Monster A Dark Arranged Marriage Romance - Vanessa Waltz Page 0,29
his mouth tight and grim. “Crazy fuck stabbed his father seven times. Then he calls my dad for help. So my father goes over there. Cleans up the body while Mom makes Vinny a bed in the guest room.”
A subzero chill swept my belly.
What was he doing?
I seized his knee.
Tony sipped more wine, exchanging an unfathomable look with Vinn. His dark eyebrow rose in amused contempt.
“I begged Dad to let him stay longer. Always wanted a little brother, but Dad wouldn’t have it. He thought Vinny was a total psycho,” Tony mused, ignoring my hard pinches on his thigh. “But when I looked at Vinny, I saw a boy wearing my hand-me-downs. I still see that.”
Please shut up.
Shut up.
A harrowing silence gripped the air, which Vinn didn’t break with a denial. I took in his whitened lips and the vein throbbing in his forehead. Vinn shot upright, upsetting his glass. It spilled, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“You’re a waste of oxygen.”
“Careful, Vinny. You used to be the loser, in and out of rehab.” Tony’s bewitching smile flickered in Liana’s direction. “Didn’t you know that?”
“She knows everything about me, you piece of shit. What about her?”
A muscle jumped in Tony’s jaw. “I’m sure Evie has Googled me.”
“Not everything’s online. Like where you were a year ago, and what you did.” Vinn wrenched his jacket over his shoulders, tugging Liana from the booth. “Maybe you don’t want her to know that about you. I wouldn’t.”
Wow.
The effect that had on Tony was alarming.
“Shut up.” His dead-eyed gaze speared Vinn. “And get out. Or I’ll jam this butter knife in your eye socket.”
I grabbed Tony. “Tony, please stop.”
Tony swung toward me, his eyebrows raised. His attention danced over my face.
I gritted my teeth. “Stop.”
He brushed aside my trembling fingers and balled them in his hand. Then he kissed my knuckles, and the pit of my stomach churned. He was such a chameleon. He could be magnetic, cruel when it suited his fancy, generous, charming, wicked, psychotic.
Which was the real Tony?
Liana linked hands with Vinn, muttering something about the baby. It seemed to be the magic word. Vinn let her steer him away from the table, and they left without a backward glance.
Tony watched him go, seething. He drank.
“I think you’ve had your fill.”
I wrestled the glass from him and swigged, choking when an overly sweet, thin liquid welled in my mouth. It lacked the earthiness of wine and the sting of alcohol.
“Grape juice?” I whispered, bewildered. “What the hell?”
“I told you. I don’t drink.”
“So you did that just to piss him off?”
“If I wanted to do that, I’d sign up his email for hardcore gay porn. No, I want to mess with his head. It drives him crazy when I break my sobriety because it reminds him of his weakness.” He swiveled his head, shrugging. “Nobody is without flaws, Evie. I find them. I exploit them.”
Well that’s dark.
“Do you enjoy being cruel?”
“Sure, when somebody annoys me enough.”
“So you’re a bully with a death wish.”
“Not quite, darling. I just needed him to leave.” He turned to fully face me, pinning me with a hot glare. “I can’t have him around while I fuck the insolence out of you.”
A shudder ran up my leg as he slid from the booth. He stood, tall and angry. His eyes flashed, reminding me that I wasn’t leaving without getting owned, used, and fucked within an inch of my life. The air charged with his volatile energy.
“What makes you think I’ll let you touch me?”
“One, you want me. Two, you’re contractually obligated to fuck me.” His finger slid under my jaw. “Three, I’m not giving you a choice.”
Eleven
Evie
I’m grateful he hasn’t fucked me.
And that he doesn’t know how much I want him.
Shadows loved my husband.
They made his eyes more dazzling, his cheeks hollowed, his lips more carved into the boyish pout. Tony would be breathtaking in a seedy hotel under a single light bulb, but the dark seemed to like him.
My lunatic husband smiled as he took my wrist and marched me through Sanctum. So many naked girls stopped us, all of them gorgeous. Tony shot them down, but it bothered me that he was on a first-name basis with every hooker in sight.
“If another girl asks us for a threesome, I’m going to hurl on your shoes.” I grabbed his arm and wrenched when a female voice called out his name. “Have you fucked everyone in this place?”