Page 2 of Bound in Promise
Liam shoves his chair back, causing me to yelp in surprise when it crashes to the floor. His palms grip underneath the table, flipping the whole damn thing over and sending the food and everything else on it flying.
In the next second, he’s leaning over me, his face an inch away from mine as he cages me in. His fingers are wrapped around the arms of the chair, and for a moment I’m grateful they aren’t wrapped around my neck. My blood runs cold, every bit of righteous anger fleeing. Liam has lost his whole freaking mind.
I don’t know this boy anymore. I don’t recognize the monster in front of me.
“You’ve got me fucked up,” he roars. His features are twisted and cold as he continues screaming, “Did he fuck you yet? Does he do all the things I used to do to you?”
Dante does way more than Liam ever did, and it’s confusing as hell. The way my husband owns my body when he fucks me sets my whole libido aflame… He touches me with need, possessiveness, and raw power. I’ve never been the focus of the kind of fervent desire that lives in Dante’s eyes. I can’t function properly when I’m with him. In the moment, it’s impossible to remember that what we have is temporary. Just a marriage for money so we can both build a new life.
He’s not mine.
And I’m stupid for admitting all the above—even just to myself.
But this isn’t the time to have that conversation, with myself or with Liam.
“We don’t?—”
“Don’t lie to me, Vee,” Liam spits out, and I feel a spray of saliva wet my cheek. “A little birdy told me you were fucking in his office.”
What the hell?
Clamping my hands together in my lap, I don’t dare admit a thing to Liam. He still has a gun somewhere. “I don’t like him like that. He’s just trying to keep Lombardi off our asses.”
“He hasn’t kept him off mine,” Liam retorts with a sneer. “I keep getting text messages and phone calls from that motherfucker every?—”
“Why haven’t you said anything?”
“When? When you were running away from me? Or maybe when you up and moved to some secret apartment off campus? When?”
Fair point.
However, if Liam had stopped acting like my crazy stalker and approached me without threatening to do violence, maybe I would have been more inclined to talk.
“You could’ve told your uncle.” Maybe he still can. Liam is scared, there’s no doubt about that. And, at the end of the day, he and Dante are family. Dante might be able to include him in our plan to escape Lombardi.
Liam scoffs at that, straightening his spine a bit. He keeps his arms bracketed around me, though. “I’m not telling him shit. He can die in a ditch for all I care. I’m his only fucking nephew and he played me to get to you. I’m not stupid.”
“If Angelo gets paid?—”
“He’s going to keep finding reasons we owe him more, Vee. Don’t you fucking get it?” He throws his hands up in exasperation. “We’re never going to be free of this guy. He’s a fuckin’ mobster. They treat this all like a game, manipulating the debt and going ‘oh gee, I forgot this fee’ and on and on. It never ends.”
That may be so. But I trust Dante to figure a way out. He’s told me we’re leaving the States, leaving this all behind. He doesn’t seem to care about his nephew, not really. But as shitty as Liam has been to me, I can’t help thinking that leaving him behind is the same as killing him ourselves. Liam’s definitely not handling any of this the right way, but he’s terrified. He and I are freaking college students! He is completely out of his depth, and I can’t say I blame him for freaking out. Just for manipulating the hell out of me to save himself.
“I won’t let him leave you behind,” I tell him. “If you have a passport, you can go anywhere in the world?—”
“I will go anywhere in the world,” Liam counters confidently. “And you’re my meal ticket. With your trust fund, I’m out of here.”
“You can’t just fucking leave me behind,” I protest. “It’s my money. Not yours.”
“It was supposed to be mine.”
“You’re not getting a fucking dime of it, Liam. Not if you don’t turn us around right now and take me back home.”
He scoffs haughtily. “I don’t trust you. And I sure as hell don’t trust my uncle. Whatever messed up plan he’s patching together, I’m not part of it. My mother isn’t part of it. He’s most likely going to leave you behind, too. Don’t be fuckin’ stupid.”
“He won’t do that.”
“Why? Did he make pretty little promises that he wouldn’t ditch you? The dude’s just as bad as Angelo and even more fucked up. He went to prison for beating a few guys half to death. You don’t think he’s killed before? He was part of Italy’s most powerful mob. The guy didn’t do charity work for them.”
