SWNOVELS The Maddest Obsession: Part 1 – Chapter 3
22 years old
October 2013
BLACKNESS. INKY AND STAGNANT, IT dripped into my subconscious.
It was often an escape from reality; a comfort in the madness. But this time, it whispered to me—telling me not to wake up now, not to wake up ever. Unfortunately, a shrill noise in the distance was louder. My eyes fluttered open, but I closed them again when pain cut through my head like a knife.
Rrring. Rrring.
A groan escaped me, and I rolled over, my hand coming to rest on a bare chest. Something shifted, one puzzle piece clicking into place.
Rrring. Rrring.
Splaying my fingers, I ran my hand across his chest.
Too hot. Too smooth. Not right.
Rrring. Rrr—
“What the fuck do you want?” a male voice grumbled.
Blood, veins, and my heart went ice cold—and, with one fell swoop, my world crashed to the floor around me.
My eyes flew open, the pain in my head ignored for the stronger ache blooming in my chest.
I viewed it in snapshots. My dress on the floor. A slit of light through the blinds. Naked skin. Mine. His.
I pulled the sheets closer as a deep sickness churned in my stomach.
He ended the call, tossed his phone on the nightstand, and closed his eyes. After a moment of thick tension permeating the air, he flicked them back open and looked straight at me. We stared at each other as an invasive silence licked at my skin.
“Jesus,” was what Nico muttered before he closed his eyes again.
I leaned over the bed and threw up everything in my stomach. Acid singed my throat, and I wiped my mouth with the back of a hand.
Disgrace.
Worthless.
Unlovable.
Whore.
It didn’t happen.
Lie, the blackness whispered.
I felt the imprints all over me—hands, teeth, lips—crawling over my skin and into my soul with claws made of heartbreak and metal.
Opening my eyes, I stared at a used condom on the floor.
My ears rang, my lungs closed up, and I couldn’t breathe. I gripped the sheets, panic tearing through my chest.
“Gianna . . .”
“I gave him everything,” I cried, tears streaming down my cheeks.
“Hell,” he muttered before getting to his feet and pulling on a pair of boxer briefs. He went to pick up my dress but tossed it back on the floor when he saw I’d puked on it.
“I was a virgin when I married him. I was faithful.”
“I know.”
The images from yesterday came back with a vengeance. Our room. My husband. Her. Someone I had considered family. I’d always known there were other women . . . but why her? Betrayal cut through my chest, a fresh and burning wound. Tears ran over my lips, tasting salty on my tongue.
“It wasn’t enough,” I whispered. I’m never enough.
“Nothing is enough for my father, Gianna,” he said. “You know that.”
My throat tightened as I watched Nico grab a shirt from his dresser drawer, because sometimes, I could see Antonio in the way he carried himself.
I was in love with my husband, a man who didn’t love me. Maybe I could blame Agent Allister for putting the idea in my head one year ago, but somehow, the pain had led me here. To my husband’s son.
The panic attack reared its head, stealing the breath straight from my lungs. “How did this happen?”
“Really? You need me to explain it to you?”
“This isn’t a joke, Ace.”
“Not laughing, Gianna.”
He set the t-shirt on my lap, dropped to his haunches next to my pile of puke, and nodded toward my mouth. “Did my papà do that to you?”
I licked the cut on my bottom lip. “I threw a vase at his head and called him a cheating pig.”
Ace made a small noise of amusement. “Of course you did.”
Agent Allister was right now. Hit had become hits, and for some reason, I despised the man, as if he’d set all this in motion. It’d been one year since I’d seen him, but the hatred I felt for him still lay close to the surface.
“You aren’t going to tell him,” Nico said.
I didn’t respond.
“If you tell him, I will make your life a living hell.”
A bitter laugh escaped me. My best friend was fucking my husband. How did it get worse than that?
He grabbed my chin and turned it toward him. “We both know you’ll take the brunt of his anger, not me.”
“It’s my decision to make.”
He dropped his hand, sighed, and stood up. “Fine, but I warned you. I won’t feel sorry for you, either.”
I grabbed his t-shirt and slipped it on while he focused on digging through his nightstand drawer.
“Why, Ace?” I whispered.
How could you have let this happen?
I knew why I had. I was a mess. Everything I did was wrong. But Nico? He always had his head on straight. He maintained control in every move he made.
“I was drunk, Gianna. Really fucking drunk. And, to be completely honest, I still am.”
