Chapter 1 – POSY #2
“So you knew about it?” he asks, his voice acidic with disgust.
Of course, I did. I’m looking into the camera, just like Giorgio coached me. He said he wanted to save the memory of when I gave myself to him fully in all ways. I was so young. I thought I was in love. I knew he’d never, ever betray me.
Loyalty is big in my world because no one has much.
On screen, a fat tear drips down my cheek and leaves a streak of mascara. My chest heaves with the effort of holding in silent sobs. I was such a dumb, trusting kid. I wish I could go back and rescue her. Tell her she deserved better.
I can’t watch anymore. I force my gaze to the carpeted floor. “Please turn it off. Why are you doing this?”
“Why did you do it?” He bites back at me.
“What do you mean?”
I was stupid, and I believed a man I trusted.
I don’t understand why Dario’s being like this. He knows I had a lot of boyfriends before him. We met officially when I was dating Frankie Bianco. This isn’t the fifties. He’s never complained that I know what I’m doing in bed.
Dario tightens his grip, shaking me a little. On purpose. I freeze. This is new. He’s never been rough with me before. Not in anger.
“I mean, did you wait for me to get on the plane to take this guy’s cock in your ass, or was it in there as soon as I was out the door?”
Hold on. What?
I crane my neck until it hurts, but with the way he’s holding me now, I can’t meet his eyes. I can only see his profile, sharp angles tense with barely suppressed rage.
“December thirteenth,” he says. “I flew to New York that day. Bought you a fucking ring.”
My jaw drops, my brain scrambling to catch up. December thirteenth? I look back at the video, squinting, trying desperately to ignore the sight of Giorgio’s fingers digging into my ass, leaving red marks on my pale skin. In the lower right-hand corner. There’s a time stamp.
It says December thirteenth. Of this year.
I shake my head. “No. Dario, this video is five years old. That’s why my hair’s brown. I used to dye it in high school.”
“Don’t lie to me.” He tightens his arms again, truly constricting my breath. For the first time, panic rises. I’m in trouble.
“I’m not lying,” I gasp. “That’s my high school boyfriend. Giorgio Fusco. I told you about him. The two timer.”
Dario shakes me so hard my teeth chatter. “Stop lying, Posy.”
I tense, instinctively trying to curl up and protect myself, but I can’t. He’s got me immobilized, facing the laptop, and all I can hear is the soundtrack of my pathetic whimpers as I beg Giorgio to hurry up and cum. That, and Dario’s furious, jagged breath in my ear.
My stomach lurches again. I’m definitely gonna puke. I’m going to have to swallow it. If I don’t, it’s going all over myself.
“I swear to you,” I pant. “I’ve never cheated on you. That date is wrong.”
“I gave you everything, Posy. I brought you into my home. Treated you like a queen. And this is what I get?” He shakes me again. My head bounces, smacking against his bearded jaw, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “This is what I get for laying down with a Santoro dog.”
I wince. He’s never brought my father’s family up before. And since we’ve been together, no one else has either.
“Dario,” I plead. I’m not sure for what. Trust. Mercy. Release.
He flings me off his lap, and I land on the floor with a jarring thud, arms and legs akimbo, my wrist bending back the wrong way. A sharp shooting pain radiates up my arm.
He rises to his feet, six-feet and two-hundred pounds of lean muscle and cold rage. I scramble up, dashing to put the desk between us, cradling my wrist.
I’ve never seen him like this—on the verge of violence. He’s motionless, except for the twitch of his fingers as if he wants to reach for his gun.
Panic screams in my head. Run, run. My stupid heart reaches for him, though. This isn’t the man I know. Where is my Dario? Where is the man who plays games with me for hours and delights when I beat him, who comes looking for me at random times during the day to make love?
“Dario, please, just look at it again. It’s an old video. I don’t look anything like that now.”
“You want me to watch that filth again? Watch you beg for cock in your ass?” His voice rises. “This is what I get for bringing a slut into my house. I should have expected this. You can’t help being what you are—a dirty, lying whore.”
He’s bites out the words, lips peeled back in disgust, refusing to even look at me. My heart cracks.
This is the man who bought me a diamond and gold watch for our third date because I had a habit of being late.
When he was trying to convince me to move in, he had the gardener replace all the flower beds with nothing but posies.
He plays canasta with me for hours even though he hates canasta, and when I ask him, he reads novels aloud in Italian to help me fall asleep at night.
