Page 123 of Giovanna

“I’m not alone. You’re here. Now are you going to give me a lift home or should I hitch-hike?” I stagger towards the road with my thumb stuck out.

“Jesus Christ,” the Marino soldier mutters, pulling my arm down and leading me toward his SUV. “I’ll take you home.”

He has to practically lift me into the passenger seat before he belts me in and hurries around to the driver's side. “What’s your name, young man?” I slur.

He raises his eyebrows. “I’m older than you, Ms. Rossi…and my name is Dylan.”

“You’re very beautiful, Dylan…” I sigh. He is, but he has nothing on the Marino siblings. That family is designed by gods and programmed by the devil.

Dylan shoots me a look of pure terror. “I’d prefer if you didn’t get me killed tonight.”

“Pffft. As if. No one gives a shit what I do so long as I make it down the aisle to Elio when I'm told to.”

He doesn’t answer me. Just shakes his head as if I’m a complete moron. Maybe he’s right.

Dylan parks the car and escorts up to the back of the house. “You okay to get yourself off to bed? I’ll text Ms. Marino to let her know I’ve brought you home.”

Hmmm, interesting. He doesn’t report to my husband-to-be or my father, he reports to Giovanna.

“Thanks for the ride, Dylan,” I gently tap his cheek twice and he disappears to no doubt sit in his SUV all night in case I decide to go out.

Fumbling with the torchlight on my phone, I bump into the dining table. There’ll be a bruise on my hip in the morning. I seem to be collecting a lot of them lately.

Hands splayed, I feel my way along the wall searching for the light switches like a blind woman who has lost her bearings.

“Success!” I whisper-shout to myself when I hit the right switch to bathe the kitchen in light.

I’m humming and singing my drunk version of Montell Fish’s songFall In Love With You.I’m trying to be poetically morose, but the result is probably akin to a drowning cat.

I mumble-sing, about things not working out because it’s what I deserve, into the refrigerator as I scavenge for something to soak up all the wine sloshing around in my stomach.

“Ooooh!” my eyes light up as they hone in on a container of cannoli fromLa Fazenda.

“Hope no one was saving this,” I snigger to myself as I sit at the dining table with a fork and the entire container of sweet goodness.

“Good to see you eating something. You’re way too scrawny,” the hair on the back of my neck stands up and I swallow the mouthful of cannoli along with the ball of dread that instantly forms in my throat.

That voice.

It is snake-like; dangerous, creepy, and with enough venom to kill a grown man dead in a few minutes.

Feigning nonchalance, I continue eating and respond with a mouthful of flaky pastry. “What are you doing here, David? Pretty sure you were given your marching orders.”

“Visiting Sandy, of course,” he says entirely too smoothly.

I stare pointedly at the clock on the wall oven. “At 2.46 in the morning?”

“You know how it is catching up over a few whiskeys. Time gets away from you.” His smile makes me want to vomit, but I keep eating so as not to show him he has any effect on me.

“Hmmm, well you should probably get going then.”

David tuts and steps closer so he looms over me in my seat. His hand shoots out and he grabs my ponytail, yanking my head back to expose my neck.

“Let me go now!” I shout with confidence I don’t feel. “You think Giovanna won’t break your fingers again if she knows you touched me?”

He shoves my head hard into the table and snarls into my ear. “Giovanna isn’t always going to be there to save you, princess.”

The tears I’ve done so well to keep in begin to trickle across my nose and onto the table. The panic is setting in and I’ve only just opened my mouth to scream at the top of my lungs when we both go still at the sound of a gun being cocked.

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