Page 58 of Syndicate of Sin Bundle

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Chiara swam up behind me and poked me in the side. “Girl, everyone is talking about you. The girls are jealous. Cristian’s men haven’t been able to look away.” She wrapped her arm around mine and beamed at me. “Our plan is working!”

I arched a brow at her. “Our plan?”

Eyes gleaming underneath the moonlight, she smirked. “Yes, our plan.”

Walking to the pool stairs, I glanced over at her. “It was your plan, but it’s oddly working, though I don’t love how many people keep looking over at me. It’s kinda weird, especially the older men.”

Chiara rolled her eyes and pushed me playfully. “Psh, you love the attention. Any girl would, especially when all eyes are on you and none are on the usual whores who sneak their way into the parties.” Chiara moved closer, the water rippling against her. “Imagine how fucking psychotic Cristian would get if your swimsuit accidentally came off in the water.”

A laugh escaped my lips, and I splashed her. “That is where I draw the line. Nobody is seeing my tits again unless it’s Cristian.”

Looping her arm around mine once more, Chiara led me up the stairs and out of the pool, the water rolling down our bodies. She handed me a towel as some of Cristian’s men glanced over at us—or more specifically, me. “And maybe Marco,” she said with a wink.

I glanced over my shoulder and toward the bar, where Marco sat, hand wrapped around his glass and eyes focused on me too. I inhaled sharply and looked away, giving Chiara that you did not just say that look.

She giggled through her pearly-white teeth and wrapped the towel around her torso. “All I’m saying is that you could pull any guy in this room, and Alessa could barely pull Cristian for less than a year.”

“As much as you don’t want to believe it, Chiara,” Alessa said behind us, walking up with her glass of wine, wearing a small blue bikini, “Cristian and I dated for far longer than a year. And your cute little friend Roxie”—she glanced over at me—“will be gone soon enough. Cristian might be slow in realizing how much of a pussy you are”—she pinched my cheek—“but I’m not.”

Chiara smirked at her. “Think what you want, Alessa. Go try to win him back. I guarantee you that he wants nothing to do with you. He’d be downgrading from this”—Chiara gestured to me—“to”—Chiara looked Alessa up and down—“you.”

“And if she’s dead?” Alessa asked, smiling back. “He’ll be sad, vulnerable Cristian, who comes running back to me for comfort, not to downgrade, you bitch.”

As much as I wanted to do it, as much as I freaking dreamed of doing it, I couldn’t seem to pull the gun out of my purse to kill her right then and there. Maybe I didn’t want to make it public and draw attention to myself, or maybe I just wasn’t ready to take someone’s life. But, God, I wanted to do it so bad. I just … didn’t have it in me to kill someone yet.

“Have a good rest of your night, girls. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

She walked away from me and disappeared into the crowd, chatting with one of Cristian’s many men and touching him like she hadn’t just done the same to Cristian less than an hour ago. And what pissed me off even more was that Cristian didn’t do shit about her. Whether she was his sister’s best friend and his ex-girlfriend, he should’ve fucking kicked her off the boat the fucking moment she laid her nasty hands all over him.

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“Looks like your face is healing from when Cristian kicked it in,” I said to Marco, leaning against the bar in this tiny string bikini that Chiara had forced me to wear tonight, a drink in my hand.

She definitely knew how to capture the attention of everyone in the room, which I wasn’t particularly fond of, but it helped me out when all eyes were on me and not Alessa—especially Cristian’s.

Marco grabbed his drink from the bartender, swished it around, and didn’t look in my direction because I knew that if he did, he would probably get his face kicked in again.

“You want to get me killed, Roxie?” he asked, sipping from his glass.

My lips curled into a smirk, and I jumped up onto the stool beside him. He glanced over, watching my breasts bounce in the small bikini.

“No,” I said honestly because I didn’t want him to die.

In some odd way, he was actually useful to me—or at least, I figured he would be.

“It doesn’t seem that way,” he said, hand tightening around the glass.

I gazed over my shoulder to see Cristian chatting with some of his men but staring right at me, his hooded eyes dark and heavy. I smiled sweetly at him and turned around in the stool to lean my back against the bar.

“How do I make it difficult? All I want is to ask you some questions.”

“You want to ask me questions or wave your tits in my face?”

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