This is Dario . He should believe me. I’ve never lied to him. Not once.
“You have nothing to say for yourself?” he spits.
“Dario—” My voice cracks. “You know me.”
He sneers. “I know you. I should have expected this from Frankie Bianco’s sloppy seconds. Honestly, the last name Santoro should have tipped me off.”
Each word is a blow to my soft belly. My shoulders curve, and I hug my aching wrist to my middle. My legs want to run, but fear has me frozen to the spot.
I don’t know this man at all.
All the blood that normally flows through my veins has sunk to my feet. I’m sweating, and I don’t know if it’s from fear or shame or the sickening sensation of the other shoe dropping.
How deluded have I been?
This is why everyone tiptoes around the house.
Why dangerous men square their shoulders and speak with respect, hats in hand, when they come for meetings in this office.
Why the other waitresses at L’Alba cast worried glances my way when I started talking to Dario Volpe but would never say a word against him.
He’s none of the things I tell myself he is—a gentleman, a shy genius who needs a girl like me to bring him out of his shell. A little old-fashioned in his views, but decent and generous. He’s an asshole .
He’s a dangerous asshole.
And he’s seething, but he hasn’t lost an ounce of control.
He threw me on the floor on purpose; it was a move calculated to demonstrate his contempt.
He’s not falling into a rage. If anything, he’s more self-contained now, as still as a cobra waiting to strike, deep brown eyes narrowed and glinting, devoid of any trace of fondness, let alone love.
He might actually kill me.
My gaze darts around the office. Files. Books. Overstuffed leather chairs and a low table. Nothing I could use to protect myself. Nowhere to hide.
I know he’s carrying. A revolver holstered in the small of his back and a semi-automatic in an ankle holster.
We’re in the suburbs of Pyle, but the house is big, the grounds expansive. There’s nothing to stop him from squeezing off a single shot. No neighbors close enough to hear and call the cops. Lord knows Ray and Ivano wouldn’t stop him. They’d bury the body, my body, for him.
My heart slams against my rib cage, deep grief welling up on the heels of terror. Where did my Dario go? Did he ever exist? If he loved me, could he be this cold and cruel? Could he believe I betrayed him so easily? Wouldn’t he want to hear my side of the story?
But he’s cut me out like the gristle from his steak.
I sashayed into this office thinking he loved me, and a quarter hour later, I am staring at a man who seems to be weighing whether or not I’m worth the effort of scrubbing blood stains out of the carpet.
I swallow against a wretched cry. No time for that now.
And besides—I cannot be this shocked. This is how life goes. Delusion and then disappointment and despair. I want to sink to the floor. Surrender. Beg for a mercy that I don’t need and should never have to ask for.
I want to go back in time. Unbreak this thing between us. But I don’t have the power.
He has it all.
I force myself to drag down a deep breath. I am not going out like this. I might have been named after a flower, but I don’t wilt like one. I’m walking out of this room.
“Dario—” I start, pausing to lick my dry lips. I don’t know what I’m going to say.
He holds up a hand. “I don’t want to hear another word from your whore mouth.
I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen.
” His tone doesn’t match his words. There’s no scorn, only bloodless determination.
“You’re going to turn around. Walk out the door.
Ray is going to drive you and your shit into the city.
You’re going to get out, and I’m never going to have to look at your lying face again. ”
He waits patiently. For me to answer or for me to leave?
I’m not an idiot. I’ll take an out when I’m offered one. I nod and ease back toward the door on legs like jelly. I almost make it. My hand is on the knob when he says, “Wait.”
For a second, my silly heart leaps, warmth hitting my chest like the heat from a shot of tequila.
The soft part of my brain I’ve never been able to fix spins off into a fantasy.
He can’t do it—he can’t let me walk away.
It’s only been eight months, but what we have is real.
I’ve never felt this way before, as if I’m punch drunk twenty-four-seven, walking on clouds.
He’s angry now, but deep down, he knows me.
He’ll take a breath. Think it through. He’ll realize it’s all a mistake.
He’s the smartest man I’ve ever known. He won’t let a misunderstanding tear us apart.
I turn back to him.
“Come here.” He beckons me over.
I approach slowly, equal parts dread and mad hope. His face is a cold mask.
I stop a foot away. He’s on his side of the desk; I’m on the other. He skewers me with a vicious glare that triggers every instinct for self-preservation that I have, his lips curling in a contorted smile, dashing the hope. This isn’t second thoughts. This is something else.