Page 109 of Entangled

Elena met his glare with one of her own when she realized he was there. “Gian! What in the fuck are you doing?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“I beg your pardon?” Elena scrambled to sit up properly in the tub, using an arm to cover her chest as she reached for a nearby towel. She couldn’t quite reach it, though, and Gian didn’t offer to help. “What do you want?”

“Again, I’ll hand that question right back to you, wife.”

Her brow furrowed. “What does it look like? I wanted to take a bath.”

“And drink a bottle of wine in the process, apparently.”

“It’s a half of a bottle.”

“Details. Get the fuck out of the tub.”

She narrowed her gaze. “I—”

Gian was not in the mood to play games with this woman tonight. He yanked Elena out of the bubbly, hot water by her wrist, not caring at all that she slipped and stumbled before righting herself with an angry huff. If looks could kill, he would have been dead right there on the spot.

“We’re not going to play your games tonight, Elena,” he warned. “I have a feeling you’ve been playing enough games with me as it is. I’m going to speak, you’re going to listen. I’m going to ask questions, you’re going to talk. If you lie to me, I will know it. If you spin bullshit with me, I will know it. Do you understand?”

“Could I at least get dressed?”

Gian grabbed the large towel hanging off the hook and shoved it at his wife. “Cover yourself up, it’s the best I can do at the moment.”

“You’re an ass—”

“Yes, I’m aware,” he interrupted before she could insult him. “You know, your father told me again and again that I needed to watch you. He tried to get through my thick skull that women like you can’t be trusted. And after all the shit you already did to me, I should have listened to the man. Except I didn’t, because I listened to too much of what you were saying. You’re just as much of a snake as your father is.”

Elena blinked, her brown gaze icing over. “What is this even about? Shouldn’t you be fucking that whore of yours across the city? I—”

Gian moved forward, crowding Elena to the bathroom wall as his hand came up to clench around her throat. He squeezed hard, feeling her swallow under his grasp as she attempted to take in some kind of air. “I talk, you listen.”

“O-okay, Gian.”

“I don’t know why, but it seems you’ve been feeding your father some kind of crazy bullshit where you and I are concerned. You have him believing you actually care about me on some level. You have him thinking I’m hurting you. That you’re alone here, without me, and poor little Elena is just so fucking heartbroken.”

Sarcasm oozed from Gian.

He couldn’t even control it.

It was all lies.

“And what I didn’t understand, Elena,” Gian continued, “is why you would want to do that at all. We keep your father away and out of our life for a goddamn reason. He was always too fascinated with you, too close to you. Controlling. Vindictive. Dangerous. That’s what you said. I saw these things myself, and I knew it was true. You wanted away from him, and you used me to do it, so I protected you for all these years, even after you lied and hurt me. I still protected you. Didn’t I protect you from him?”

She nodded, though the iciness in her gaze hadn’t left. She didn’t look at him with fear, either, despite the fact he only needed to squeeze her throat a little tighter and she would have no air left to breathe at all. Gian figured that was because this was not the first time his wife had found herself in a position like this one.

“Then why?” Gian roared. “Why would you invite that man back in? Why lie to him, manipulate him with personal things about you and me that aren’t even close to the truth? Why use a woman I love and my child—an innocent baby—as a sacrifice for your games? Why do any of that?”

Elena let out a slow, steady stream of air, as much as she could, and then smiled.

Goddamn.

It was cold.

Dead.

It burned.