He lit a cigarette, the glow of the cherry red and angry. When he opened the blinds and then the window, and light filled the room, another piece of the puzzle clicked into place. Streaks of red covered his hands and ran up his arms. Blood. I didn’t know what it was like being a Made Man, but I’d lived around them long enough to know it wasn’t easy. That sometimes, the toll of it hit them all at once.
“You look like your papà.” The words escaped me, soft, yet also so harsh in the sunlit room. The sins of the night never did sound so good in the day.
He blew out a breath of smoke, his eyes lighting with a flicker of dry humor. “Jesus.” He shook his head. “Is that what brought you here last night?”
Strobe lights. Dirty bathroom tile. Blow. A drip of sweat down my back. Accepting a white pill from a baggie. Nothing.
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
“Well, whatever it was, I hope you got something from it, Gianna. Because we’re both going to hell.” He put his cigarette out on the windowsill and left the room.
I closed my eyes and tried to finish the puzzle, to piece the rest of the night together. But all I encountered was blackness. A blackness that whispered for me to fall asleep and not wake up, ever.
A box of chocolates tied with an apologetic red bow sat on our bed when I got home that morning. The same bed my husband had fucked my best friend on from behind.
I climbed into the sheets and ate every one of them.
Days passed, a blur of colors and feelings and a secret eating me alive. It was all upside-down, like viewing the world from a merry-go-round as it spun, head and hair hanging off the steel platform.
They were bad days. Cold. Lonely. High.
Antonio had shown his face only once. He came to bed late and fell asleep instantly. I’d stared at the ceiling until the sun streamed through the blinds, the bed dipped, and his presence disappeared as easily as it had come.
Soon after, sleep took me under.
A bright light flicked on, and a draft hit me as the comforter ripped away. I made a noise of protest but choked on it as ice-cold water poured onto my face.
“Levàntate!”
I sputtered as the water kept coming and jolted to a sitting position. Wiping my eyes, I opened them to see Magdalena standing at the side of the bed with a large mixing bowl in hand.
A shiver rocked my body, and I choked up some water.
“Are you crazy?” I gasped.
She dropped the bowl and ran a hand down her simple white uniform. “Sí. Pero no tan loca como tú.”
An ache pulsed behind my eyes. I was soaking wet and agitated, and my words came out harsher than I intended. “You know I don’t speak Spanish, Magdalena.”
“Porque eres demasiado tonta.” Because you are too dumb.
I knew that phrase only because she believed it was a great response for everything.
With a groan, I fell back onto the wet sheets. “I don’t know who thought it was a good idea to hire you. You’re disrespectful, and, quite frankly, a bad maid.”
The sixty-year-old turned her nose up. “I am not a maid. I am a housekeeper.”
I was sure they were the same things, but I didn’t have the fight in me to argue with her.
“Then go housekeep somewhere and leave me alone.”
She smoothed a streak of gray hair back into place. Looked at her nails. “You have a party tonight, querida.”
“No,” I protested. “No party.”
“Sí—”
“I’m not going to a party, Magdalena,” I said, adding, “I don’t have anything to wear.” At least, nothing my soul won’t bleed through.
“Nothing respectable, no,” she agreed, eyeing me with irises as dark as chocolate. “It’s for cancer. Una cena benéfica.”
My stomach and heart dipped. “A benefit for cancer?”
“Sí. Antonio called and ordered for you to be ready by eight.”
Ordered?
Under different circumstances, such as a benefit for sea turtles—my second favorite charity—I would tell him to go fuck himself. But, the truth was, I loathed cancer, and my husband had a lot of money.
“Fine, I’ll go. But only to write a big check.”
I got to my feet and gave the empty chocolate box a kick as I walked past. It disappeared under the bed with the rest of my demons.
“Bueno. You have been lazy all week, señora. It is not attractive.”
Heading into the walk-in closet, I aimlessly pushed clothes on hangers aside. “Thank you, Magdalena,” I responded, “but there’s no one here I want to attract.”
She dug through my underwear drawer. “Because Antonio’s sleeping with Sydney?” A lacy thong hung from her finger. “What color do you want, querida? Red is good.”
The vise around my heart squeezed.
“I see whoever taught you to clean taught you sensitivity as well,” I said, adding, “Nude, please.”
“I do not clean.”
“Exactly,” I muttered, walking past her with a loose black top cut off at the midriff and a matching high-waisted skirt I’d made from an old Nirvana t-shirt. With thigh-high boots, it would be perfect.
I set the outfit on the bed and headed to the bathroom.
Magdalena followed after me. “I knew she wasn’t a good friend for you from the beginning. Something in her eyes. You can always tell by the eyes. I told you, but you did not listen.”
