Page 90 of The Don's Secret Heir

I call her, and she picks up on the third ring, sounding almost out of breath.

“Liana? Where are you? I’ve been calling you all night.”

I haven’t even checked my phone. I was nervous about where Dario was going to take me.

“I’ve been.... tied up,” I say, my voice growing hoarse from emotion and the late hour. “You were right about Dario. I should have never trusted him.”

She hums. “I won’t say I told you so. Where are you?”

“I’m at a hotel downtown.” Something in me hesitates before telling her the address, but that’s just me being paranoid.

Dario’s lost his mind if he thinks Beth’s really trying to kill him. This is just some silly fight they’re having, something that got taken too far.

Beth will explain, when she gets here.

After I give her the address, she hangs up.

And I just wait, trying not to listen to my racing thoughts.

24

DARIO

I stand outside the warehouse with two bodies inside it for far too long, staring after Liana’s car. She’s gone. She won’t go to Beth’s, not after what happened tonight, so she’ll likely be safe, but...

I grab Giovanni’s arm anyway.

“She left out of here like a bat out of hell,” Giovanni starts but I just shake my head listlessly.

The words she said keep repeating in my head.She’s going to annull the marriage. She’s going to leave me.

Again.

“I need you to keep an eye on her car. I threw an AirTag in it and she hasn’t removed it yet. Just track her and make sure she’s okay.”

Giovanni raises an eyebrow. “You don’t want to do that yourself?”

“No,” I say flatly. “I’m going out with Rocco.”

Giovanni stares at me. “Going out? On a night like tonight? Boss, you just almost got killed, and--”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I’m not going to argue with him. I plan on blacking out tonight, and I don’t care that it’s immature and impractical.

Rocco even gives me a sideways glance when I tell him we’re going out.

“Get a driver,” I tell him, and he nods. I follow him in my car to his place to park, and he heads upstairs to change, coming back down in a pair of black slacks and a silk shirt.

“You going to actually get laid tonight?”

“Your lips to God’s ears,” I mutter, because God knows, I’m going to try. Liana hates me. She told me so. She hates me, would rather live in her car than spend any more time with me.

That’s clear enough, isn’t it? There was a reason she left in the first place, but I guess she’s never going to tell me why. Maybe she just didn’t want me. Not for anything more than sex, anyway. I’m just a distraction to her, some kind of release.

She doesn’t want to be with me.

And God, I shouldn’t want to be with her, either. Not after everything she put me through, not after she moved on to someone else, had hisbaby...