Page 47 of Tortured Hearts
“Gianni was engaged before meeting you, my dear. Whatever lies he told you were simply to get between your legs. However, that’s all over now that he’s back.”
I sit grasping at the floor as if, somehow, it’ll ground me. But the harder I grasp, the more everything seems to slip away.No. He’s wrong.I know about Victoria. She’s dead. I read the news article. Gianni wouldn’t lie to my face again. Not here. Not now. “I don’t believe you.”
“Frankly, I don’t care what you believe. I told you out of sheer entertainment, not courtesy. I have big plans, Doctor. I don’t need some bitch getting in my way.”
My nails scrape the concrete as I clench my fist. “Then maybe you should monitorthe helpa little closer.”
“Insubordination that’ll be dealt with accordingly.” His frown gives me a small measure of satisfaction before he turns and walks toward the door. At the top of the stairs, he pauses and stares down at me. “Do you know what happened to Eve?”
Curling into the fetal position, I hug my knees to my chest and close my eyes.
“She became the Devil’s whore,” he says, slamming the door behind him.
Chapter Fifteen
GIANNI
Montclair, New Jersey
Anton keeps his mouth shut most of the drive back to Montclair, which pisses me off. It gives me too much time to second and third-guess what we just did.
“You could’ve given me a heads-up you had audio of my conversation with Marcello,” I say, breaking the silence.
“It would’ve dulled the impact.” He gazes through the windshield. “They needed to see a genuine reaction.”
“And I needed to not be blindsided,again. If we want to pull this off and survive, we can’t keep ambushing each other, Anton.”
“Noted.”
“So in the spirit of full transparency … I want to see her.”
He inhales deeply before forcing the air through his teeth. “It’s only going to make it harder to send her away.”
I tighten my hold on the steering wheel. “Don’t fuckingpsychoanalyze me. I can give you a list of former doctors who’ll tell you it doesn’t end well.”
“You want to tell her everything.” It’s more of an accusation than a question, and the longer it goes unanswered, the more his stare burns the side of my face. Eventually, I see him tip his head back in my peripheral vision. “Fuck me…”
The tires squeal as I jerk the wheel to the left, forcing the car into a tight opening it has no business being in. “No, fuckme, Anton. Because if this all goes south, I’m the one who has to die a goddamn liar in her eyes, not you.”
He rakes his fingers through his gray hair. “Let’s say you come clean, then what? Do you think she wouldn’t want to be a part of it?” My icy glare prompts a weary sigh. “Look, I know you. You wouldn’t go to all this trouble for a woman who didn’t have some fight in her, which is a good thing outside the lines of our world. Inside them, it’ll lead her straight into the line of fire. Justify seeing her all you want, but you’re doing it for selfish reasons that’ll end up hurting her.”
My head knows he’s right. Unfortunately, it’s not my head that’s steering the bus.
I stare out at the road. “Anton, have you ever lo…?” My teeth snap together, grinding that vile word to dust. “Have you everlikedsomeone so much you walked away?”
I let the silence hang for a beat. Then two. Then three. At four I glance across the car and catch the distant look on his face. It’s like he’s gazing through the windshield into the past.
“Yes, I have,” he says, stretching the words with an uncharacteristically slow cadence. “I don’t have a lot of advice about women, but I can tell you sometimes letting go is the ultimate act of …like,and the most selfless thing a man can do. It’s an evisceration from the inside out that, if he’s lucky, is over in one shot.”
“And if he’snot?”
“Then it’s a daily torture.”
Fuck.This is a little too much truth for my liking.
“This is exactly why the good die young,” I mutter, shifting my focus back to the road. “Depravity may earn you a one-way ticket to Hell, but morality gets you disemboweled.”
Anton doesn’t answer. He’s too busy craning his neck at the road sign we just passed. “Gianni, you missed the exit.”
