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“Do you realize who you’re talking to?” she fires back.
I chuckle. “Gianna Sterling, I know exactly who you are. You’re my wife. And this ain’t up for negotiation. If you ain’t with my family or me, you will have an entire army behind you. People will be out for your blood now; they’re going to come out of the woodwork to overthrow you, or try to. This is where our alliance comes into play.”
She swallows, her gaze drifting over my shoulder and out onto the ranch. “Yeah. The alliance,” she repeats.
“Yes. The alliance you so desperately wanted will help you rule Los Angeles, exactly how you wanted this to go. Use it.”
She taps her nails on her thigh in slow, monotonous movements. And when she pulls back, her eyes are blank of emotion. “I’m going to go back to ours, and I’d like a few hours on my own,” she tells me.
It ain’t a question.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“I’m, what was it? Crazy. Yeah. I need a little processing time on my own. I’ll text you when you can come back.”
“So you’re banishing me from my own house?”
She reaches for the door handle. “Yes, polpettino. I’ve got some shit to deal with the only way I know how. On my own.”
I shove the ignition back on and slam it into reverse, backing out of the space. This again. Every damn time. She pushes me away, and each time it is a harder kick to the gut. How do I make her see that I don’t want to leave her alone?
“Well, you’re in no fit state to walk from here. I’ll drop you by the door, Your Highness.”
She doesn’t say a word in response, and I mull over our entire conversation to see where the hell I fucked that up to make her switch off from me.
I need to learn, and fast, because I can’t lose her. I won’t survive it.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
Gianna
Song- Drag Me Under, Sleep Token
After slamming the front door so hard it nearly rattles the mirror off the wall, I make a coffee and then stare at the wooden walls. I’m hoping that I’m about to have some kind of epiphany about my future.
My brain completely shut down when Colten started talking about our alliance. How he’s going to protect me because of that. Not because he cares. Not because he wants me. All I heard was alliance, and I went numb from the inside.
Everything I thought I wanted, all the years I’ve killed myself to please my father, and now I have it, but in that second, I’d have traded it all to have Colten say something different to me.
A fucking alliance.
Something that didn’t make me feel like a deal, a pawn in a game. Because that is all I have been to anyone.
I had to keep my virginity to be used as a bride.
I had to be locked in a prison cell for days to learn my lessons.
I had to get my ass beat by guards to show my father I was tough enough to fight.
Today was the first time I ever fought back. One time. In thirty years on this Earth, I fought back once.
The tears fall down my face, dropping onto my chest, and I stand here, frozen in time, replaying the moment I dragged a blade across his throat.
The relief I felt at that moment.
But for every tortuous memory of my father, I have a happy one. The cake he bought for me after I shot my first target in the head.
The celebration he hosted for my first kill.
