Page 104 of Venomous Vows

ELENA: Nice try.

ADRIAN: I’m not fucking around right now. You have thirty seconds to tell me where you are, Elena. Or I will burn this whole fucking city to the ground.

The thing is, he might.

Adrian knows no bounds when it comes to me and it’s equally scary and flattering, with a bit of annoying.

ELENA: Calm down, Adrian. And rest.

ADRIAN: Rest? You want me to rest when my wife isn’t home?

ELENA: I’m not your wife. You turned that down.

ADRIAN: I said we’d do it tomorrow.

ELENA: And I said it was a one-time opportunity.

ADRIAN: Stop fucking around with me. You will be my wife. Even if I have to drag you to the nearest courthouse.

ELENA: You’d have to find me first to do that.

Within seconds, I hear something faintly crash along a wall or the floor and know it’s Adrian. I’m on Marcella’s side of the house where she can easily get to me and she’s bound to come in here soon to either tell me to stop torturing the man if she heard him or to see what I’m doing.

ADRIAN: Suit yourself,piccola diavola.Game on.

The door to the bedroom opens and in strides my sister, ambling quickly toward my bed with a giant frown on her face. “Did you hear that?”

I wave my cell that’s in my hand and her body sags with a sigh. “Elena, what are you doing?”

“He asked me where I was.”

“Oh.” Marcella sits on the edge of my bed. “You should probably turn the lights off in this room if you’re hiding.”

Shit, right?

My sister doesn’t wait for me to ask, doing it for me, and comes back to sit with me.

“How long are you going to make him wait?” she whispers as the moon fills a good portion of the room.

“Not long,” I answer honestly. “He’s talking about burning the city down.”

Marcella grabs my forearm. “What?”

“He won’t.”

“Hewill,” she frets. “Are you crazy?”

“Be realistic, Marcella. He’s probably in the middle of tracking my phone right now. All it takes is where my signal is bouncing off one of the phone towers, and he’ll narrow it down.”

“How do you know that?”

“The First 48.”

My sister laughs softly and knocks her shoulder into mine. “Fuck you and those shows.”

“They come in handy.”

“Apparently. Adrian is so screwed.”

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