I fought an eyeroll. Magdalena loved Sydney and always told me I should act more like her, that my husband might love me if I did. My housekeeper was a habitual liar, a little crazy, and still the most normal person in the house.
I wished she actually had warned me. Maybe then, it wouldn’t hurt so badly.
My throat tightened, and betrayal burned the backs of my eyes.
I grasped the edge of the sink, yellow-painted fingernails stark against the mess strewn across the counter. Dollar bills, the glint of a 9mm, pink blush, a baggie, and a dusting of white powder.
I stared blankly at my reflection in the mirror.
Ashy-blond hair straight from a bottle dripped water down olive skin. I met my reflection’s gaze, my soul staring back.
You can always tell by the eyes.
Magdalena turned the shower on. “You stink of depression, querida. Wash it away, and then I will do your hair.”
I stepped in the shower.
And I washed it away.
Boots clicking on the marble floor, I waded through floating silver trays carrying champagne flutes that glinted beneath romantic lights. A mini orchestra played in the corner of the ballroom, a low, easy beat allowing monotonous conversation to be heard above it.
I was numb in the heart, but trepidation flickered to life in the center. I’d ignored Antonio’s order to meet him at the club so we could arrive at the benefit together, and, instead, had come alone.
I didn’t want to see him. I didn’t want to feel.
And those two always came together.
I had almost reached the donation table when my plan to get in and out before my husband arrived went down the toilet.
“Gianna, you are as beautiful as always.”
My eyes shut for a second. I turned around, a coy smile tugging at my lips.
“Aw, you’re cute, too, Vincent.”
The twenty-nine-year-old and owner of this fine hotel laughed. “Cute, what I’ve always aspired for.”
In acquiescence to not getting out of here soon, I grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing tray. “Well, you pull it off magnificently,” I replied, my gaze taking in a group of Vincent’s acquaintances who congregated behind him.
He ran a hand down his tie, eyes crinkling with amusement. “There’s a reason we’ve just ambushed you, and it wasn’t to talk about how cute I am.”
My expression pouted in mock confusion. “Trying out new conversation, are you?”
Vincent and his group chuckled. I took a sip of champagne.
Awareness tickled in the back of my mind, and my gaze drifted to the ballroom’s double doors. My glass halted at my lips.
Broad shoulders. Black suit. Smooth lines.
Blue.
Something in my chest crackled and sparked, like a firecracker on hot pavement.
Agent Allister stood inside the doorway with a blonde by his side. She held onto his elbow, and he held my gaze.
You can always tell by the eyes.
I envied him at that moment.
His were an ocean beneath ice, where nothing but the darkest creatures could thrive, while mine were a wide open plain.
He saw everything.
Every bruise.
Every scar.
Every slap against my face.
I didn’t want anyone’s pity, but what drove me even crazier was that he was indifferent to it all. I’d forgotten what his voice sounded like but, somehow, I could hear what he would say to me now.
Suck it up, sweetheart. You know nothing of pain.
Contempt pulsed, hot and heavy, in my chest.
It was irrational, I knew, but I blamed the man for putting the idea of sleeping with Nico in my mind.
I blamed him because it was easy.
I blamed him because he was cold enough it wouldn’t hurt.
The fed’s gaze took in the group of men surrounding me. He looked away, but I saw the brief thought in his eyes before he and his blonde drifted into the crowd. He thought I was a flirt; a tease. He thought I was unfaithful.
And now, I couldn’t even deny it.
Hatred closed around my lungs and stole my breath.
“I was just telling them about how we first met,” Vincent said. “Do you remember?”
I brought my attention back to the group, a hot edge flowing from my chest to my grip on the stem of my glass. Forcing a smile to my lips, I responded, “Of course I do. You bet against my horse and lost, naturally.”
“That, I did.” He dropped his gaze to the floor, clearing his throat with a smile. “But I’m talking about me getting tossed and then asking you to run away with me to Tahiti. And you saying no because you’d already been there, and Bora Bora was next on your list.”
On cue, everyone laughed.
I bit my cheek to hide a smile. “I was trying to save you from embarrassment, but it seems you’re a glutton for punishment tonight.”
“It seems so,” he chuckled. “Morticia is up and running again, and I’m still betting she places this weekend.”
“Oh, Vincent,” I said with disappointment, “you just love to throw your money away, don’t you?”
The crowd grew in size until I couldn’t see beyond it, with bets and horse statistics being tossed into the center.
“Gianna, are you coming to the Fall Meet this weekend?”
