck this up than I am by the idea I won’t get my revenge. That right there should have me pulling the plug.

“You were allowed to divorce him, though, right?” I ask. I try to keep my tone casual and even, without judgment. She must surely understand, though, the fact that she was allowed to leave him is unusual for a woman in her position.

“Allowed?” She barks out a surprised laugh. “Oh no, Matteo. I wasn't allowed; I just did it. They have these things you know, they call them lawyers.”

I suppress an eye roll at the sarcasm as she carries on.

“Nobody can stop a person from going to see one, unless they literally lock you in a room. So that's what I did. I went to a lawyer and stated that I wanted a divorce. By the time my parents found out, it was practically a done deal. My husband was more than happy to get rid of me because he didn't love me either. He'd been having sex with all sorts of other people for about a year and a half, and I had the proof. He could hardly contest it. So yeah, I'm a free woman, no thanks to my family. They probably would have said no if I had gone to them for permission.”

I'm stuck on the fact that she's just told me that her husband was having sex with lots of other people. Why the hell would he do that when he had someone so gorgeous and sensual in his bed every night?

“And you had proof of him with these women?” I ask. “That's how you knew you could get the divorce so easily.”

“They weren't just women,” she says. She leaves that statement hanging in the air.

Holy fuck, so he was screwing guys as well.

I glance at her and then back at the road as I consider my next words carefully. “You know that if you'd gone to your brother with those photographs, you could have been a very wealthy widow, right?”

All Renata would have had to have done in our world is show her brother the evidence that her husband was screwing men behind her back, and Nico would have sent one of his men to dispose of him and make it look like an accident.

My cousin screws men, and I don’t give a fuck, but screwing men behind your wife’s back, when she’s the daughter of Mafia royalty is very dangerous.

“God, you men are stuck in some sort of medieval past.” She runs her fingers through her hair in an agitated manner, and I wonder what the hell I've said to upset her now. “I didn't want him dead,” she snaps. “I didn't love him, and he didn't love me, and what he did was because of that. I just wanted out of the marriage. He agreed to give me what I wanted, and I have a great divorce settlement. I don't need my family for anything if I don't want to go to them. I have money of my own now. I’m independent. So, I suppose, at the end of the day, they did me a favor by making me marry him. If they had chosen somebody else, perhaps from this life, I would have never gotten out, would I?”

“Well, if you'd married me, I wouldn't have let you leave.” The words are out before I can stop them. I should have toned that statement down quite significantly. It hangs in the air heavily between us. A punctuation mark of intent that I hope doesn't frighten off my delectable prey sitting next to me.

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