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Giovanni
PLAYLIST: ? SO BAD - GESAFFELSTEIN FEATURING HAIM ?
Idon’t sayanother word to Falynn until we make it home. Because she escaped, I had to cut a very important meeting with my lawyers short. We’d been in discussions, poring over the Rosenbaum contract with a fine-tooth comb, searching for any loopholes in the fine print. Dante had called me in a panic.
“Mrs. Sorrentino’s gone, Boss!” he’d yelled into the phone. “We don’t know what happened. She disappeared. The surveillance system didn’t even catch her. It’s like she poofed into thin air!”
I’d gritted my teeth and demanded full manpower dedicated to locating her immediately. It became the job of every last man in my employ who was in the local area to drop what he was doing and scour the city in search of her.
For a suspenseful fifteen minutes, we didn’t know where she’d gone. I’d forgotten all about the meeting with my team of lawyers, rushing out to head straight to the estate. Paul Cicero called me enroute after overhearing the commotion. Apparently, Falynn had invited his wife, Melissa, out for drinks. Being a belligerent, bloated bastard dizzied by cigar smoke, he’d waved her off and told her to come home by eleven.
I showed up to the Ophelia Lounge at the exact moment some dipshit off the street had the audacity to put his grubby hands on Falynn.
It’s been years since I’ve felt that level of blind jealousy and rage witnessing another man around her. The sight was enough for me to shoot the motherfucker between the eyes on the spot. Since that wasn’t feasible with so many eyewitnesses, we took both him and his sweaty friend out back and knocked them around. We put the fear of God in them. They’re lucky all they escaped with were bloody noses and busted lips.
His palm smoothing over her shoulder is seared into my brain. How fucking dare she disobey me?
HOURSafter I explicitly forbade her!
I’m seething when the door to our bedroom slams shut. I squeeze my eyes closed and force myself to breathe slower in order to gain some semblance of control on my temper. Otherwise, any second I’ll explode. I’ll morph into an enraged beast that will destroy everything in sight.
Including Falynn.
She won’t dignify me with even a look. She rushes into the closet and quickly begins undressing. As usual, her silence speaks for her. So do her movements, hurried and almost robotic, like she’s too deep in her head to recognize what she’s doing.
I stop in the doorway, blocking any exit. I’ve transcended regular, explosive rage and crossed over into quiet, controlled rage. In some ways, it’s worse. My gaze tracks her like prey, my heartbeat faster than a jackhammer against my chest.
“Just what do you think you were doing?” I ask slowly.
She shimmies out of her party dress, letting the fabric slip past her bare hips and drop to the floor. Her expression blank, another marker she’s pissed with me, she barely answers. “I went out.”
“You went out,” I repeat. I stalk closer, stepping on the fallen dress as if it’s trash. My large hand lands on the same shoulder that piece of shitcazzogroped earlier and I guide her backward until she bumps into the wall. She’s almost a whole foot shorter than me, which means in order to be eye level, I must position my body at an angle. Both hands planted against the wall behind her, I stare intensely, unblinkingly into the same beautiful face I fell in love with so many years ago. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you are in?” I ask her. My breathing quickens just posing the question. Just thinking about the situation all over again. “Do you know how your actions have consequences? Or did you not bother to think that far in advance?”
“Ormaybe I did and I just didn’t care.”
I scowl. She’s pushing it. She’s antagonizing me more and more.
This is how I know I fucking love this woman. If this were anyone else…
They would’ve already been dead at the blatant disrespect.
I may love her, but I will dole out tough love when necessary. If it’s the only language she’ll understand, then that’s her choice.
My grip tightens on her shoulders. “You will care when I force you. Is that what you want, Falynn? You want me to hurt you? You want me to make you cry? I can if that’s how you want things to be. You may think I’ve been so horrible as you lounge around in this multimillion dollar home, but you haven’t seen anything yet. I’ve goneeasyon you.”
“What are you going to do to me? Throw me on the bed and have sex with me? Lock me in this room? Push more pills down my throat? I can take whatever you give out—do whatever you want. I’mnotsorry!”
The hold I have on my temper vanishes and I react without thinking. I grab her by the throat and press her against the wall.
“You’ve gotten too fucking confident,” I growl dangerously. My voice rumbles out of me, more beast than man. “I will make you regret the moment you got it in your pretty little head you could disobey me and get away with it!”
“Go ahead! Punish me!” she screams despite my clenching hold on her throat. Raw emotion fills out her features, a level of anguish I’ve rarely seen of her. The look of a woman on the edge, about to break down in every possible way.
I give her what she asks for. I squeeze her throat even tighter. Hard enough to bruise. Hard enough to cut off her air.
For a second that feels like an eternity, I don’t care. I don’t give a single fuck what I’m doing. The damage I’m causing.
But as my intense, raving-mad gaze bores into hers, the defiance I see reflecting in her dark brown eyes disappears. Fear replaces it. She’s scared of me.