“Gianna, are you betting on Blackie?”
“Gianna, what about the afterparty?”
It took thirty minutes to extradite myself from the conversation, and by that time, I’d drunk two glasses of champagne and needed to relieve myself. I used the restroom and then headed toward the donation table, hoping to hand in my check and make a clean exit.
When I saw Allister’s back where he stood in front of the table speaking with one of the socialites in charge of the event, I stopped in my tracks. Hesitation settled in my stomach, and I took a step in the opposite direction, but, No way. I hated the man, though what I loathed even more was that his presence intimidated me.
As if to prove something to myself, I waltzed up to the table and stopped close enough beside him my arm brushed his jacket. He glanced down at me before looking back to the middle-aged woman he spoke with like I was merely a part of the décor.
“Well,” the blonde socialite said, a blush warming her cheeks, “my daughter couldn’t speak more highly of you, and I’m so glad you could make it. I know how busy a man like you must be. The crime in this city has been growing every year.”
“It’s been my pleasure entirely, ma’am.”
I couldn’t hold in a quiet scoff.
Allister’s lips tipped up, though he didn’t glance my way.
The words he said to me one year ago filled with his voice once again. Refined, slightly rough, with an amused edge like he always knew something the other didn’t.
The socialite glanced my way for a second before dismissing me and gazing at the fed, but then, as if she’d just processed what she saw, looked back at me.
She stared without a blink. “I’m sorry . . . can I help you?”
I pulled the check I’d written out of my bra and handed it to her. She held onto a corner gingerly, until she unfolded it and looked at the amount.
“Wow,” she breathed. “This is incredibly generous. Thank you so much.” She scribbled something on a slip of paper and then handed out a clipboard. “I just need you to complete this short form, please.” When I only stared at it, she pressed, “Donor information and a tax receipt.” Her voice lowered. “You can claim this on your taxes.”
“Oh, I don’t pay taxes.”
She blinked.
Allister grabbed the clipboard. “She’ll fill it out.”
“Okay . . . great.” She took a step to the side before drifting away.
“Tell me, do you think before you talk? Or do you just let things spew out?”
“Well,” I said, frowning, “that time, I didn’t think, no. But how am I supposed to know about taxes? Antonio said he doesn’t have to pay them.”
“Everyone has to pay taxes. It’s the law.”
“Oh, the one you’re so good at upholding?”
He shoved the clipboard in my direction. “Fill out the form and shut your mouth before I have to arrest you for tax evasion.”
“Seems a little counterproductive, considering you’d have to let me out as soon as my husband finds out.”
A muscle in his jaw tightened. “He’s your savior, is he?”
I tensed at the dark tone in his voice—a tone that made me feel as if he knew more of my story than he should.
“He’s my husband,” I replied, as if that said everything, when, really, it said nothing at all.
I grabbed the clipboard. However, he held onto it for a second, his gaze touching my face before he finally let it go. He turned to look out into the ballroom, bringing a tumbler of some clear liquid to his lips. Probably water, knowing what a killjoy he was.
“You look like you got lost on your way to a grunge concert.”
“Fortunately, no,” I said, filling out the form. “I would be pissed if I missed it.”
“What did you do to your hair?”
“What?” My lips formed a pout. “You don’t like it? I did it for you. I heard you like blondes.”
“You been thinking about me?” he drawled.
“Every day, every hour. You’re always there, like a fungus, or an incessant bug swarming around my head.”
A corner of his lips tipped up.
Setting the clipboard down, I leaned a hip against the table, rested the pen against my chin, and looked around the ballroom. “By the way, where is your blonde?”
I followed his stare to the woman in question, who was talking to another in the middle of the room. She wore a classy white cocktail dress and a tight chignon. Her posture was perfect and her current smile was tight. I bet she’d never let her hair down.
“She looks . . . fun.”
When I caught the corner of his disarming smile, something hot and hesitant flickered to life in my stomach. The feeling immediately brought a bad taste to my mouth.
I pushed off the table. “Okay, well, you have a decent night. I would say great, but I’m doing this new thing and trying not to say what I don’t mean.”
“Sure you don’t want to donate the shoes off your feet before you go?”
Glancing at my thigh-high boots, I clicked my heels together like Dorothy. Unfortunately, it didn’t take me home. “I would, but I think your girlfriend’s mamma would throw them away.”
I looked up to see his gaze trail from my boots to the few inches of naked thigh. It was clinical, assessing, and hardly lascivious. Still, the touch of his stare burned, like an ice cube melting on bare skin beneath a summer sun.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” he said, taking a large drink of what I was now sure was water.
