The Kiss Thief(67)

I decided, as I wrapped my silky robe around my waist, that I would visit the clinic first thing next week and get on the pill. I would adopt Wolfe’s way of life. At least for the time being. Study, and have a career. Go out and work every day, the entire day.

Or maybe we would decide to divorce, and I’d be free. Free to marry Angelo, or anyone else.

I snapped out of my reverie when the door opened, and Wolfe walked in with none other than my father. I lowered myself to the bed, sitting on its edge as I took in the scene. Arthur’s lower lip shook, and he swayed from side to side when he walked. Wolfe held his elbow firmly as though he was a punished child.

“Say it,” my husband spat out, throwing my father to the floor underneath me. He fell on all fours, scrambling up quickly. I sucked in a breath. I’d never seen my father like this. Vulnerable. It was hard to decipher what was happening.

It was even harder to believe what left his mouth.

“Figlia mia, it was never my intention to hurt your pretty face.”

He sounded surprisingly genuine, and what was even more sickening was the way my heart thawed to his voice for the first few seconds. Then I remembered what he did today. How he’d acted the entire month. I stood up and walked over to my window, giving them my back.

“Now let me go or by God…” My father snapped at Wolfe behind me. I heard them shuffling behind my back and smiled grimly to myself. My father stood no chance against my husband. Neither did I.

“Before you go, there’s one matter that needs to be settled,” Wolfe said as I produced a pack of cigarettes from a drawer, flicking my Zippo and inhaling deeply. I cracked the window open, allowing the black night to swallow the blue smoke.

“Save me the riddles,” Dad barked.

“The matter of the bloodied sheets,” Wolfe finished.

“Of course.” My father snorted behind my back. I didn’t have it in me to turn around and watch what was written on his face. “I figured you milked the cow before you bought it.”

I heard a sharp slap and twisted on my heel. My father tumbled backward, holding his cheek, his back hitting my closet. My eyes widened, and my mouth went slack.

“Francesca is not ready yet,” Wolfe announced in his metallic tenor, his brooding, calm movements a sharp contrast to what he just did. He took one step toward him, erasing all the space between them, and yanked him up by his dress shirt. “And, unlike others, I will not touch a woman against her will even if she has my ring on her finger. Which really leaves us with no choice, does it, Arthur?”

My father narrowed his eyes at him, spitting a lump of blood on Wolfe’s loafers. He was a tough man, Arthur Rossi. I’d seen him in some stressful situations but never as out of sorts as he was now. It soothed me to know that I wasn’t the only one helpless against my husband, but it also frightened me that he had that kind of hold on people.

Wolfe strode to a black duffel bag near the foot of the bed and unzipped it, producing a small Swiss knife. He turned around. Papa stood tall and proud despite his dire situation and being completely wasted and in desperate need to support himself. He leaned against my old closet, his nostrils flaring.

“You’re dead. Both of you.”

“Open your hand.” Wolfe ignored the threat, flipping the knife open and producing a sharp edge.

“Are you going to cut me?” my father taunted, his lips twisting in revulsion.

“Unless my bride will do me the honor.” Wolfe turned his head around to look at me. I blinked, puffing off my cigarette to buy time. Perhaps it was true that I no longer felt despair and anger toward these two men. They’d ruined my life, each of them, in his own unique way. And they succeeded in such a way that I had felt positively damaged. Enough to sway my hips nonchalantly on my way to them. Whereas my father looked content with Wolfe cutting him open, when he saw me nearing him, his teeth slammed together and his jaw locked.

“She wouldn’t dare.”

I arched an eyebrow. “The girl you gave away wouldn’t. Me? I might.”

Wolfe handed me the knife, leaning back on the wall as I stood in front of the man who created me holding a weapon in my hand. Could I do it? I stared at my father’s open palm, outreached and staring back at me. The same palm he’d used earlier this evening to slap me in the face. The same palm that was directed at my mother.

But also the same palm that braided my hair during bedtime after Clara washed it. The same hand who patted my own not too long ago at the masquerade, belonging to a man who stared at me as though I was the brightest star in the sky.

I held the Swiss knife with quivering fingers. It nearly slipped from between them. Dammit. I couldn’t do it. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.

I shook my head, handing Wolfe the Swiss knife.

My father clucked his tongue in satisfaction.

“You will always be the Francesca I raised. A spineless little lamb.”

Ignoring him and the churning in my stomach, I took a step back.

Wolfe took the knife from my hand, his face placid, grabbed my father’s hand, and sliced it open vertically, cutting shallow and wide. Blood gushed out, and I winced, looking away. Papa stood there, staring at the blood pouring from his open palm, oddly tranquil. Wolfe turned around and pulled the linen from my bed, then threw it into my father’s hands. His blood soiled the sheets as he clutched them.

“Bastardo,” my father mouthed. “You were born a bastard, and no matter your shoes and suits—you will die one, too.” He stared at my husband with sheer hate in his eyes.