Page 94 of Brutal Legacy

“Good to know. I’m Giada.” Elio’s sister sauntered into the room and closed the door behind her.

The lock turned outside. So, there was still a guard there.

“Don’t worry, you’d never make it past me to the door,” Giada smirked, reading my thoughts easily.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. I’m not a fighter.” I surveyed her fit form. “I’m totally unprepared for life as a thug’s wife.”

Giada’s eyebrows shot up, and she let out a cackle of laughter. “Thug’s wife? If you think that about my brother, wait until you meet my husband. Thug life. Nice. Reckless and brave without anything to back it up, but brave, nonetheless.” She stopped in front of me. “I heard you know my brother from way back.”

I nodded stiffly. She was making me nervous. She had an unpredictable aura about her, like she might hug me, or stab me. She sank down on the edge of the bed, leaving me awkwardly standing over her. As if my thoughts had summoned it, she reached into her back pocket and pulled out a wicked-looking knife. She twirled it easily between her fingers.

“You know, I’m not a big believer in women being forced to do things they don’t want to. I don’t like it on the street, or in my family. The De Sanctis family isn’t big on it. It’s against Renato’s code; well, except when it came to his own wife. So, that begs the question… what made you another exception?”

I shrugged.

“He knows you, of course, so I guess that changes everything. It means that he chose this for you. Which means he thinks you deserve it.”

“I deserve being forced to marry a murderer and being locked up in a room for the rest of my life?” I bit out scornfully.

Giada shrugged. “I don’t know. Do you?”

I took a deep breath and smoothed my hands down the old T-shirt of Elio’s I again had on. I still didn’t have proper clothes.

“Look, as nice as this show of female camaraderie is, I had time penciled in to stare at the wall and cry, followed by screaming into the pillow. I really need to get on with it.”

Giada stared at me and then burst into laughter, her red lips stretched wide. Maybe everyone in this house was a psychopath.

“That was a good one. I liked that. You know, for a bride, Elio could have done a lot worse.” She chortled, standing and flipping her knife around.

She moved it so fast, I barely registered the motion before it was pressing into my throat.

“But I need to let you know that if you hurt my brother, I’ll cut your throat, bitch, anytime, anyplace.”

“Your brother is the one imprisoning me,” I ground out, alarm beating through me.

“Yeah, he is, which isn’t like him at all. Something about you has him all turned around, and I don’t like that. He’s been through enough.”

“What’s he been through?” I heard myself ask. Suddenly, I wanted to fill in those blank years between us more thananything so I could start to understand the man Elio Santori had become.

“What hasn’t he? He lost his soul overseas. He came back different… get used to it. As for why you upset him so much, I guess you fucked him over when you were both young.”

“It was the other way around, actually. He broke my heart.”

Giada scoffed, pressing the knife harder into my throat. “Either you’re stupid or a liar. The only way all of this is happening now is if you really meant something to him, and my brother doesn’t care about people easily. You could count the people he cares lives or dies on one hand, and for some reason, it looks like you’re included. If that’s the case… there’s no way he hurt you. You hurt him, and you should spend your life fixing it.”

“I swear. He was the one.” I stared into her dark eyes. “I loved him. He’s the only man I’ve ever loved.”

Giada pulled back. She tossed her hair behind her shoulder and snapped her knife closed. I took the first easy breath in a good ten minutes.

“Weren’t you married before this?” She raised an eyebrow at me.

I just nodded.

She let out a chuckle. “Well, in that case, I guess you two have a lot of talking to do. Good luck with that, my brother isn’t an award-winning communicator. I brought you this.” She took a bobbin of black thread and a needle from her jacket pocket.

This was Elio’s doing. He’d asked her to bring it. I didn’t know how to feel about that.

“No offense, but your clothes are a little…”

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