“I would say poor girl, but . . .” My eyes sparkled with that new thing I’m trying as I began to walk past him.
His next words, dripping with something bitter and sweet, stopped me in my tracks.
“Trouble in paradise?”
My grip tightened around the pen I still held.
I swallowed and rubbed my bare ring finger with my thumb.
My marriage was a mockery, and I could never escape it—divorce didn’t exist in the Cosa Nostra—but I wouldn’t be chained by a diamond on my finger, by a symbol of love, when there was none. At least, none returned.
I turned to him, expecting to see triumph, but as I met his gaze, my heart stilled before tugging in an unnatural way.
There was something dark and genuine behind his eyes, and I didn’t realize until later that he was letting me see it. The steady drip, drip, drip of blood. The clanks of metal and fire that forged him.
He was up to his neck in blood.
I wondered if, even then, beneath his fake gentleman persona, his black suit and white shirt, he was covered in it.
“What have you sacrificed to stand here today?” The thought escaped me, pushed from my lips by an invisible force. “Your soul?” I stepped closer, inches away, until his presence brushed my bare skin. Running the tip of the pen across his palm by his side, I whispered, “Just how much blood is on these hands?”
He ran his tongue across his teeth, flicking his gaze to the side before bringing it back to me.
Bottomless. Blue. My heart beat heavy, because I knew if I stared too long I’d be trapped beneath ice.
“Someday,” I breathed, tilting my head, “it’s going to catch up with you.”
His gaze narrowed in distaste as it fell to the pen I’d bitten between my teeth. It took only a second to connect the dots. Germs, most likely.
I licked the end of the pen like a lollipop, tucked it into his front jacket pocket, and gave his chest a pat.
“Have a lousy night, Allister.”
Taking a step to leave, I realized how parched his stare had made me. I stepped backward, grabbed the glass from his hand, and downed the contents.
I choked.
Vodka.
The burn in my throat drifted to my chest as I headed toward the exit. Just as I pushed the door open and cool October air enveloped me, I came face-to-face with a familiar set of eyes.
“Going somewhere?”
I tensed and tried to step around him, but my husband’s hand found my own and stopped me.
“Let me go,” I gritted.
Antonio pulled me closer, wrapping an arm around my waist like we were the most normal couple in the world. As if there wasn’t a twenty-five-year age gap between us, as if he’d wooed me instead of having signed a contract for me, and, most importantly, as if he hadn’t cheated on me and then tried to apologize with a box of fucking chocolates.
I struggled, but his hold only grew tighter.
“Make a scene, Gianna . . .” he warned.
Antonio was like his son, only wrapped in pain and delivered with a side of righteousness, even as the cross around his neck singed a hole through his skin. After two years of marriage, I didn’t believe he could even feel sympathy, and I knew it was how he’d climbed the ladder to be one of the most feared men in the United States.
As for why he was revered—well, when Antonio was warm, he was like the sun. Everyone wanted his attention because, when he gave it, it was absolute, as though you were the only one who had ever mattered. Regardless of the heartache he’d caused me, the walls I’d put up and some I still maintained, I wasn’t a match.
Now, I had to figure out how to give up the sun.
“I really don’t like waiting around for you.”
“I really don’t like you fucking my friends.”
“Watch your mouth,” he chastised, walking us back into the hotel.
Sometimes, it felt like a scream was trapped in my throat, one that had been struggling to get free for the past twenty-two years. It had a voice, a body, fiery red hair, and a heart of steel. I was terrified she would escape, that her echo would burn this world to the ground and leave me standing alone, in smoke and ash. I pushed the feeling down, down, until a light sheen of sweat cooled my skin.
We passed the ballroom doors and, as I glanced inside, my gaze collided with Allister’s.
The exchange was a blur of heat, the burn of liquor, a flicker of pitch-black as his eyes dropped to Antonio’s grip on my arm. And then it was gone, replaced with gold wallpaper as we walked down a hall toward the terrace.
We stepped outside, and I sucked in a breath. The night was cold and dark, but instead of rubbing my arms for warmth, I let the icy breeze bite into my skin. Maybe I was a masochist, or maybe pain was one of the only things that made me feel alive.
The terrace was empty, save for two guests from the benefit smoking a cigarette.
“Give us a moment, yeah?”
It wasn’t a question, no matter how my husband had voiced it.
The men shared a hesitant look but didn’t take more than a couple of seconds to drop their cigarettes and head back through the double doors that led into the ballroom. Light fanned across the terrace floor before the doors closed and darkness consumed us once again.
