CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN #2
Matteo straightened, releasing my hand, his mask of civility sliding into place. “Serafina was just fulfilling her duty as your wife. She welcomed me in and made me something to eat.”
Adrian’s gaze locked with mine, his eyes flashing with possessive fury that he tried to hide behind his typical maddening smirk. “Is that so? She cooked you something. How adorable.”
Oh…
Was my husband jealous?
How interesting.
He moved closer, his presence filling the kitchen, making the air feel thick and charged.
“I didn’t know you enjoy cooking, wife,” he said, voice dripping with mockery. “Maybe I need to get rid of our chef and you can cook my meals from now on.”
“I enjoy cooking once in a while,” I replied ever so politely, keeping my voice steady despite the hammering of my heart. “Not everyday.”
“Hmm.” His lips curved, his grin widening, showing sharp white teeth.
There was nothing polite about that smile.
“So how did cooking end up with you holding my wife’s hand to your chest?” Adrian’s voice was deceptively soft, the calm before the storm.
The tension in the kitchen became palpable, thick enough to choke on, a living thing that crackled between the three of us.
Matteo stepped forward, placing himself between Adrian and me. “It’s not what it looked like.”
“No?” Adrian chuckled darkly. So deceptive. So cruel. “Then what was it, brother? A family bonding moment? Perhaps you were teaching my wife about our family history?”
I moved around Matteo, refusing to hide behind him. My husband didn’t scare me anymore. “We were just talking.”
“Just talking,” Adrian repeated, his eyes never leaving mine. “With your hand on his chest.”
I could feel the weight of unspoken threats, of old wounds and fresh ones, all converging in this moment.
Thud.
This wasn’t the moment. Not yet.
I needed more time…
“Adrian,” I began, but he cut me off with a sharp gesture.
“I think it’s time for my brother to leave,” he said, his voice deadly quiet. “Don’t you agree, wife?”
Matteo didn’t move, his jaw clenched tight. “I came to check on Serafina. To make sure she’s being treated well.”
“And what did you find?” Adrian asked, his eyes gleaming with cruel possessiveness. “Is my wife satisfied with her treatment?”
The double meaning wasn’t lost on any of us. I felt heat rise to my cheeks, a mixture of embarrassment and anger.
“Adrian, please,” I said, my voice firmer than I felt.
“Oh.” His chest rumbled with a chuckle. “She does beg very prettily.”
Goddamn it. Goddamn him.
I turned to Matteo, forcing a polite smile on my face. “I think you should go. Thank you for your visit and concern.”
He watched me for a second before finally nodding. “Serafina, if you need anything…”
“I have everything I need,” I replied, the lie tasting bitter on my tongue.
Matteo’s fists clenched and then unclenched before he nodded again, though he didn’t look convinced or satisfied with my response.
Without staring his brother another glance, he turned and walked out of the kitchen without another word.
The front door closed with a soft click, leaving me alone with Adrian.
The silence that followed was deafening.
I inhaled, my chest expanding with a deep breath. I guessed I had to be the bigger person.
I broke the silence first, hoping to be civil. “You’ve misunderstood what you had seen.”
Adrian took a step closer, the island separating us. “Explain to me what I saw then.”
I opened my mouth but he cut me off, tsking and shaking his head, his shoulders shaking with humorless mirth. “I saw my brother, in my house, with my wife, making moves that cross a very clear line.”
I bit down on my lips, frustrated that he was right and infuriated that he wouldn’t let me explain.
“Go ahead, Serafina. Lie to my face,” he taunted.
“This is ridiculous.” I threw my hands in the air. “Nothing happened.”
“Nothing happened,” Adrian echoed, his voice dangerously low. “And yet I find you with your hand on my brother’s heart.” He walked around the island, coming closer and I remained rooted in my spot.
I wasn’t scared of him.
He couldn’t hurt me more than he already has.
“What were you feeling, Serafina? Did you feel it beating? Did you wonder what it would be like if things had been different?”
The cruelty in his words struck me like a physical blow. I lifted my chin, squaring my shoulders, refusing to show how much his words hurt.
“You’re being childish,” I said, my voice steady despite the storm raging inside me. “If you want to have this conversation, let’s have it like adults.”
He stalked closer.
My lungs squeezed.
Adrian’s eyes narrowed, dark with predatory intent. “Adults,” he repeated. “Yes, let’s be adults. Let’s discuss how my brother can’t seem to accept that you’re mine now. Let’s talk about how he keeps finding excuses to be near you, to touch you, to remind you of what could have been.”
The possessiveness in his voice made my skin crawl, even as something primal and unwanted stirred in my belly.
“That’s not true,” I whispered.
But we both knew it was a lie.
“You speak such beautiful lies, wife.”
