Page 8 of Stolen Queen

Igrip the steering wheel tight, pissed as hell at Vincenzo Rinella, the fucker.

Elio broods next to me in the passenger seat while Lana is in back, looking at something on her phone.

"We should have put that pompous bastard in his place," I growl, breaking the silence.

“He’s not wrong to feel slighted,” Elio says. “We’ve jerked him around and not long ago blamed him for our troubles.”

“He treats his daughter like shit.”

Through the rearview mirror I see Lana’s head lift up, looking at me with an arched brow.

“He treats everyone like shit,” Elio says.

I want to argue, but I know he's right. Still, the image of Vincenzo's smug face lingers, along with the memory of Ava's defeated expression as we left. My grip on the wheel tightens further.

"What's got you so worked up, Matteo?" Lana asks.

I frown. "You can't tell me you're okay with how that asshole spoke to you back there."

Lana shrugs, a smirk playing at the corner of her lips. "Rinella? Please. He's all bite and no bark."

Her dismissive tone grates on my already frayed nerves. "Are you serious right now? He treats women like?—”

"Like what?" Lana cuts me off, her voice sharp. "Like every other man in this business treats women? It's nothing new, Matteo. I know it. Ava knows."

“Elio doesn’t. I don’t.”

She sighs. “Only because I don’t allow it.”

“That’s not exactly true,” Elio says with a glance back at her. “But she’s not wrong. We give our women more respect than everyone else, Matteo. You know that.”

"It should bother you. You're smarter than half those idiots put together."

She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "And what good would getting all worked up do? You think Rinella's going to suddenly see the error of his ways if I throw a tantrum? It’s the opposite. I’ll be dismissed as being a weak, emotional woman."

"It's not about throwing a tantrum," I argue, my frustration mounting. "It's about standing up against that fucker." It occurs to me that I want her to do what I know Ava can’t. I want Ava to see strength in a woman and realize she has value in this world.

"I stand up for myself every day," Lana snaps back. “Usually against the lot of you.”

I open my mouth to argue further, but Elio cuts in. "Enough, both of you. We have bigger issues to deal with than Rinella's misogyny.”

I clench my jaw, biting back the retort on the tip of my tongue. But I can't shake the anger simmering beneath my skin. Lana might be able to brush off Rinella's insults, but I can't. The memory of his sneering face, the way he dismissed Ava… it makes my blood boil.

“I’m just saying he needs to be taken down a peg or two.” I shake my head as I turn onto the long driveway leading to our estate. "We've bent over backward to accommodate the Rinellas, and he still has a fucking hard-on to sell his daughter to Lazaro. I imagine it will be worse when he learns the truth about why Lazaro can’t marry Ava.” I’d been surprised that Elio opted not to mention that Lazaro was currently planning to wed his pregnant girlfriend. They tried to soften the blow by telling Rinella Lazaro was too unhinged to get married. Sure, he has some anger issues and he still has some memory lapse from three years of amnesia, but he’s a good person. He’s kicked a lot of ass in his life, but never a woman’s. He could marry Ava.

But he’s fallen for Diana, and while Elio could force the marriage between Lazaro and Ava, it would be an asshole thing to do since Elio himself chose love over duty when he broke his engagement with Ava to marry his wife, Piper. Hell, he’s allowed Lana to get engaged to a cop—or ex-cop—out of love.

"Oh, spare me the righteous indignation. It's not like we've been saints in this whole affair,” Lana snipes at me.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I snap.

"Two jilted engagements in less than six months? We haven't exactly covered ourselves in glory here."

“Plus we blamed him for Hartley’s fucked-up game,” Elio reminds me.

I glance through the rearview mirror again, noting Lana’s tensing at hearing Hartley’s name. She’s a strong woman, but I imagine the nightmare she lived at his hands still haunts her.

“Thank fuck he’s behind bars. Why they had him in a mental hospital, I’ll never know,” Elio finishes.

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