A distant memory swept into the present.
“How could you love such a terrifying man?” my ex-best-friend Sydney had asked me as we sat on my husband’s office couch together and he talked on the phone.
I’d only had to think about the question for a moment.
“He listens to me.”
I guessed he listened to her, too.
“Care to explain what this is?”
I turned to Antonio to see he held a small, round compact in his hand. My heart beat in the base of my throat. Here was one of those walls about to come tumbling down.
“What is it, Gianna?” he bit out.
“Birth control pills.”
“Why do you have them?”
“Birth control.”
Antonio’s eyes blazed with anger, like two flames in the dark. We were devotedly Catholic, and birth control was frowned upon by the Church. But I knew what bothered him even more was that he wanted another child. Another son to rule his empire.
“How long?”
I looked him straight in the eye. “Since the day we were married.”
Since the night you stepped on my heart.
The slap across my face was immediate. It whipped my head to the side and knocked the breath from my lungs. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth.
“The things you make me do, Gianna,” he growled. “Do you think I want to hit you?”
My bitter laugh carried on the wind.
The sad part of it all was I only knew from TV this wasn’t how it was supposed to be.
He chucked the pills over the railing. “No more, do you hear me?”
I shook my head.
“No. More. Or, I swear, I’ll cut you off. No more money, no more secret trips to Chicago—and yes, I know you’ve been there.”
My heart froze to ice and shattered.
“You know your papà forbade you from visiting your mamma.” Softness laced through his voice. “I haven’t told him, only because I know what it means to you.”
She’s sick. I couldn’t say the words because I knew they wouldn’t be steady.
“I have to see her.”
“I know.” He stepped closer, the smoky scent of his cologne reaching me. “I know everything about you, Gianna. Where you go, what you do, who you speak with.” He ran a hand into my hair, and I fought the urge to jerk away because he’d only pull the strands. “You’re mine. And I look after what’s mine.”
“If you care about me at all, Antonio, you’ll get your filthy hands off me and give me a divorce.”
“Do you think I would take just anyone for a wife? I wanted you”—he pressed his lips to my ear—“so I took you, and I’m going to fucking keep you.” I tried to pull my head back, but his grip stayed strong. “I allow you free rein, Gianna, but test me, and I will lock you up so fast. Do you understand me?”
“If you think I will even sleep with you now, you are delusional.”
“You’ll cool off.” He ran a thumb across my cheek. “And when you do, you’ll realize you want children, too, cara.” His grip found my chin, a rough caress. “And don’t think I haven’t noticed you’re not wearing your ring. You’ll put it back on when you get home, or you’ll wake up tomorrow with it glued to your finger.”
The glow of the ballroom highlighted his gray suit as he left through the double doors.
A tremor started in my hands.
The doors closed, and his words came out to swallow me with the shadows.
No more secret trips to Chicago.
No more secret trips to Chicago.
No more secret trips to Chicago.
The tremor moved up my arms, creeping into my vessels and veins. I shook from the inside out. My lungs tightened, and every breath closed them a little more.
Black spots swam in my vision.
I grasped the terrace handrail, the stone like ice beneath my fingers.
In. Out. In. Out.
Light fanned across the terrace, alerting me that someone had stepped outside.
I squeezed my eyes closed, tears escaping my bottom lashes. Gianna, Gianna, Gianna. I tensed and waited for it. I waited for the world to recognize how damaged I was on the inside. To crack me open and see everything my papà had from the beginning. A different part of me, one quiet but strong, wanted to shout, to scream, to let her rule with a steel heart and red hair.
“Do you want to know my favorite?”
My grip tightened on the railing.
In. Out.
“Andromeda.” Allister moved closer. “An autumn constellation, forty-four light-years away.” His steps were smooth and indifferent, but his voice was dry, as though he found my panic attack positively boring.
His attitude brought a small rush of annoyance in, but it was suddenly swayed as my lungs contracted and wouldn’t release. I couldn’t keep a strangled gasp from escaping.
“Look up.”
It was an order, carrying a harsh edge.
With no fight in me, I complied and tilted my head. Tears blurred my vision. Stars swam together and sparkled like diamonds. I was glad they weren’t. Humans would find a way to pluck them from the sky.
“Andromeda is the dim, fuzzy star to the right. Find it.”
My eyes searched it out. The stars weren’t often easy to see, hidden behind smog and the glow of city lights, but sometimes, on a lucky night like tonight, pollution cleared and they became visible. I found the star and focused on it.
“Do you know her story?” he asked, his voice close behind me.
