Page 99 of Brutal Revenge

Chapter 30

Azra

Iclutch the results of the purity test in my hand. I passed. Mercifully. It should have never been a question, but I didn’t lie when I said my dream felt real. From what I’ve been able to puzzle together over the past hour, when I passed out from sexual exhaustion, that was the end of my exchange with Matteo. He didn’t spoon me, and he most certainly didn’t penetrate me.

Regretfully.

Hating my disobedient inner monologue, I grip the report so firmly that the paper crinkles.

Now is not the time for doubt. I’m sitting in an SUV, alone, staring at the front doors of the Caruso mansion, waiting for Matteo to show up. It’s time to go back to the life I’d give anything to forget exists for another hour, to the ruse I hope will someday let me live as freely as I have in recent days.

I wait for ten minutes.

Then twenty.

Then forty.

By the time an hour passes, the silence becomes unbearable. It presses against my ribs like a weight I can’t lift and upsets my stomach.

He’s not coming.

Of course not. Why would he?

He made his trade. He got what he wanted.

It isn’t me.

Swallowing hard, I tap the driver on the shoulder. “You can go,” I tell him, my voice steadier than I feel.

He locks eyes with me in the rearview mirror. “Are you sure? We can wait a little longer if you need more time to think it over.”

Me? Why would I need more time? Staying isn’t an option.Right?

I shift my eyes back to the mansion before I slowly nod. “I’m sure.”

He’s clearly not coming, so I don’t know why I need to continue torturing myself.

The driver sighs before he pulls the SUV away from the mansion. I look forward, not back, because looking back will hurt too much.

I have suffered enough burns over the past forty-eight hours.

But then a sound rumbles through my chest. A deep, familiar rev, and I twist in my seat so fast that my neck twinges.

Matteo is following the convoy on his motorcycle. He’s tailing the long line of SUVs, following like a shadow that refuses to detach itself.

Confusion crashes over me so hard that before my head can advise my heart against it, I climb into the passenger seat to get a better view of him in the side mirror. Although a full visor hides his face, I can tell he is tense. His posture is rigid, and his grip on the handlebars whitens his knuckles.

As he mimics the turns of the SUVs, a million questions flood my head.

Why is he following?

Why did he help me during the purity test?

Why didn’t he fight for me?

But the most important question of all… why did he kiss me after the nightclub if everything he did was part of our ploy to deceive Antonio?

No one could see us then. No one was watching. We had another two days before we were scheduled to attend an event with Antonio.Any effect he was aiming for would have worn off by then, so why kiss me like that? Why step back like he didn’t want to take advantage of me and then stroke his cock as if the tension was too much for him to bear?