A Scandal in the Headlines - By Caitlin Crews Page 0,59

enough money to be a better liar.”

Elena would have to think about that, she knew. She would have to investigate the damage he’d caused with that hard, low blow. But not now. Not here.

“You don’t need to concern yourself with that land,” she said, ignoring the rest of it. She let him see how little she feared him, let him see she wasn’t shaking or cowering. “It will never be yours. You lost it the moment you thought you could hit me.”

His face flushed even redder, even angrier than before. He yanked her closer to him, shoving his face into hers, trying to intimidate her with his size and strength. He was a petty man, a vicious one. But she still wasn’t afraid.

“I’m not scared of you anymore, Niccolo,” she said very distinctly, tilting her head back to look him full in the face. Not hiding. Not running. Not afraid. “And that means you need to let go of my arm. Now.”

Whatever he saw in her face then made him drop her arm as if she’d turned into a demon right there in front of him. And Elena smiled, a real and genuine smile, because she was free of him.

After all this time, she was finally free of him.

“Step away from my wife, Falco.”

Alessandro’s icily furious voice cracked like a whip, startling Elena. Better, it made Niccolo move back. Alessandro was beside her then, his hand stroking down her back, as if he was reassuring himself that she still stood in one piece.

Or, the cynical part of her whispered, marking his territory.

“Give us a minute.”

It took Elena a moment to realize that Alessandro was speaking to her as he stared at Niccolo, murder in his dark green gaze. She frowned up at him.

But the Alessandro she knew was gone. There was nothing but darkness and vengeance on his fierce face. The promise of violence, of blood. Like a black hole where the man she loved should have been. It made every hair on the back of her neck prickle in warning. It made her pulse pick up speed.

It made her want to cry, as if they’d lost something.

“Alessandro, please,” she said softly. “He’s not worth it.”

Niccolo sneered. Alessandro only seemed to grow bigger, taller. Darker. More terrifying. And she’d never seen his face so cold, those dark green eyes so remote.

“Alessandro,” she said again.

But he still didn’t look at her.

“Get in the car,” he ordered her in a voice she’d never heard before. As if the man she knew was gone and in his place was this frigid and furious stranger, capable of anything. As if Niccolo was right, and she didn’t know him at all. As if she never had. “Do it now.”

And she didn’t know how to reach him, or if she could. She didn’t understand what was happening here, only that she shouldn’t let him do the things she saw promised on his hard face, in those deadly eyes….

But he didn’t love her. She was a temporary wife, at best.

And for all she knew, he’d married her for the land and this was simply another truth she’d been too blind to see. His true face, after all.

It ripped her up inside, but she obeyed him.

Alessandro wanted to kill Niccolo Falco. Very, very slowly.

“My congratulations,” the little pissant sneered, puffing out his chest and stepping suicidally close. “You keep her on a tight leash.”

His father would have simply kicked in one of Niccolo’s kneecaps, the better to drag him off and beat the life out of him in a more private place. Alessandro had seen Carlo do exactly that when he was fourteen.

“Men deal with problems like men, boy,” Carlo had told him, clearly disappointed that Alessandro hadn’t reacted better. “Take that scared look off your face. You’re a Corretti. Act like one.”

And Alessandro had never felt more like a Corretti, with all of the blood and graft and misery that implied, than he did right now.

Retribution. Revenge. Finally, he understood both.

“Be very careful,” Alessandro said through his teeth, trying to push back the red haze that obscured his vision. “You’re talking about my wife.”

Niccolo’s neck was flushed. His black eyes were slits of rage, and his thick hands were in fists. Alessandro knew he’d used one of those meaty hands on Elena, once before and once today, and had to battle back the urge to break the both of them.

He had no doubt at all that he could. He hadn’t fought in over forty days now—but he