Page 72 of Punishing His Runaway Bride
That morning... did I really... with her...
Memory was all fragments. I tried to remember, couldn't think of anything.
But the child. If she really was pregnant, the timing fit.
"I'm not marrying her."
The conference room went silent for a moment.
Hart looked at me.
"You won't marry her?" His voice was slow. "Then who do you want to marry? That stripper?"
My fingers clenched tight.
"She's your wife in name." Hart continued, his voice carrying that nauseating amusement. "But we all know what that really is. You think she can actually be the Visconti family's lady of the house?"
Someone laughed. A low chuckle from down the table.
I turned to look. A rat-faced, scrawny man was grinning, showing yellow teeth—a distant cousin, usually invisible in the family. Got bolder these past few years riding Hart's coattails.
"What's funny?"
He froze.
"Nothing," he said, the smile still not wiped off his face. "Just think Hart's right. Ezio, what the hell were you thinking? Marrying some whore from a strip club as Mrs. Visconti?"
The air solidified.
I looked at him.
"What did you say?"
"Am I wrong?" Marco shrugged. "Everyone knows that woman danced at the club, dressed like a prostitute. Those men in the audience—hell, who knows how many of them touched her? If your father were still alive, knew his son married trash that crawled out of the slums, wouldn't he be so pissed he'd climb out of his coffin—"
I stood up.
The chair legs scraped against the marble floor with a piercing screech.
Marco's smile froze instantly.
Everyone looked at me.
I walked around the table and stopped in front of him. He shrank back, but his chair was against the wall. Nowhere to retreat.
"Ezio—"
I ignored him, reached into my jacket, and pulled out the knife I always carried.
The blade flashed under the lights.
His face changed.
"Ezio! What are you—"
I pressed his hand flat on the table.
Aimed the knife point at the back of his hand.
