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I snort a laugh. “He’s more of a bridezilla than you are. Why isn’t your sister here, anyway? She can help with this shit.”
Lucia goes completely still. “Pavone said she’d be safer in her room.”
I raise my eyebrows at her. “Safer? What does that mean?”
“It means she’s a hostage!” she hisses. “After… after yesterday. Pavone locked her up. Because he doesn’t trust me to behave myself. He promises she’s going to be perfectly safe until the wedding.” She laughs bitterly. We both know exactly how much Pavone can be trusted.
I want to tell herI told you so. This is what happens when you play with fire. But even if I don’t know Vanessa, even if I give no shits about her, I know what it’s like to care for a sibling.
She looks up at me, her expression suddenly sharp. “You didn’t tell him anything, did you?” she asks, sounding suspicious.
I blink at her. “Tell him what?”
“You know… about yesterday.”
“No?” I have no idea what she’s getting at.
She stares at me intently for another long moment. “Pavone had to have a reason for suddenly thinking I was a liar after he believed everything before. How do I know you didn’t say something?”
“What was I going to say? Yeah, I know she’s a lying slut because I’ve had my cock inside her?” I shake my head. “Sounds like a quick way to get murdered. No thanks.”
“Then what got his hackles up?” she asks me. “He was fine when he left. Then he woke me and Vanessa up in the middle of the night to give me a warning and put on a show.”
“Maybe you aren’t that good of an actress,” I tell her. “You pretend to be Victor, trying to pull strings, but he’s got decades of practice and you’re still an amateur. Pavone’s dealt with men like Victor, too. He’s not stupid.”
She scowls at me. “I’m not like Victor. I’m not… making people do what they don’t want.”
“Yeah? Did Pavonewantto murder one of his own men? Did I?” I run my knuckles down her cheek, and she gasps sharply—but she leans into the touch, too. “I thought a lot about how you tricked me and Saint. It was a neat thing, making it seem like Saint and I had come up with the idea of the date. But it was all your plan, wasn’t it? And if I can notice something like that after the fact, Pavone can too.”
“You two still came up with the idea,” she says defensively. But we both know she’s far from innocent, and she concedes. “Maybe. I don’t know.” Lucia at least seems less hostile now that she doesn’t think I had something to do with Vanessa getting punished for Lucia’s actions.
Not that I really care, of course.
“It’s worse than I thought,” she says abruptly. “With my mom and Vanessa. I didn’t expect him to actually… do anything with them. I thought that if I did what he wanted, he’d leave them alone.”
I laugh in her face, though I feel a little guilty when I see the hurt in her expression. “What gave you that idea, Princess? The soft and loving way he treated his ex-wives?”
“No,” she says irritably. “He just has no reason to hurt them. But I’m pretty sure he’s letting his men… do things to my mother. And he almost let Rossi have Vanessa last night.”
I’ve seen how Rossi looks at Vanessa, and I wouldn’t be surprised if something has already happened. I’m not going to mention my suspicions to Lucia though.
“Guess that’s something you’ll have to deal with,” I say, picking up one of the invites. “Just three weeks until you’ve tied yourself permanently to this man.”
Her shoulders slump. “Yeah,” she says unenthusiastically. “Three whole weeks. Christ, I don’t know if I can do this, Angelo.”
I’m surprised by her rancor. “Why are you telling me that?”
“Because I don’t know who else to tell. Even if I could talk to Vanessa about this, I don’t want her to think I’m weak.” She laughs bitterly. “You’ve seen me weak, so what’s one more moment of weakness to you?”
I’m honestly confused by that statement. “When have I seen you weak?”
Her eyes meet mine. “All the time? When I was crying, and begging, and being humiliated—”
“No? You were just hot then. And you fought so hard, Princess. Fuck, the way you held it together when I was trailing the knife along your skin… How you tried so hard to work with what Victor gave you… the way you got Saint to fuck me…” I can’t help but smile a bit.
“But I… I was useless, in the end. You tied me up. Used me like a toy.” Her voice goes very quiet, and she averts her eyes. “I wasn’t anything at all.”
“Fuck me, Lucia. Victor pulled his crap on you and then you knocked him out with Saint’s drugs. That’s actually hilarious, okay? He was so fucking pissed, and yeah, so were Saint and I, but it was funny seeing the tables turned on him.”