A cold wind touched my cheeks, and I inhaled slowly.
“Answer me.”
“No,” I gritted.
“Andromeda was boasted to be one of the most beautiful goddesses.” He moved closer, so close his jacket brushed my bare arm. His hands were in his pockets and his gaze was on the sky. “She was sacrificed for her beauty, tied to a rock by the sea.”
I imagined her, a red-haired goddess with a heart of steel chained to a rock. The question bubbled up from the depths of me.
“Did she survive?”
His gaze fell to me. Down the tear tracks to the blood on my bottom lip. His eyes darkened, his jaw tightened, and he looked away.
“She did.”
I found the star again.
Andromeda.
“Ask me what her name means.”
It was another rough demand, and I had the urge to refuse. To tell him to stop bossing me around. However, I wanted to know—I suddenly needed to. But he was already walking away, toward the exit.
“Wait,” I breathed, turning to him. “What does her name mean?”
He opened the door and a sliver of light poured onto the terrace. Black suit. Broad shoulders. Straight lines. His head turned just enough to meet my gaze. Blue.
“It means ruler of men.”
An icy breeze almost swallowed his words before they reached me, whipping my hair at my cheeks.
And then he was gone.
I grasped the railing and looked to the sky.
My breath came out steady.
The knot in my chest loosened.
The tremor in my veins became the hot buzz of an electric line.
And then I did it for everyone who couldn’t.
I did it for every bruise.
Every scar.
Every slap against my face.
Most of all, I did it because I wanted to.
I screamed.
Days bled into nights.
The next few months slipped away, consumed in a whirlwind of parties, vacations, races, and weekend spa retreats. Drugs and booze were as easily supplied as the silver platter of fresh fruit and croissants that sat on the twelve-seater dining table every morning.
I was young.
Pampered.
Full of ennui.
I imbibed anything that made my heart race. Made me forget. Made me feel alive.
Sometimes, it came in the form of a Colombian-imported powder.
And other times . . . blue.
“To live the life of luxury.”
That drawl slid into my blood and warmed me from the inside out.
I lounged on a chaise near the pool in a shimmery gold gown, my hair pulled into a messy updo, a dress strap sliding down my shoulder. It was an unseasonably warm March night, and I was taking advantage of it.
I bit into my strawberry as my gaze met Allister’s. “Jealous?”
“Closer to apathetic.”
The glow of the pool lights cast him in shades of silver, blue, and shadow. Navy suit and tie. Polished Rolex and cufflinks. He stood in front of the terrace doors of my home, a tumbler in hand. His warm gaze took me in, from my hair, to the bowl of strawberries and glass of tequila on the table beside me, to my red velvet stilettos.
“Don’t tell me my husband’s stories were boring you.” Antonio had a way with words, keeping others on the edge of their seats, yet I couldn’t force myself to listen to the same tale over, and over again.
“Seems they couldn’t hold your interest either. Though, maybe that’s just because you knew the part about him fucking his twenty-year-old virgin bride was coming up next.”
I flinched. Antonio must be angrier with me than I’d thought.
I hoped he’d made it sound more exciting than it was. There’d been nothing romantic about my first time. It was cold and mechanical, leaving a hollow hole in my chest that I’d tried to fill by gaining my husband’s love. What a joke that had been.
“Isn’t it in your job description to feign interest in everything he says?”
His gaze flickered with something akin to dry amusement, though he didn’t respond. He stepped onto the terrace, tension outlining his shoulders. I couldn’t help but think he was weighing his options, and it seemed he would rather tolerate my presence than go back inside.
“Did his crassness offend your tender sensibilities?” I asked.
“Not exactly.”
His eyes came my way, filled to the brim with cold, cold fury. It dimmed to something warmer as his gaze slid down my neck and bare shoulder.
I shook off a shiver. “Will you avenge my honor, Officer?”
“Not sure I see a point when you don’t have much left.”
I pouted. “And just when I was beginning to think you cared.”
“Don’t hold your breath, sweetheart.”
“Strawberry?”
When he looked at the fruit in my hand like it was offensive, I sighed. Then bit off the tip and licked the juice from my lips. His gaze followed the motion, warmer and heavier than the swipe of my tongue.
“Why do you dislike my husband so much?”
“Yes . . . why?”
I froze at the sound of Antonio’s voice.
Allister looked positively unmoved that my husband had heard me, not even turning around to grace his employer with his attention nor deigning to answer the question. Antonio never cared when I spoke with men, but I wasn’t sure how he would react to me being alone with one of his employees.
