Page 34 of Borrowed Bride

Marco leans over his knee, placing more of his weight on Leo’s chest and he taps the barrel of his weapon against Leo’s cheek. “The truth, Leo. Or I will kill you right here and one of your useless goons over there will tell me what I want to know.”

“Alright!” Leonardo wheezes. “Alright, lemme up and I’ll?—”

“No.” Marco’s voice is flat, almost bored now as he glances at his watch. “Time is ticking.”

“Fine! Fine, I…it was a hoax, alright? Just some stupid game to try and throw you off so you would make stupid mistakes, and we’d be able to take you out in a way that would look fair to all the other families.”

“Since when does a Simone care aboutfair?” Marco spits.

“I care!” Leo gasps. “Before—before my father passed, I heard him talking about you and your sister. The way he spoke, I don’t know. I put two and two together and figured it would be the best way to mess your head up. Everyone knows how awful that attack was and there’s always been rumors, y’know? Is she dead or missing? So I went with it. I thought that’s what my father had planned and so I took it, alright? I made it up. I just wanted to knock you down and sweep in.”

“And the woman?”

“No one.”

Sharp tingles, like the prick of a thousand needles, skitter down my spine and my stomach twists. She’s not no one. Not to me.

“Adios.” Marco takes aim with his gun, pressing the barrel right between Leo’s eyes.

“Wait!” The word is out of my mouth before I’ve even thought it through, and suddenly, all attention is on me. Marco’s face is open in alarm to see me, then it hardens like a rock and his anger becomes clear.

“The fuck are you doing here?” he barks. “Frederick, get her the hell out of here.”

“No, wait—” I jerk my arm free from the guard, and my thoughts scramble for an excuse. If Leo dies, I’ll lose the truth about Cherry, but I also have only a minimal understanding of how things work here.

Will this break some unspoken rule?

“Wait?” Marco growls and his hard gaze hits me like a blow to the chest. “Youknowwhat he did.”

“I do,” I gasp, stopping a few feet away. “But wouldn’t it be better to let him live? And then just take over his business and fuck up his life or something? Sure, he’s stupid and he’s done a bad thing but killing him…it will send the message that he got to you. That your head is easy to fuck with.”

I’m rambling, scraping together the tail end of unfinished thoughts in a desperate attempt to save this man’s life. It doesn’t even cross my mind to tell Marco the truth because I don’t want him to look at me differently, not until I have no other choice.

There’s a deadly silence, and from the uncomfortable look on the faces of some of his men, I get the impression that no one has ever stopped Marco from doing anything.

Marco taps his gun against Leo’s forehead, making him whimper in fear.

“Hm.” Marco suddenly straightens up, and his men shift their stance like trees reacting to the flow of the window. “You have a point. This snake has a pretty big family and I’m not sure I have the time to wipe them all out. But I hear you have a pretty good hook into the weapons circuit with the Russians.” Marco leans down very slowly and Leo audibly wheezes.

“That’s my hook now, do you understand?” Marco growls. “And now, every breath in those pathetic lungs of yours are a gift from my wife, so you better kiss the fucking ground she walks on.”

“I will,” Leo rasps.

“Do it,” Marco snaps, finally stepping off of Leo.

A hot, uncomfortable tightness sweeps through my chest and the back of my neck tingles while watching Leo roll over and crawl toward me. He makes it two feet before Marco’s boot lands on his back, forcing him back down to the ground.

Then, Leo begins kissing the blood-slicked, oil-stained floor. Over and over, he kisses the ground near me and keeps doing it even when Marco strides away from him.

I feel sick, and yet there’s another strange sensation that I can’t quite decipher. It’s pressure, but fluttering too like butterflies in my gut.

Is it from Marco’s show of power, or Leo’s obedience?

I have no idea.

“Kill the rest,” Marco says to Frederick, then grabs me by the arm. His contact is molten, but it brings me a flood of relief that he is okay.

“Marco,” I say, my voice trembling from how frantic my heart dances around my chest.

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