Page 138 of Married With Malice

Time to face reality. I’m never going to get far on my own, not with half the armed Barone entourage circling the property.

“Please help me,” I say to Sonny even though I REALLY hate asking for a favor from the man who recently followed orders to kidnap me. “I need to get out of here.”

He grimaces. He sighs. But he doesn’t immediately refuse. He’s thinking about it.

Unfortunately, he spends too much time mulling over his options. My father is back and he’s rapidly marching to the stairs. A pair of his favoritecaposfollow at his heels until my father growls at them to fuck off and go outside.

Sonny sighs once more and he gently plucks the weaponized skating trophy out of my hands. “Go back to your room, Annalisa.”

He walks into my room and carefully sets the trophy on top of my desk.

My father is huffing and puffing his way up the stairs as fast as his stubby, arthritic legs will carry him. Sonny gazes sadly at the floor, unable to meet my eyes.

“Coward,” I accuse Sonny and resentfully return to my room, taking a seat on the edge of the bed.

Sonny coughs. “I’m sorry,” he says as if that does anyone any good.

My father thuds to the open doorway, glares at Sonny and says, “Get out.”

Sonny slinks out of the room like a chastised puppy.

My father’s blazing eyes center on me. Can’t say I’m too fond of the deranged gleam within.

On the other hand, I might as well make one last plea to his humanity, just in case he’s discovered some.

“Please let me go, Daddy. All I want to do is go home to my husband. I love him.”

His answer is a flat stare. Not even a spark of compassion or parental love. I’m not sure he heard me.

“None of you three girls are worth much,” he says matter-of-factly, without a hint of remorse. “But you’re the least of them, Annalisa. As for Luca, he never really wanted you and I expect he’ll just cut his losses and run for his life. Because when I catch up with him, his life ends. And there’s no fucking way Luca Connelly takes that risk for you. No man would.”

By now it’s no secret that my father isn’t my biggest cheerleader. But this is the first time he’s ever made it so clear that I’m nothing to him. A prop. Even less than that. A burden. One he resents so deeply he can hardly see straight.

He watches me rise to my feet. I try not to grimace with pain and I fail.

“I’m leaving,” I say. “You don’t have to see me again, Daddy. I’ll walk right out the front door and you can forget that I ever existed.”

His lip curls. “That’s not a choice for you to make. Now go clean yourself up in the bathroom. I’ve sent for your sisters and I’ll tell your mother to bring you a plate of food.”

“No. I said I’m leaving and I meant it.”

He seizes my arm. “This isn’t a good day to defy me, little girl.”

And then, because I’m furious and exhausted and heartsick and all I want is to feel my husband’s arms around me, I do the worst possible thing I can do right now.

I spit right in his face.

He blinks at me in disbelief. I get some satisfaction out of successfully shocking him for the second time today.

That satisfaction, however, is very short-lived.

With an ugly roar of wrath, he wrenches my arm and I feel a menacing, yet sickeningly familiar pop in my shoulder, the one that still troubles me now and then, ever since it was badly dislocated ten years ago.

The momentum has thrown me to the floor but if I thought the worst was over, I was wrong. Out of the corner of my eye, I see my father grab the skating trophy Sonny left on my desk.

A rush of intense fear squeezes the air from my lungs.

Today my father has been thwarted and humiliated. Now he’s going to take out his rage on the most convenient target. The blow is coming and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

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