Page 116 of King of the Cage

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything?” Regina’s voice oozed across us.

Alice sprang back and dropped her gaze to the floor.

“No, not at all,” I said, forcing a bland expression. “I just love the tea. I wanted to know what kind it is,” I improvised.

Regina glanced at my cup. “But you haven’t drunk any,” she pointed out.

I grabbed the cup and took several long swallows. “There you go. It’s so good.”

Regina watched me, and then her face split into a wicked smile. “Is it? That’s nice to know. I’ll be sure to take your feedback into consideration.”

“What?” I asked, clenching the cup in a death grip.

“So, Giada, tell me how you know Alice?”

“We met at my boss’s wedding and hit it off. I was just wanting to catch up.”

“And you have so much in common with a former drug addict turned hooker?” Regina drawled. Her entire demeanor seemed to have changed. Gone was the eager-to-please, mildly apologetic billionaire’s wife, and in her place was a powerful, confident woman who knew exactly where she was and what she was doing.

I shrugged. “She made me laugh, and that makes her my kind of people.”

Regina nodded. “You do like to laugh, don’t you, Giada? I suppose that’s why you fell for your husband. He is funny… charming, strong.”

She shivered, and something very close to jealousy ran through me at her obvious admiration of the man who had forced me to become his wife.

“I’ll be sure to pass you compliments on to Bran… or you can do it yourself. He’s on his way, right?”

Regina smiled at me and shook her head. “I think we both know he’s not.”

“I don’t know that. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t call him.”

Regina kept smiling at me as she rounded the coffee table and approached me. I fought the urge to step back.

“Why would I go through the trouble of getting Aldo to snatch you, to just let you go? You see, Giada, darling, I know what you saw downstairs the other day… The basement might look like something out of the Dark Ages, but we have CCTV, too. Imagine the De Sanctis family’s ‘IT guy’ forgetting to check out if her snooping was caught on camera.”

I did back up now. I didn’t want to be within reaching distance of this crazy bitch.

I shrugged. “So, you have some kinky setup in the basement, but that doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

Regina smiled. “Sure. Since I wasn’t born yesterday, I don’t believe you. I think you and your husband have ulterior motives in joining us, and I have to protect The Enclave from harm.”

“So, what’s with the cloak-and-dagger shit? Just refuse us entry.”

“Why would I do that, when watching you race around in my little maze is so much more fun? Besides, Brandon O’Connor is too impressive to waste like that.”

I stared at her, dark possessiveness rearing up inside me. I felt sick, I was scared, and this bitch thought she was going to get my husband?

I thought over this revelation and glanced at the paintings on the walls.

“S, the artist, is you… and its S for The Sentinel, isn’t it? Your husband’s a front, that’s why he acts more like a carboard cutout than a human.”

“The lights have been on for Archie and no one home for years. He didn’t like the life in The Enclave. He wasn’t born into it, like me. So, he takes his daily medications, and he does what the fuck I tell him to, since that’s all he’s good for. I can’t be the face of The Enclave, because the members aren’t ready to accept a woman, and besides, who wants to be a target?”

“You’re the chemist? You said you used to be a chemist, right?” Everything clicked together in my mind. God, I’d been slow.

Regina nodded. “Yes, I was, for a while, but nothing I wanted to make ever saw the light of day. Luckily, when Daddy died, I was in a position to continue making my own concoctions… He always saw the brilliance of my ideas.”

“You made Z Juice,” I pointed out, obvious as hell at this point, but I had to hear it to believe it.

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