Page 43 of Ruining Vanessa

11

DAMIEN

Giulio storms into my apartment without waiting for me to answer his ring of the doorbell. I stop in the middle of the living room, rubbing my eyes. It’s almost 1 a.m., and I’d intended to turn in early after the harrowing day Giulio had put me through.

As soon as I see the anger on Giulio’s face, I’m fully awake, though. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Giulio closes the distance between us and wraps his arms around my shoulders, kissing me aggressively. I’m too stunned to do anything at first. Giulio doesn’t stop, though, biting at my lip and demanding entrance.

I almost give in. It’s been a long time since Giulio has attempted to make out with me without another person in the room with us. But I know whatever is going on with Giulio won’t be solved by kissing.

My hands come up anyway, slowly wrapping around his throat, my thumbs stroking his skin. I squeeze just a little. I could calm him down like this. I could press down and deny him breath, take out some of my need to do this to Vanessa and calm him down just a little…

I gently push him away. “Giulio. What happened?”

Giulio snarls and turns away from me, flopping onto the couch. “We should dump Vanessa. You know any good ditches anywhere?”

My heart freezes. I stare at him, trying to discern where this sudden emotion is coming from. “What? I don’t want to dump Vanessa.” I fumble for my phone and pull up the period tracking app. “She’s in her fertile period now. And you’ve been fucking her very regularly, so it’s possible she’s—”

“She’s not fucking pregnant!” Giulio shouts suddenly. He gets up from the couch again and paces around the coffee table. “She’s been lying to us this entire fucking time!”

My throat is dry as I answer, “What do you mean?”

Giulio pulls his own phone out, but he doesn’t stop moving. “I’ve got two potential buyers for Stef, by the way. Who do you think is worse, Hart or Savage?”

“Savage,” I answer automatically. “But what’s this got to do with Vanessa?”

Giulio glances at me long enough for me to see the blistering rage in his eyes, but he starts tapping on his phone anyway.

He’s quiet long enough for me to prompt, “Giulio?”

His lip curls into a sneer. “You know how we let the girls use those sponge things for the idiots who don’t want to use condoms?”

My heart sinks as I start to connect the dots. “Vanessa wouldn’t do that,” I say automatically.

“She fucking did. And—” Giulio breaks off as the call goes through. “Yo, Dr. Savage! Remember how you were pestering me about a girl?”

It’s amazing how Giulio manages to completely change his tone while talking with the potential client, although I don’t think I would have worded it as “pestering.”

The client apparently agrees with me. “Pestering? I merely said I’m getting a bit tired of waiting.”

Giulio laughs and waves his hand dismissively, although Savage can’t see it. “Yeah, yeah. Anyway, you always said you wanted a project. A girl you can really work on and mold. Well, have I got the chick for you. Small, blonde, completely hooked on heroin so you’ll get to play doctor for her.”

Giulio breaks out into even more laughter there.

“Normally that’s not a selling point,” Savage answers, a lot less amused.

I meet Giulio’s eyes and shake my head. Even if Vanessa did… even if she did use contraceptives, selling Stef is going to lose us one of our best forms of leverage over her.

“Come on, I’ve seen how much you like the really broken ones. Why don’t you stop by Ntimacy later this week? I’ll let you take her for a test drive.” Giulio just flashes a grin at me, even as I try to signal to him that this is a bad idea.

He’s always reckless, but when he’s pissed off, it’s even worse.

The thing that confuses me, though, is that he’s so angry. He didn’t even want a child before I insisted on it, and now, he’s acting like she let Antonia out of her cage.

I’m the one who should be angry, yet all I feel is a big, aching void of disappointment. Vanessa was supposed to be perfect. She was supposed to give Giulio a child.

Vanessa is supposed to be a glowing, beautiful mother.

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