Page 106 of Broken Promises

I heard him leave, trying to figure out how to clean the fucking carpet, when there was a knock at the door. I hadn’t heard Reid’s car come back, but he must have forgotten something.

I opened the door to find Dante glaring at me, and I didn’t even get a word out before he backhanded me. “You filthy little bitch.”

I stumbled, cupping my tender cheek with surprise. “What? I don’t?—”

“I just watched you making out with that fucker. You thought you could cheat on Ander?” he snarled, making me realize Ander hadn’t explained the whole situation to him.

Then again, Reid wasn’t exactly part of the situation until now, so maybe that was why.

“Dante, you’ve got it wrong?—”

My ears rang as he punched me, my vision dimming for a second as I managed to stop myself from falling on my ass. He pushed past me, taking in the messy room, the wet patch on the floor, and my bra that I hadn’t bothered putting back on.

I tried to avoid his hands as he grabbed for me, but he managed to get his fingers in my hair to yank me back, my scalp burning from the force of it.

I panicked as he started dragging me outside, my feet scraping against the pavement as I tried to scramble away but couldn’t.

“Dante! Listen to me!”

“You listen tome,” he spat, grabbing my throat and shoving me back against a car. It hadn’t been there before, so it must have been his. “You fucked with the wrong person. You might have Ander fooled, but not me.”

His grip tightened, and I clawed at his hands to try and make him let go, my lungs burning from the lack of oxygen.

No one was going to help me, not here in the Heights where the rules were hear no, see no, speak no. People would turn a blind eye, pretending not to hear or see anything, and they’d never speak a word of it.

If I was murdered and buried today, no one would talk about what happened.

The guys would never find out the truth.

Just before I could black out, I was yanked off the car and shoved into the trunk, Dante glaring down at me. I had a feeling this was the real Dante, and I’d been right all along.

We couldn’t trust him, Ander had been wrong.

He went to shut the trunk, his voice deathly cold.

“We could’ve been best friends, Raven Pierce, but no one cheats on my baby brother and gets away with it. Not even his pretty little Bluebird.”

I didn’t move fast enough as his fist snapped out, the impact hard enough that all I saw was darkness, and the last thing I heard was the trunk slamming shut.

To be continued in Filthy Liar…