Page 58 of Borrowed Bride

What the hell was she doing here?

23

GIANNA

“Dead?” The word is ash in my mouth as a hurricane of thoughts swarm me in three seconds.

Fawn is here.

Somehow, she is in my penthouse, and I have no idea how she got here. The last time I saw her, she was grappling with Marco intent on killing him, and she was successful. With Freya asleep in the other room, I have to do everything I can to keep Fawn focused on me.

“I’m not dead.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Fawn mutters. “All this time…” She trails off, pinching the bridge of her nose and then she begins to pace in front of my unlit fireplace.

“I’m sorry. Why on earth would you think thatIam dead?” It’s the only thought I can latch on to amidst the rush of confusion. I’ve been in hiding, certainly, but Fawn is a woman of many talents, and I had been led to believe she would be hunting me down to kill me. Yet she stands in my lounge looking very nonlethal.

“What?” Fawn looks up at me, then her shoulders slump. “You have no idea, do you?”

“Look, if you’re here to kill me then…” I glance around, looking for anything I can use to protect myself. “Just so you know, I know how to look after myself now and I won’t make it easy!”

Fawn sees straight through my lie and laughs dryly. “Kill you? The last time I tried that, I got this.” Fawn lifts up the hem of her red tank top to reveal a large, twisted burn scar across her abdomen. It’s long healed but the sight of it still makes my gut twist uncomfortably.

“That?”

“Yes, that.” Fawn lowers her shirt. “Please tell me you remember the explosion and I’m not dealing with some insane memory loss here.”

“The explosion? When you killed Marco?”

Fawn stares at me blankly, then she snorts. “Wow. Okay, let’s get something straight. I didn’t kill Marco, okay? Believe me, I wanted to. I watched and waited for him at the wedding but had no idea that he would bring an entire blood bath with him. I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist you and yes, I followed you because I was going to kill him.”

As she speaks, I continue to scan the room for anything I can use as a weapon, but as far as decorations go, my only options are a tasseled lamp and a metal dolphin statue.

“I failed,” Fawn mutters. “It turns out Marco fights like an animal when he’s trying to protect the woman he loves. I’d admire it if I wasn’t so disgusted by him.” She sneers slightly. “Anyway, after the building came down on top of us, I barely made it out with Cherry’s help. The next thing I know, I’m hearing that Dante and his convoy gets attacked and you were killed in the firefight.”

My heart skips a beat and a static sensation fizzes just beneath my ribs. Fawn’s words almost don’t make sense, likeshe’s trying to tell me some kind of story that I know in my bones not to be true.

“What?” I whisper. “That…that’s not true.”

“Well obviously,” Fawn mutters. “You wouldn’t be standing here right now if it were true. But the story is out there. Everyone died except Dante. He barely escaped with his life, not that it mattered because Marco was in a coma for so long that he didn’t know until it was too late.”

“Wait—” Without thinking, I surge closer to Fawn. “What do you mean he was in a coma?!”

Fawn’s sharply lined brows lift. “Exactly that. The building came down and he took the brunt of it. Eight months he was dead to the world. I would have finished the job but…” She indicates to the scars of her old wounds and purses her lips.

“So he…I’m sorry, are you telling me that Marco is alive?”

Fawn meets my eyes, and for the first time I see something other than coldness in there. A flicker of warmth mingling with confusion. “Marco is alive, of course he is. The guy’s harder to kill than a fucking cockroach.”

“Oh my God…” The room spins and the air grows thin as I struggle to breathe, pressing one hand against my chest. Fawn is there with me, and while her lips move, I can’t hear anything she’s saying.

Marco is alive.

All this time, he’s been alive.

And they think I am dead.

What the fuck is going on?!

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