Page 28 of Borrowed Bride

A coldness slides down my spine like a sliver of ice and disgust curls in my gut. Anger boils up in my chest, igniting a smothering heat across my skin, and it takes every ounce of my strength to remain standing in place and not rip Leo’s throat out.

“That’s what people know, do they?” I reply tightly.

“You don’t even deny it,” Leo snarls. “I knew it. You’re fucking disgusting, Marco. Just because you have an old name and a fancy estate, people are willing to look beyond your crimes but I noticed. All the women andchildrenthat go missing around you?”

Leo begins to pace, unfazed by the rifles trained on him. “When Elodie went missing, and her husband turned up dead after you went there for dinner? I was suspicious. There was no way you were killing everyone in that house and she was quite a woman.” Leo’s mouth snaps shut with a click. “So I started digging. The Netcis, their don was found floating in the river and his two daughters? Gone. The Calderones? His wife went missing and then a month later, his three kids were gone. Then he ends up dead. The Morellis? Same thing. Dead husband, missing wife and kids. The list goes on.”

Leo paces back to me and we lock eyes. “I looked into it. All those people had dealings with you, Marco. In the dark, they whisper that you’re the devil. You snatch the women and kids tosell, then you off the rest of the family so no one comes looking. You’re a fucking curse, Marco.”

So, that’s Leo’s angle. He acts on incomplete information and now he taunts me with my sister for what reason? Revenge? Payback?

“And my sister?” I bite out through tension so strong it’s a wonder my jaw even opens.

“No wonder she ran away from a monstrous family like yours. She knew, didn’t she? She probably feared she was next the second she stepped out of line.”

Leo strides forward and weapons click, ready to fire the moment he acts. He doesn’t strike me, though. Instead, he shoves the paper against my chest.

“Well I found her, Marco. And I will keep her safe. And if you want to see her alive ever again, you will do exactly as I demand.”

My attention drifts to the paper, which is an enlarged photograph of a woman. My heart seizes painfully in my chest because I expect to see a photo of Emilia, and Leo’s words scare me for a split second—how did he get ahold of her?

But it isn’t her.

I let Leo leave because I want him to think he has the upper hand, and part of me is still rooted to the spot as a cold realization creeps over me. This woman isn’t Emilia, but why does she look so familiar?

I don’t know her—but somehow, I feel like I should. Leo is so completely convinced that she is linked to me, and that concerns me far more than Leonardo’s threats.

Who the hell is she?

11

GIANNA

“Here, let me—” I rise from my chair and take the small, porcelain milk jug from Emilia’s trembling hand.

“Sorry,” Emilia murmurs, curling her hands into her blanket-covered lap.

I wave off her apologies and add a drop of milk to her tea, then retake my seat. “It’s fine, it’s just milk.”

“One day it’s just milk, the next it’s my medication, or my cane in the bathroom, or a fragile glass,” Emilia says softly.

“Right. I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry.” Emilia shakes her head. “No one can know what it’s like to live like this, and I don’t expect you to understand so quickly. I’m just…” She briefly closes her eyes. “I’m worried about Marco.”

“And Leo?” I ask, wrapping my hands around my own cup for warmth, but not intending to drink. I can’t because my own stomach is in knots from this revelation with Leo and the woman I saw at the party. Suddenly, this safe bubble no longer feels safe.

“Yes.” Emilia repeatedly smoothes out her flat blanket. “Leo’s accusations suggest we have a leak. A mole. Marco was here theother day, interrogating the team I have helping me and now everyone is on edge. And I am as well because I can’t help but wonder if one of them lied and is a danger to me or if there is something else going on.”

“Marco strikes me as the kind of man that gets answers,” I assure her softly, also trying to calm myself. “I don’t think anything would get past him.”

“Perhaps.” Emilia smiles but the warmth doesn’t reach her twinkling eyes like usual. She closes them again and remains silent for a long time before she speaks. “He is such an angel. He has given up so much for me, done so much to keep me safe and I’m scared that in doing so, he’s losing himself and forgetting to live. I am grateful, I am. But I worry.”

“And you think this thing with Leo will just make Marco redouble his efforts to keep you safe?”

“Exactly,” Emilia says and her voice cracks. “And goodness.” She reaches one hand across and places it atop my own, and I’m shocked by how cold to the touch she is. “Now you are caught up in this mess.”

“Don’t you worry.” Squashing down the acidic warmth that sits at the base of my throat, I give Emilia my strongest smile. “I can help. I’m actually pretty great at running and hiding, so if we have to do that to keep you safe, then we will. And Marco is living. He just wants to keep you safe. One doesn’t prevent the other.”

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