Page 50 of The Consigliere

“Please, Matty, you must believe me. You’re all I have.”

“Correction, had. I don’t give a fuck anymore and you know why…?”

I push her so she falls back on the rug.

“Because you ripped out my heart and ground it to dust under your shoe, so if you think it still beats inside me, you’ll find nothing but emptiness.”

Her wide, hurt eyes stare at me in pain and for some reason it hits me, despite doing everything in my power to remain blind to it. Diana always knew how to manipulate me, and it appears she hasn’t forgotten that devastating skill.

“How can I prove it?”

“By telling me everything.”

I change direction and decide the stakes are too high to waste this golden opportunity and she looks down, leaving me in no doubt it’s disguising the triumph flaring in her eyes.

“I will.”

She whispers as if it’s the most difficult thing she has ever done, and I shrug.

“Go on then.”

She shuffles closer and takes my hand, causing me to snatch it back immediately.

“Please, Matty, believe me. It’s taken a lot of courage for me to come here and fall on my sword. I will do anything to make you trust me again. We were so good together and Mario threatened me when he saw how much I love you. He threatened to tell your father and have us both murdered by his soldiers. I did it to protect us both, and I will not apologize for that.”

“And my brothers?” I snap. “Was it the same for them too?”

She shakes her head sadly. “Mario again. He made me seduce you all to anger your father so he would order you to leave, then he could take your place and become your father’s successor. Neither of us realized how soon that would be, and I’d hoped to have more time to get away from Mario and plead for your forgiveness.”

She sighs. “I prayed that something would happen and circumstances would do it for me in a gun fight. But Mario is like a cockroach and lives through the fire.”

She falters and whispers, “I’m afraid of him.”

As she speaks, it takes me back to the time I was happiest. When Diana was the center of my world and it’s as if we are right back in that moment.

“Diana”. I see her standing at the window and note how fragile she looks as she leans against the glass, an air of sadness surrounding her.

She says in a muffled voice, “Please, I need to be alone.”

Something makes me step inside, rather than away and I move a little closer, hearing her strangled cry as she whispers, “Please, Matteo, I need to be alone.”

I ignore her wishes and draw to her side, spinning her around to face me, and the anger boils when I see the fresh bruise covering her eyes.

“Did he do this?”

Her lip quivers as she battles the tears and just nods, trying to look away.

“The bastard.” I growl, knowing that is the extent of my sympathy. My father has always spoken with his fists and fresh bruises were something we expected on our own faces but not on a woman’s. If anything, I’m surprised at that because women in our family are treated like queens all the time they have their uses.

I reach out and she winces as I touch the purple stain on her beautiful face and her lip trembles as she whispers, “Please help me, Matty.”

She shivers against the breeze from the open window, and I can’t help myself and pull her into my arms. Her head resting against my chest as she sobs quietly.

My arms instinctively hold her to protect because I’m not the monster my father wants me to be and as she wraps her arms around my waist and presses her cheek to my chest, a surge of desire hits me hard in the heart.

Diana was paraded in front of us as our father’s new girlfriend and he made no secret of the fact he was ruining her soul. We watched while he behaved inappropriately in front of us and turned away when he treated her cruelly and dismissed her opinion on just about everything.

My hatred grew for my father as rapidly as my infatuation with the woman huddled in my arms and without thinking, I drop a light kiss on the top of her head, more as an act of comfort than anything else.

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