Page 40 of Wedlocked

I exhaled harshly. Something didn’t add up. I’d barely been married all of two days. My whole body tensed. He didn’t seriously expect me to get rid of my wife this soon—did he? Nothing surprised me when it came to my father. Not even the fact he didn’t wait for my answer as he fired off another question.

“What information have you uncovered about her family?”

“I’m working on it,” I said tersely.

“Is she cooperating?”

“Of course.”

“Really?”

“You doubt me?”

“I doubt her. She’s very…headstrong.”

His words niggled at me, but I wasn’t about to get defensive, especially not with my damn father. I didn’t want him to know he was getting under my skin and then have him use it against me.

“If that’s all Papà?”

“Going already? No time to talk to your dad?”

I ignored his sarcasm to sprinkle it liberally in my own reply. “In case you’ve forgotten, I’ve just gotten married.”

“How could I possibly forget?” His dark chuckle filled my ear. “But you’re the don now. You’ve got to leave her side sooner or later—if you haven’t already.”

A prickle of presentiment went down my spine, making my voice short. “If that’s all?”

“Yes, I guess it is. Just one thing, though.”

My knuckles whitened around my cellphone. “Yes?”

“Blood needs to be repaid with blood. Your wife’s death will send a clear message—“

“Goodbye, Papà.”

I disconnected the call with my pulse thrumming and my face hot. No one destroyed my emotions like my father did. He knew just how to burrow into my mind and dissect my most secret thoughts…then act on them.

Sabrina gave me a wary look. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything is fine,” I muttered.

Fine and dandy.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Sabrina

Everything was not fine. Not with Ethan, and most certainly not with me.

Not only was my face beginning to ache and throb, my mind was in a much worse state. I couldn’t even think about my mother’s death. If I did I’d completely fall apart, shatter into a thousand pieces that might never get put back together again.

My mother had been killed by a hit and run driver, someone my family and I had thought was a stranger, likely a drunk driver. That it had been Ethan’s father and he’d gotten away with her murder for all these years made my head spin and my insides churn yet again.

No doubt Lorenzo had paid off law enforcement to turn a blind eye and even cover up any evidence that would implicate him in my mom’s murder.

My breath caught in my throat. Had Ethan been aware? He was—what?—fifteen years older than me. He would have been twenty-seven, well and truly old enough to have been involved in it somehow. I swallowed hard, forcing down the urge to be sick yet again.

I had to stop this…craziness. Lorenzo was the one who was deranged, not me. And yet he was making me question everything.

---