Page 65 of Malevolent Secrets

“Thank you. I asked Vincent to keep it quiet because I knew that you would have taken over if you'd known what I was doing. I couldn't risk that.”

She's not wrong.

“Fine. What now?”

“What do you mean ‘what now’? You've gotten her pregnant. I know you well enough to know what that means. You're going to want to keep her.”

She's right again.

“Is that so bad?”

“You’re not seriously asking that. Of course, it is! There's no way you can hide your involvement in Jeremy’s death forever. She's going to have questions and when she gets the answers, she’s going to hate you. And you know Lorenzo, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

“She can ask her questions and she can get the answers. She can hate me if she wants to. It doesn’t change anything. I’ve asked her to move in with me.”

Renee gets up and starts pacing the floor.

“That particular decision, I agree with. Massimo is a loose cannon right now, and there’s no telling what he will do to her when he finds out. She has already exposed herself to him.”

“What do you mean ‘exposed’ herself to him?” Vincent asks before I am able to.

She sighs and drops back down into her seat.

“How do you think she found out about you? Massimo and Romero were at the funeral. They introduced themselves as college buddies of Jeremy’s, but I think they were also there to scope her out.”

This is news to me; information that I should have had as soon as it happened. I make a mental note to ask Dino about it.

“She tracked him down to his tiny little hideout downtown and he was a little birdie, all too happy to sing about you.”

“She went to his hideout alone?” I ask, and she nods. “And he didn’t snap her neck in two?”

Even as I ask it, bile fills my throat and makes me sick.

“I think he didn’t hurt her just to mess with you. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has someone here reporting everything to him.”

“How did he miss seeing you at the funeral?” I ask, and she frowns.

“That’s the thing, he did see me. He knows who I am because he has hit on me every single time he has seen me. I’m not sure what game he is playing right now, but I wouldn’t trust him.”

“I’ll expedite the move,” Vincent says and gets up like his butt is on fire. I think he was just looking for the perfect opportunity to escape.

Before either of us can say anything, he slips through the table and goes away.

“What’s his problem?” I ask, and Renee frowns but says nothing.

“Moving her into your house is the best way to keep her safe. I’m happy about that.”

“I’m filled with joy,” I say drily. “Making you happy was the number one thing on my mind when I made the decision.”

“I still think you should talk to her, tell her everything before she talks to the wrong person and gets the wrong version of the story. She’s at the point in her life where she is very impressionable, you want to be the voice in her ear.”

Again, she’s right.

But how do I explain that I’m almost scared of what her reaction will be to finding out the role I played in this whole mess?

“This whole thing is very royally fucked up,” she comments, and I cannot agree more.

“Can I ask that you continue to keep an eye on her?” She turns serious.

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