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“Tell them who you are. Nothing clever, okay?” The tension in his tone eased, like maybe her scheme succeeded in some small way. “Just tell them it’s an emergency, it’s your money, you’re a Bonacci, and you need it.”
His instructions made her stomach seize and a harsh prickle rake over her skin. She’d never heard of a more half-baked plan. To go to so much trouble to enlist help in finding her, all under the assumption a bank would just hand over millions upon millions of corporate dollars to a random voice on the other end of a phone. Anthony took entitlement to a whole other stratosphere.
There’d be no telling what he’d do once he learned his plan had tanked. Or maybe there was. Either way, he was forcing her onto this manic joyride right along with him, and the consequences of the grim news to come would be hers to bear.
An automated message picked up and rolled through a list of service options. She ignored each one and set about appealing to Anthony’s arrogant side. “How did you find me? I was so careful.”
“Like I said. I have friends in low places, and you made it easy when you started contacting people.”
Of course, her dad, Rochelle…
She peered down and faked disappointment—not that it took much acting—giving him what he wanted yet again. Her misery.
Her chances of breaking free dwindled with every passing second. She’d wanted so much more for herself and Blaine. More than their bleak past and a few chaotic weeks together. He’d counted on her, and she’d failed him. Despite Anthony’s ridiculous plan, he’d won again.
The second his plan fell apart, she’d be dead. He wouldn’t get the money, but he’d get his revenge.
“You should have known I’d hunt you down.” His cold stare bore into her, upper lip tugging higher.
“I’ve been so scared I forgot to tell you to press two on the keypad.” She swallowed hard. Again, appealing to his ego. Again, trying to buy time.
He gave her a sideways glare, then pulled the phone away to press the button. She filled the quiet moment with more words. “There’s an easier way to get your money. Please, Anthony, just let me call my dad.”
“I’m not an idiot.” He half spat the reply, pressing the phone to her ear with one hand, the other disappearing somewhere behind his back. “You think I don’t know what you’ve been doing all this time?”
His hand reemerged, this time holding a gun. She scrambled back against the cold, hard bricks behind her, her mind fuzzy with the sensation of standing outside her body.
“You think I’d believe a lying whore like you?” The words squeezed through his gritted teeth, and he prodded the gun’s muzzle to her cheek, pressing, pressing, pressing until pain radiated to other parts of her face. “We’re not calling your fucking dad.”
Thick, silent tears spilled down her cheeks, and still, she said nothing.
His expression lifted, like he enjoyed what he saw, while his eyes held that same soulless stare.
He shook his head now, slow and mocking. “What chance did we have? My family gave you and your dad the world, and you insisted on being a sour bitch the entire time. You spent the first years of our marriage pining over some other man. What did you think would happen between us?”
A ball of heat ignited in the center of her tummy. An angry heat. One she would have been too afraid to express in the past. But not now.
“You call me a whore?” She panted and spoke through her pain, her head aching and her body tired. “But I was never up for sale. My dad repaid your family ten times over. I was never yours, Anthony. I never chose you. What did you think would happen when you bullied and broke your way into my life? You took it as a given that I would be thankful. But how much clearer can I make it? I never wanted you. I never wanted you.”
She spat the statement out, somehow not regretting those potential last words, even as his stare turned hard, and the muscles over his cheekbones grew taut. He drew his hand back and swung the gun toward her face as if her head hadn’t already taken enough punishment.
She reeled back and slammed her eyes closed, anticipating the bite of unforgiving metal.
But no blow came.
A loud thud had her flinging her eyes open. Blaine held Anthony pinned to the floor.
Blaine!
He stared at her. “Get out.”
Just as the thunder of a bullet rippled through the air.
