Brutal Vows (Queens & Monsters #4)(38)

His voice rises. “You think I care what a bunch of racist goomba fucks think about me?”

“This isn’t about your race.”

“Bullshit!” he hollers. “That’s all it’s about! Your kind hate us!”

I listen to his angry breathing for a while, feeling bad for him, but also stung that he assumes I dislike him based on his race…but also completely understanding why he’d make that assumption.

A person only has to hang around Gianni for half an hour to get a solid education in what prejudice looks like.

Keeping my voice low, I say, “I don’t hate you. But even if you were Italian, you couldn’t be together.”

His breath hitches. “Because I’m poor?”

“No, sweet boy. Because she’s engaged to be married.”

“To someone she doesn’t love! She was forced into it! If you care about her at all, how can you let that happen?”

He’s so impassioned, so furious and desperate and so obviously sick with love, I’m moved.

So I tell him the truth, even though it gains me nothing.

“I wish I could help her, Juan Pablo. I wish you could be together, because I believe you’d make her happy. But in the world Lili and I live in, we don’t get a choice. And if you try to interfere with this marriage, my brother will kill you. That isn’t an empty threat. He’ll kill you, and it won’t matter to him at all.”

In an anguished, theatrical burst, he cries, “I’d rather die than live without her!”

Jesus Christ, these kids are a Shakespearean tragedy waiting to happen.

“Keep this up, and you will die. I don’t know what else to say.”

“You can say you’ll help us!”

“Okay, enough. You seem like a good kid. I don’t want you to get hurt. So this stops. Now. If you really do love Lili, you have to end this. It’s making her miserable.” My voice hardens. “It’s putting her in danger, too.”

Into his fraught silence, I say, “Or do you think men like my brother and her fiancé won’t care if they find out she isn’t a virgin? Because let me tell you, Juan Pablo, you won’t be the only one to pay a price. And what they’ll do to her…death would be preferable.”

When I disconnect, my hands are shaking.

I stand, set the phone on the floor, then stomp it under my heel as hard as I can. It splinters into pieces.

I open the door and look at Lili, standing there with her hands over her mouth and her eyes filled with tears.

“It’s over, Lili. This is the end. You’ll never speak to Juan Pablo again. And because of what happened today, your father has moved up the wedding. You’re marrying Quinn in a week. I’m sorry.”

There’s nothing left to say, so I pull her into my arms and hold her tight as she sobs.

I’m not sure whose heart is more broken, hers or mine.





14





Spider





I don’t sleep at all that night. Hypervigilant, I prowl the dark halls of the house, checking and re-checking rooms I’ve already cleared a dozen times.

Gianni and Leo’s men are lurking around the grounds and patrolling the perimeters, but it gives me no peace of mind.

Every bit of that I might have had flew straight out the window when Caruso told me what the intruders said to Reyna. I knew it was one of his enemies who set it up—we’ve all got them.

But when the enemies are more interested in taking your daughter than killing you, that’s a whole different problem.

So here I am again for the second time this year, pacing hallways and gnashing my teeth over a female under my protection who’s a target for kidnapping.

Only this time, it’s not the target I’m worried about.

I should be. Lili’s going to be my bloody wife. She’s a lovely girl, and she’s going to make a lovely wife. But the moment Caruso said he believed the armed intruders were here for Lili, I could think of nothing else but the safety of her aunt.

Reyna.

Queen Devil Bitch of All Existence, who makes my blood boil and my dick hard and speaks to me with the kind of disrespect no man would dare to, because it would get him killed.

Reyna who hates me.

Reyna who challenges me.

Reyna who has the guts of a Viking and the body of a fertility goddess and the attitude of a feral cat.

I shouldn’t be worried about her. If anyone ever did kidnap that woman, he’d regret it within the hour. He’d throw her back through the front window with an apology note and speed away as fast as he could.

If she didn’t drive a dagger through his heart first.

She’s a witch! Demon spawn of the devil!

But she shot a man for me. She had my back—literally—and killed a man.

Why did she do that if she hates me so much? She could’ve simply let me get killed and dusted off her hands. Good riddance to a man she insults at every opportunity and only ever calls by his last name.

And lies to like it’s her favorite hobby.

A man who made her look like she wanted to puke when she saw him without his shirt.

But why was she so concerned about my wound? Why would she care if it got infected? Why would she offer to stitch me up?

Why would she insist on stitching me up, then take such care as she did, biting her lip in concentration?