Page 42 of Syndicate of Sin Bundle

Marco walked out of that back hallway, one hand stuffed into his pocket. He slid into a chair on the other side of the central bar and swiped his hand across his face, looking tired. When he looked up, he made eye contact with me, his eyes lingering longer than they should’ve.

I didn’t offer him a smile but held eye contact as the bartender handed me a glass and I sipped the drink. From the corner of my eye, I caught Alessa in the hallway with her nasty hands rubbing all over Cristian’s chest. Cristian moved closer to her and said something that I couldn’t quite understand or read. Yet she smiled even wider.

Overcome with anger, I placed my drink down on the bar, sauntered over to Marco, and grabbed him by his hand. “I need to talk to you.”

“Roxie, I can’t—”

I glared at him. “In the back room. Now.”

Screw Cristian’s warning about killing Marco. He wasn’t going to do it anyway, and I wanted to make him jealous.

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roxie

Though I told myself that I really wanted to rip off Marco’s clothes in the back room and let him fuck all my worries away, I found myself shutting and locking the door and glaring at him. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and leaned against the wall, making sure to keep his distance.

“Who is Alessa?” I asked him, tapping my foot against the wooden floor.

He had been with Cristian for so long that he ought to know more about her than Chiara did.

“I want to know everything you know about her. Don’t give me that I don’t know what you’re talking about shit either. I know that she used to date Cristian.”

Marco rolled his eyes and sighed a breath of relief. “For fuck’s sake, Roxie, if you wanted to know more about her, we could’ve talked out there.” He mumbled something in Italian and made the damn sign of the cross, as if he was thanking whoever looked down upon him for another day of life in this gangster world.

“I’m waiting.”

“Let’s talk out there, so Cristian doesn’t think we’re fucking.”

When he went to open the door, I stepped in front of it.

“No.” I pointed to the couch. “Sit down and tell me everything I need to know. I don’t want to wait any longer, and I know you’ll try to get out of it as soon as we leave this damn room.”

After staring at me for a few moments, Marco sighed again and sat on the couch. “What do you want to know? You already know that they dated. There’s not anything else you need to know, except that she’s trouble, right?”

“How long?” I asked, hands balling into tight fists. “How long were they together?”

Marco paused and shrugged. “Beats me.”

“How. Fucking. Long?”

“Nine months,” Marco finally said after a few more moments of silence.

“How does he know her?”

Marco stood back up and waved his hands in the air. “I don’t want to get in the middle of this. This is his drama. He’s probably looking for me. I have to g—”

I pulled my gun from my purse and stuck it against his rib cage just as he was about to leave the room. He froze for a moment, then relaxed and turned around to face me.

“Someone showed you how to hold a gun,” he said. “I’m impressed, but we both know you’re not going to actually shoot me.”

He was right.

But I wasn’t going to back down.

I pushed it harder against his ribs. “Give me fucking something about her.”

“Cristian’s sister and Alessa are best friends. Alessa has been whoring around with the entire family since Cristian broke it off with her. She wants him for his money. That’s all the women around here want from him.” Marco blew out a deep breath. “Anything else the queen wants to know?”

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