Page 17 of Bones of Revenge and Reckoning

“One day, Duncan, in the far future, when you’re least expecting it, you’ll meet a sticky end.”

He leans against the wall for support and swipes the blood across his face as he pants for breath.

“Don’t forget, friend,” I growl in his ear. “One day, when you’re least expecting it.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“No. Of course not. That would be illegal. Call it more of a premonition.” I bite down on his ear making him scream. “You will spend the rest of your miserable little life looking over your shoulder.”

“Seriously, over a girl?” He coughs and spits out some blood.

“My girl.”

“Matteo, seriously. You are with the DeLuca girl now. Renata seemed pretty pissed. I gave her a ride, and she cried, so I invited her in. We got drunk. It meant nothing.” He glances at me. “I’m sorry, okay.”

“I could be holding hands with the Queen of fucking England and Renata would still be mine. You touched what is mine. No words can take that back.”

“She’s not a thing. You don’t own her,” he shouts.

“Oh, but I do,” I say, eerily calm.

He laughs. “Dude, she’s not going to look your way ever again, so good luck with that.”

“One day she will,” I assure him. “Just as one day you’ll meet your fate.”

I turn my back on him and stagger to my car. I hear her garbled words, her pleading, her shocked begging for me to come back, to turn around.

I do neither. I don’t let myself even look at her because if I do, God knows what I might do next. .

I get in my car, and eyes resolutely ahead, I drive home.

It’s time to start building an empire.

Chapter 8

Renata

Present Day

The man staring at me from across the bar is handsome but in a boring, city boy way. I don’t do trust fund babies, and I don’t do finance bros. They are the worst in bed. Those guys don’t know how to fuck. They never had to learn because their money got them all the pussy they wanted.

I’m horny but not desperate enough to lower my standards. I should have gone to a different bar, but this one is near the house I want to buy. It was easy to pop in here for the cocktail I craved.

It’s nice being back in London. It was boring up in Scotland, and now that James is also crazy in love, it’s even more so. I used to think that maybe one day, I could get beneath his steely exterior and fuck him. He’s hot, but that’s not why I would have done it. I’d have done it to mess with Nico.

Sex is either fun for me, or a weapon. I think back to the first time I had used sex as a weapon. The time I gave myself to Duncan, Matteo Fuckface Mancini’s best friend. I’d laid very still and grit my teeth as he’d thrusted in and out of me, his hot breath against my neck. I’d pretended to enjoy it. I hadn’t. It hurt. Physically and emotionally. Afterward, Duncan became a little bit obsessed with me, and I had to get one of our family guards to scare him off in the end as I didn’t want to repeat the experience.

I’ll never forget Matteo’s face after he found me at his friend’s house. The stony façade he presented as he drove away, refusing to even glance my way. I tried to tell myself that I got all I wanted from it, which was Matteo upset and made a fool of. It never felt like enough. It hurt, but like a machine set to self-destruct, I made it worse. I ensured our circle of friends found out. There might have only been a handful of people who knew about Matteo and me, but it was enough to make Matteo look like an idiot, which is what I told myself I wanted.

God knows what happened to Duncan, but his and Matteo’s friendship never recovered.

Screwing around with James would have been a similar thing. It would have got under Nico’s skin as I would have taken someone he relied on away from him. I bet unlike with Duncan, sex with James would have been epic. It would have also been safe. I’ve found that recently, any guy I date befalls an accident or ghosts me. I’m not sure what that’s about. I’ve wondered if Nico is doing it, but he has no reason to. Despite being a total pain in my ass, he’s not as old fashioned as our father. He’s not going to go around defending my honor. As if. The thought almost makes me laugh.

At the thought of my entitled, smug brother, my jaw clenches. My family is the fucking worst. No, scratch that. They’re the second worst. The worst are the Mancinis. I’ve just found out that those bastards were trying to buy up shares in the board of our family business. How sick would that have been? Them, our arch enemies on the board of the family business, and me, their daughter, not. It was a while ago that it happened, and as usual, I found out after everyone else.

Of course, I didn’t find out from my family. They don’t tell me things like that. I found out because I’m also buying up shares, under a shell corporation, and I have an investigator and hacker who works for me. She’s been feeding me information, and the latest morsel is rather interesting. Seems some of the older Mancini members were trying to buy up enough to get a vote on our business and sway the board. Not anymore, though. No, James paid them a visit. Put a stop to it.

He spoke with Aldo’s daughter, Bianca. Probably put the fear of God in her too. James is fucking scary.

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