“What are you two talking about?”
“Mythology,” I said in a bored tone. “Greek.”
“Ah. My favorite kind.”
Allister took a drink, watching the pool. He looked as apathetic as he’d claimed to be earlier, but something else wove through his disinterest. He was too apathetic. A shadow of something dark passing by below ice.
“I should have known I’d find you here, being lazy by the pool.”
“Yes, well, one can only tolerate the same story five times. Though, I’ve heard you mixed it up tonight.”
Antonio chuckled, reaching my chaise and running a hand around the back of my neck. “Don’t be mad, cara. It was a tasteful story, I promise.” His eyes coasted to Allister, hardening from amusement to jagged steel. “It’s not like I told them you bled all over my cock.”
I cringed.
The tension was so stifling I could hardly breathe. It settled in the air like late summer humidity, filling my lungs and touching my skin.
I downed my glass of tequila, biting down on it. The liquor burned away the humiliation in my throat. My husband was angry at me for a multitude of reasons, but this—whatever this was—wasn’t for my benefit. The two men weren’t even looking at each other, but nobody could miss the tightly-leashed venom between them.
“Your friends miss you.” Antonio’s grasp on my neck tightened enough for me to understand the warning. “Don’t be long.”
He disappeared inside.
Malevolence danced in the air, refusing to depart. My gaze drifted to Allister. Apathetic, but underlined with something so very scary.
A quiet, uncomfortable laugh escaped me. “It would seem my husband doesn’t like you either.” I swallowed. “Aren’t you afraid he’ll find some other dirty fed to work with?”
His gaze said he was not afraid in any way.
I’d never seen someone act so unenthusiastic to my husband’s face, let alone one of his employees. It seemed Allister wasn’t buying what Antonio was selling like everyone else did. It was . . . refreshing, and the first thing I truly liked about the man.
The tension in the air was still so thick I would grow lightheaded if I didn’t clear it.
“No date tonight?”
“No.”
“What happened to . . .” I briefly flew through the list of blondes he’d paraded around, coming up with the name of the last one. “Portia?”
“Monotony.”
“But you were perfect for each other.” I sighed, like I was seriously put out. “Both gorgeous, composed, unfeeling . . . What if she was the one and you tossed her aside without giving her a real chance?”
His gaze, so unimpressed with anything coming out of my mouth, touched me. “I didn’t know you had such an investment in my relationships.”
I got to my feet, pulling the pins out of my hair as I made my way toward him. The long strands tumbled down my back. His body tensed as the click of my heels moved closer, but he didn’t look at me until I stood in front of him.
“Have you ever thought that maybe you’re the problem?” I took the tumbler from his hand and stole a sip. The vodka in his glass always tasted better than any other.
“I’m guessing you’re going to enlighten me?” He took his glass back. He would always turn it to drink from a different spot other than where my lips had touched, but tonight, he drank straight from where my pink lipstick left a mark. It sent a strange rush of heat to my stomach.
I swallowed. “A woman likes some passion and spontaneity in her life. You, Officer, need to loosen up.”
“Should I fuck other women in her bed? Spontaneous enough, you think?”
God, he just had to know about Sydney.
I sighed.
I wanted to put a chink in that ice he wore like armor.
Stepping closer, I ran a finger across his jawline, my voice soft. “You have such a handsome face. Does it get you everything you want?”
“Almost.”
There was something so significant about that single word it put a hitch in my breath. I let my finger fall from his face with a light scrape of my stiletto-shaped nail.
“One look from you, and women swoon at your feet.”
He was growing annoyed with me. “Yet here you stand.”
I laughed lightly. “I have no interest in men, even ones as handsome as you.”
“Because you’re married?”
“Because I’m jaded.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re drunk.”
My gaze filled with mischief when I slipped my thin dress strap off my shoulder. “And you never are. Don’t you ever live on the edge, Officer? Just let yourself have whatever you want?”
The air pulsed like it had a heartbeat as I pushed the shimmery material over my hips, letting my gown fall to my feet.
Chink.
He didn’t look away from my face, though the urge was there. Shifting like a breeze heading in the wrong direction.
I stood inches in front of him, in a red bra and panties, with an entire party and my husband just beyond a set of double doors.
His response was simple and exactly what I’d expected from the strait-laced fed, yet it still found the heat to brush my back as I made my way to the pool.
“No.”
I looked over my shoulder. “Then how do you ever feel alive?”
A smile touched my lips as I dove into the water. Because his gaze had slid down the curves of my body, and it was the furthest thing from cold I’d ever felt.