“I’m not a possession to be fought over,” I said, my voice rising. “I’m a person, with thoughts and feelings of my own.”
“Fine. Tell me then. What are you feeling right now?” Adrian’s gaze was challenging. “What do you want? What do you truly wish for?”
The question hung in the air between us, loaded with meaning I wasn’t ready to confront.
Adrian took another step forward, closing in on me. He was so close.
My stomach dipped, stirring a familiar feeling. My spine tingled.
“Tell me,” he rasped, voice deeper, a little rougher.
“I want—”
Adrian lurched forward, his one arm shooting around my waist while his other hand wrapped behind my nape, tugging me closer with a brutal force.
His lips slammed over mine, swallowing my words and my gasp of shock.
I inhaled, my lips parting beneath his assault, surrendering to him. Adrian took the invitation, dipping his tongue into my mouth with savage hunger. Tasting me. Swallowing my whimpers as if they were the sweetest nectar he had been craving.
My eyes fluttered closed as he claimed me with his mouth, his lips, his tongue, a deep groan rumbling from his chest.
For one treacherous moment, there was only his mouth on mine, his body pressing against me, all of his hard muscles against my softness. My body betrayed me again, responding to his kiss with a heat that frightened me.
Adrian kissed me like a starving man. Like I was the very air he needed to breathe.
Then suddenly, he wrenched away from me.
Horror etched across his features. His eyes widened with shock, his face paling visibly. For the first time since I’d known him, Adrian looked truly shocked. Truly worried. Truly frightened.
“You taste like...” he gasped, his hand flying to his throat. “Strawberries.”
Strawberries, yes.
My favorite fruit.
His sweet poison.
My lips curved into a slow, deliberate smirk as Adrian’s face turned crimson.
He began to cough, his breathing becoming ragged and labored. His hand clawed at his throat as his chest heaved with desperate attempts to draw breath.
How adorable.
I had always known.
Adrian wasn’t the only one who had been watching. While he had been observing me and planning…I had been studying him too. Closely. Patiently. Carefully observing every detail about the man who had ruined my life.
I had noticed how he never touched the strawberry tarts at family dinners.
How he subtly pushed away any dessert containing the fruit.
How he would decline fruit salads with a dismissive wave.
How his eyes would dart nervously toward any dish with the telltale red berries.
How the strawberries would rot in our fridge because no one ate them.
Adrian Salvatore, the ruthless killer who feared nothing, was deathly allergic to strawberries—and he had kept this weakness hidden from everyone.
No one knew.
No one except me.
I was his wife, after all. It was my duty to know everything about my husband.
I had eaten those strawberries on purpose. Five of them, their sweet juice coating my tongue, their essence seeping into my poisonous kiss.
Adrian collapsed onto the kitchen floor, his body convulsing as anaphylaxis took hold. His face had begun to swell, his lips turning an alarming shade of blue. His chest heaved with desperate, wheezing breaths.
“What have you done?” he rasped, his voice barely audible as his throat constricted.
“Does it hurt, husband?” I asked softly, kneeling beside him. I brushed my finger along his cheek, then traced his swollen lips with deliberate slowness. “Does it feel like your throat is closing? Like you’re drowning in air that refuses to enter your lungs?”
His eyes, those piercing blue eyes that had haunted my nightmares, stared up at me with a mixture of disbelief and horror.
A foreign feeling surged through me.
So, this was how it felt like to be… powerful. To be in control of someone’s life. To choose between death and showing them mercy.
My grin widened. “Does it burn? How does it feel to be so…powerless?” I taunted, my voice sweet as the poison that now coursed through his veins.
I rose to my feet, looking down at him as he struggled for breath on our kitchen floor. For a moment, I considered letting him die. The thought was tempting—so very tempting—but death would be too quick, too merciful for a man who has tormented me so thoroughly.
“Don’t worry,” I told him, my voice cold, shattering the illusion that he had been in control. “I won’t let you die. Not today. We have so much more to suffer through together, husband.”
I walked around the counter and reached for the EpiPen I had kept in one of the drawers for this moment and came back to his side. His eyes widened at the sight of it and he reached out, desperate… to live, to breathe, to survive.
I threw it on the floor, next to his body. “Help yourself.”
Adrian grasped it with trembling hands and I didn’t stay to watch. I walked away, my heels clicking against the marble floors as I left him gasping on the floor of our kitchen.
He had underestimated me. Adrian had seen only what he wanted to see—a beautiful, fragile woman he could control and manipulate. But he had forgotten the darkness that lurked beneath my perfect exterior, the same darkness that ran through his own veins.
And I had just claimed my first victory.
I took out my cellphone from the pocket of my dress. It appeared I had to call Edmund back to the main house.
My husband was going to need immediate medical attention.