Page 50 of Twisted Games of Revenge

“What do you mean?” I snap, needing desperately to know. All day I have felt like there is a secret these women are not letting me in on. A feeling that people are whispering behind my back.

She shrugs, glancing back toward our table again. “Valentina would kill me for telling you, but we’re friends now, right?”

I nod, and she seems happy with my answer. She is really desperate for a friend.

“That boy of hers has unique tastes, and there is no way a normal woman will be able to fulfill his needs. I am genuinely surprised daddy didn’t purchase him a wife at one of his auctions. Someone he could mold into what he wanted.”

I can’t hide the look of disgust on my face. What the fuck is she going on about? “What tastes?” I swallow the lump in my throat, a fresh wave of heat radiating off my cheeks, wondering what she knows about him that I don’t.

“Sorry, I guess you will find out soon enough.” Her eyes go wide, and she wraps an arm around my shoulders in a half hug of sorts. I stand frozen, not sure what is going on. “I didn’t mean to scare you. You must be aware of what he’s into or you wouldn’t be marrying him. Anyway, congratulations.” She smiles happily.

“Mrs. Chambly,” I hear Alessandro’s deep voice from behind me, and I turn to see him approaching us. I’m relieved to see him and know he’s about to save me from all of this shit, and I smile at him. Did he just hear all of that? I bet that’s why her eyes went wide, and she hugged me. She’s scared of him, and she just got caught talking shit about him.

“Alex,” she greets him, running her eyes up his body hungrily, before smirking at me. “This was fun, Vivian. Hopefully we can do it again next month.” She pats my arm before taking off back inside with the rest of the hyenas.

I bury my head in my hands and suck in a deep breath, wishing I could erase the last ten minutes from my mind.

He drops his lips to my ear. “Are you alright?” he asks, wrapping an arm around me and kissing my cheek.

I glance up at him, feeling like my skin is crawling, her words seeping under my skin. Alex looks genuinely worried, and he should be. “Ehm.”

He kisses my hair, his arm pulling me tighter into him. “You don’t sound okay.” His hands, warm and gentle, cradle my face, tilting it until my eyes meet his.

“Just get me out of here, will you? I’ve had enough of this shit.”

He takes my hand with a gentle squeeze and leads me inside toward the table of women who are all looking our way. “Mother, I need to steal my girl away.”

“Oh, we were just starting to have fun.” She looks genuinely disappointed. And I’m sure she and her catty friend are having fun at my expense. Knowing her like I do, there is no way she didn’t just send Connie out to say all of that to me. I bet it was a test to see if I would run for it or not. That’s the only logical explanation I can come up with.

“I’m sorry, Valentina, we can have lunch one day soon if you like?” I offer, trying to keep up the act.

She quickly kisses my cheek. “I’ll set it up.”

I smile back, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from saying all the horrible things now going through my head. I’m so ready to lash out, but that can wait for the car.

“See you later, Mother,” Alessandro says, tugging on my hand for me to keep up with him. I have no idea what his plans are for this afternoon, but on the top of his list will be to explain what the fuck I just heard.

Chapter 22

As soon as wehop in Alessandro’s car, I pull out the ear cuff and turn it off. I don’t want Sloane or her brother to hear this conversation. She has already heard enough today, and now I have more questions for him. Burning questions that are going off like lightbulbs in my head.

Alessandro takes off up the road, and I feel how dreadfully my hands are trembling. I feel odd. Scared that what we have had is somehow not real because of what Connie was saying. “What are you into?” I spit out, not sure what I think he will tell me. But I need to know because I can’t go through another high tea, garden party, or charity function with the likes of Connie Chambly not knowing the truth.

He glances at me sideways but remains silent.

“Fucking Connie, Mrs. Mayor, was all like, ‘I guess you will see when you marry him.’ You know what, she thought that your fucking papa had purchased me for you so you could do whatever sordid things you wanted to me. She came right out and said it like it was fucking normal.”

A low growl escapes him, then he pulls the car into a space on the side of the road and kills the engine before turning to me, the vein in his neck pulsing.

I stare back at him, not losing my bitchy edge. “What?” I snap. “What else have you been hiding from me?” My eyes plead with him to come clean on it all. I can’t stand this anymore. Not knowing what will be said next time I bump into one of these people, feeling like I’m in the dark.

He drops his head, then he reaches out and intertwines his fingers with mine. My body stiffens, not sure what I’m about to hear. “Before you, I was on the same trajectory as my papa.”

My eyes narrow in on him, in a don’t-mess-with-me stare. “What the fuck does that mean, Alex?”

“It means all you see is a fucking world crafted meticulously by my papa and the men he associates himself with. He doesn’t just control the casino, some businesses, and the drug trade. He controls it all. Nothing happens in this town without his say-so. Nothing. All the women in that room would have either been bought for their high-profile husbands or traded by their papas. And until two years ago when I met you, I saw nothing at all wrong with it. I was prepared to blackmail your papa so I could make you mine because I decided I wanted you to be. I didn’t care what you wanted. I knew how powerful I was, and any girl would be lucky to be mine, because it’s what I had been told my entire life. And then Marco told us your papa had traded you to Carlo D’Amico, and it flipped my world upside down.”

I can feel the anger radiating through him. “And what, you realized how fucked up this all was?”

---