Page 18 of I am Dressed in Sin (Death by Daybreak MC 2)
He stands up suddenly, knocking his chair over in his haste, and storms off.
I watch him go, my hands squeezed so tightly around the ends of the chair arms that my fingertips are going numb. He keeps saying ‘us’ and ‘we’, like I’m an equal partner in all of this. It’s something I’ve always wanted. So why can’t I just give in and try to enjoy it?
What the actual fuck is wrong with me?
Handsome, kind partner. Equal marriage. Ready-made empire.
As if summoned by her son’s anger, Giulia reappears, gliding out onto the veranda in another of her silken designer gowns. This one is loose and flowy, as if a three-thousand-dollar dress is just a pair of lounge pants. She waves her hand, and a servant rushes forward to right the chair for her.
I frown.
“Young couples are so passionate,” she tells me, crossing her legs at the knee and resting her hands atop them. She stares at me from her son’s eyes, that same soft heather gray with thick, dark lashes. “I don’t see much of that in the bedroom however.”
“It’s creepy as fuck that you watch to see if your son and his fiancée are doing it,” I retort back, but Giulia just smiles at me. “Did it ever occur to you that we aren’t doing it because you’re watching?”
This time, she laughs, and the sound cuts straight through me like a knife. Goose bumps rise on my arms, and I rub at them with my hands, hating my body for betraying me like that. She doesn’t deserve to know how she makes my skin crawl, how much I despise her, how much I’d like to reach out and wrap my hands around her skinny neck …
“Grey is my son, but he’s weak. He’d do whatever his bitchy biker bride requested.” She keeps her legs crossed, tapping those long nails of hers against her silk-covered knee. “And you? You’re a barbarian. Your people rut like monkeys, regardless of who’s watching. Don’t tell me you actually care about privacy or modesty.” Giulia leans forward, getting in my face in a way that triggers every instinct I have to fight back. But I don’t. Because I’m learning that I don’t have to display every emotion I feel, every time I feel it. “I’m starting to wonder if I shouldn’t tell my husband about your lack of intimacy. It’s concerning to me, Gidget.”
“It’s concerning to me that you’d kill your own grandchild,” I retort back, and for once, I get a reaction out of this bitch. Just … not the one that I was expecting.
She has the audacity to smile at me.
“How many bastards do you think my son left behind in his wake?” she asks me, cocking her head slightly to one side. “A dozen? More. Do you think I’d ever accept the offspring of some dirty whore as my grandchild, as the heir to my husband’s throne? Do you think I’ll ever accept you?” The look she flashes me then is crafted of calculated menace and pure, unadulterated hatred. “You will never walk outside these walls without a leash. You’re a useful political tool, that’s all you’ve ever been.”
“If you call my sister a whore one more time, I will hunt you down and put your head on a pike,” I grind out, even though I know I shouldn’t be talking back. But how can I ever describe the rage that I feel at hearing my beloved sister reduced to a pejorative expletive with no truth to it? Queenie was loving, and she didn’t share herself with just any man. Kian must’ve been special.
Giulia cracks me across the face and, for the second time in as many weeks, I taste blood.
“Come to heel, pet. Or I’ll break you like I break my horses.”
I put my hand to my cheek, closing my eyes against the overwhelming rage inside of me, a fire that burns so brightly it could blot out the sun. Cat said something to me like that once. “You know, all horses can be broken, Gidge.”
Like I said before, I’m a bear. A predator who hunts alone. You go ahead and try, bitch. I’ve been challenged by greater minds than you.
I say nothing as Giulia walks away, letting my stinging cheek remind me of what I already know: I’m not safe here. I’m not safe anywhere. I have to carve out space for myself.
The next day, Grey and I are invited to the shooting range. I’m given a revolver with a single round in the cylinder. I lift my eyes up to look at Ivan Wolfe, his thin, slick exterior a couth blotch against the surrounding hedges and the rolling hills of pine behind him.
“Is this a warning or a privilege?” I ask dryly, turning and lifting the revolver up in both hands. I could shoot Ivan with this gun, but what good would that do me? Instead, I fire off the shot and hit the bull’s-eye dead center as Grey raises a brow in surprise. With a flick of the wrist, I open the cylinder and hold the gun out. Ivan smiles as he studies me, nodding his chin in response to my silent question and watching as one of his goons moves forward and puts another round in for me.
