Page 74 of Brutal Obsession
I take a step back, then another, until my back flattens against the wall.
My caller isn’t Dante.
It’s Giovanni.
And he isn’t alone.
Valeria is a quivering bag of nerves at his feet.
Afraid I might fall, I grip the wall so hard my nails scratch the paintwork. My legs feel like Jell-O, and my breathing is frantic enough to cave my chest in.
Giovanni’s face appears carved from a rock, and his dark, stormy eyes are unreadable. Heat rolls off him like a furnace, making the room stuffy and uninviting.
I shoot my hand up to cover my mouth when he fists Valeria’s hair before yanking it back to align her eyes with mine. Not even the bruise circling her eye can hide the fact she’s been crying. I wish that was the worst of it. Her top lip is split open, and blood is pooling under her nose.
I refuse to believe Giovanni is responsible for her injuries, but the evidence is a little hard to discount. His fury hasn’t weakened the slightest since I last saw him. It’s radiating out of him in invisible waves.
Giovanni’s gravelly tone slices through the silence. “Apologize.”
Like she isn’t at his feet, peering down the barrel of a gun, Valeria’s chin tilts as if she’s better than this. Her smile is gone, wiped by the blood trickling over her lips, but her eyes are still mocking.
“Apologize!” Giovanni roars again, his tug on her hair cruel.
She whimpers when no number of shouts have her mistaking her roots being plucked from her scalp. Then, slowly, like this is an inconvenience, she drifts her eyes to me.
“I’m sorry.” Her words are brittle, as if she forced them through a batch of vomit. They fall flat and do nothing to dispel Giovanni’s anger.
“No.” He drags her across the room until her rain-soaked shirt dampens my shoes. “Not like that. Apologize like you actually fucking mean it.” My stomach recoils when he adds, “Like you know that this apology is the only reason you’re not already under six feet of dirt.”
“Vanni—”
“Apologize!”
Tears topple down Valeria’s cheeks when the reality of the situation finally dawns on her. She isn’t running the show around here. “I’m sorry.”
“For?” Giovanni continues to push, the word shooting from his mouth like poison.
This time, Valeria falls into line. “For thinking I could mark you. That I could put my hands on you and get away with it.”
Since I can’t take more of this, I nod so fast that I make myself dizzy. “It’s fine.” My reply is thin with fragility. “I accept your apology.”
I don’t believe she is sincere.
I simply want this over before Giovanni does something he can’t take back.
In my head, I call Valeria an idiot when she peers up at Giovanni and murmurs, “You wanted an apology. You got one. Now let me go.”
Giovanni doesn’t move, nor does his expression soften. His shoulders remain rigid, and his jaw locks so firmly I can see the strain. “No.” The chilliness of his words causes me to shudder. “I never said I’d let you go once you apologized. What you did was inexcusable. A mistake like that is only corrected one way.”
I can’t breathe when he raises his gun an inch. Now, instead of being pointed at Valeria’s eyes, it homes in on the wrinkle popped between her brows.
Valeria re-finds her panic. “What do you want me to do, Giovanni? Beg? I can beg.”
I don’t recognize the voice that comes out of Giovanni.
“I need you to grasp the implications of your actions.” He speaks each word with lethal deliberation. “And how you can’t take back with words what you did. You fucking marked her. You dug your nails into the woman I’m obsessed with…” He makes eye contact with me, and electricity surges through the air. His hooded gaze is dark and lethal but also burning with something that scares me more than Valeria ever could. “You hurt the woman I love.”
He misses the rapid dilation of my pupils when he returns his eyes to Valeria.
