“Bullshit! You hand-delivered me to your husband knowing full well that he’s the enemy,” she snarls. “You really dove into this fake marriage and ran with it, didn’t you? How much dick did it take before you decided to change sides?”
I jolt back, as if she’s struck me.
“This isn’t about taking sides, Juliana. It’s about doing the right thing.”
A bitter laugh escapes her. “Right. So you’re saying that kidnapping your best friend is doing the right thing.”
“Look, I understand where you’re coming from, but you seem to have forgotten that you were the one whoasked meto help you find somewhere to hide,” I snap. “And I delivered.”
“Somewheresafe, Candi. Not somewhere I’d be a prisoner. Your shitty fucking husband is probably going to kill me before anyone even realizes I’m here!”
“Youaresafe,” I insist.
“Clearly we have two very different definitions of personal safety,” she says icily.
“Armani won’t hurt you,” I say quietly.
But I’m not sure I believe that. Everything hinges on these DNA results we’re waiting for. And even if Juliana is the Bellantis’ sister, that doesn’t mean Armani won’t still want to drag her down to the Deep Cellar for a little brotherly interrogation session.
She’s watching me as I run this all through my head.
“You look like you have something else you want to say, so spit it out,” she hisses.
I take a deep breath and look her squarely in the eye. “I’m sorry you think I betrayed you, but I swear, that was never my intention. I was afraid for your life, Jules. I brought you somewhere I knew I could personally keep an eye on you, a place with plenty of guards who aren’t working for your uncle or your fiancé. I really thought I was helping.”
She bursts out of her chair and stalks to the window, digging her fingers into her hair, then whirls to face me. She’s positively shaking with the force of her anger.
“Do you have even the slightest inkling of what you’ve done? You are fucked. You haven’t just made me your enemy, you’ve made the entireRussian mobyour enemy. You’re dead where you’re standing.”
My whole body goes cold, but my anger is boiling over.
“You told me you were afraid for your life!” I shout. “So I did what I had to do to get you out of a life-threatening situation! What would you have done in my position, Jules?”
She glowers at me. “I sure as hell wouldn’t have done what you did. I would’ve grabbed my gun and all my emergency cash first, disguised myself the best I could, and then rented a car under a fake name, bought a bunch of burner phones—”
“Okay, okay, I get it! You’re way better at this gangster stuff than me. Let’s face it: you always have been,” I say, earning a quick smirk from her. “But regardless of the fact that you hate me for bringing you here, there might be a silver lining for you. Because Armani thinks he has some answers about what happened to your parents.”
Juliana freezes. That was probably the last thing she expected to come out of my mouth.
God, I wish I could tell her more—prepare her better for the possibility that she might, in fact, be a Bellanti—but I don’t feel like it’s my news to share right now. Not when we’re literally a few hours away from getting those blood test results back and finding out for sure if my suspicions have been warranted.
Crossing her arms, she schools her expression back to neutral and looks out the window.
“My parents?” she scoffs. “What could he possibly know? Did Daddy Bellanti keep a diary of all his kills or something? Is Armani going to read me the entries out loud? Or did he have a hand in their murder himself?”
“No! He would have been a first grader at the time,” I point out, exasperated. “And also, he’s not that bad. He’s also kind of…soon to be…the father of my baby.”
My hand subconsciously drops down over my lower belly, and Juliana’s jaw drops.
“Fuckingwhatdid you just say?” she gasps.
I can’t tell if she actually didn’t hear what I said, or if she’s just so shocked by the news that she wants me to say it again.
Clearing my throat, I try again. “I said that I’m—that we’re—preg—”
Her eyes dart to the doorway, and she immediately pulls her shoulders back, her whole body going tense. I spin to follow her line of vision.
Armani stands there with a sheet of paper crumpled in his fist.
