Page 255 of Cara & Gian: The Guzzi Duet

“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.

Like her.

“Because look at you,” she whispered, her voice hoarse and strained. “Look at you, Gian. Look at how angry you are, how ready to kill you are. Years ago, when you found me battered and beaten because of him, you were angry, but not like this. So calm and steady, but with rage so real it radiates. I thought it would have been enough back then to push you into killing him—seeing me like that, and what he did to me—but it wasn’t. And because of that, I had to follow through, didn’t I? To get away, I had no other choice but to follow through with the next part of the plan.”

A heavy realization settled on Gian’s shoulders like a dead weight as he took in his wife’s words.

“To marry me, you mean.”

Elena shrugged dainty shoulders. “I can’t help that it’s taken this long for you to finally find something you give a shit enough about to kill for it, but don’t you ever fault me for using it, Gian. You know exactly who I am—I can’t help that my father forgot for a time, too.”

Yes, he knew.