“What the hell are you talking about?”
He turns to look at her, expression hardening. “Let’s just say that pig knows every inch of her.” He returns his gaze to me. “It was good for her pride, though. As you probably know, she’s prideful, my niece. The night her brothers sold her virginity in exchange for the marriage of the two families brought her down a notch. Several.”
Rage beats against my ears, my chest, my fingernails digging into my palms.
“How do you know this?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“Oh, I was there. And really, that was all assuming she was a virgin at all. I was around when she was growing up. I remember how she pranced around in her tight little shorts when she was just a girl.”
What the fuck is this asshole saying?
“Always putting on a show for any man who walked by.”
He turns to me, must see the rage building inside me because he clears his throat. “I tried to help her, of course.”
I turn just as Scarlett is within earshot. “I’m sure you tried to help her,” I say under my breath, vowing then to kill this pervert. Not even caring about the cartel and what that would do to my relationship with them. I will kill Jacob De La Cruz.
I step toward Scarlett and my uncle, blocking Jacob’s view of her, not wanting him to look at her any longer. I can’t stand the thought that even his eyes should fall on her.
I was twelve when I started fighting. I don’t know any other way to be.
At least I was an adult.
“Cristiano.” My uncle nods in greeting and walks past me to the bar. I don’t care.
“You look beautiful,” I tell her, part of me wanting to put my jacket over her shoulders to hide her from her uncle. From the other ogling men.
She looks up at me like she has a hundred things to say. Like she wants to curse me to hell and fall into my arms all at once.
“Why is he here? Why are you talking to him?” she asks, eyes just flashing to Jacob momentarily.
I put my hand at her lower back, turn her away, walking at an angle to shield her from him.
“He’s an asshole, Scarlett. I know that. You don’t have to worry about him.”
“An asshole like your uncle, you mean?”
Someone interrupts us. The women from the charity again, like fucking gnats, these two. They start talking like we’re not having a private fucking conversation. What the fuck is wrong with people?
“Excuse us,” I say and walk Scarlett toward a quieter corridor. “What happened with my uncle?”
“He lost his shit when he saw me in your mom’s dress. I’m not going there again. I don’t care what you say. I’m not.” Her eyes get shiny and although I hear anger in her voice, she’s vulnerable.
“He loved my mother. I’m sure it was hard for him to see—”
“Don’t. Just don’t,” she turns like she’s going to walk away but I grab her arm.
“Scarlett—”
“I have to use the lady’s room,” she says.
“How exactly did he lose his shit?” I get the feeling I’m not going to like this part.
“Let me go.”
I look down at my hand around her arm. Bruises have already formed there. Did I put them there? Fuck. I loosen my grip, then release her altogether.
She rubs her arm. “You want to hear what an asshole your uncle is? Fine. He made me strip off the dress. Right there in the hallway. In front of him and one of his soldiers and—”
“He did what?” My brain rattles in my skull and I swear the fucking room goes sideways.
My phone begins its vibration again. Jesus fucking Christ.
I take my eyes off her for a second to quiet it and she slips away, swift to weave through the crowd and disappear around the corner.
I get as far as two steps after her only to be met by my uncle. “Lose her already?” he asks, half-joking.
“What did you do to her?”
“What did she say I did?” he asks, eyebrows to high heaven.
“The dress.”
“Ah.” He nods, drinks a big swallow of his whiskey. “I admit that was not my best moment.”
This throws me. I don’t know what I expected. “You admit it?”’
“I made her strip it off. I shouldn’t have done that but seeing her in it, it did something to me. Why would you give her one of your mother’s dresses, Cristiano? For fuck’s sake, why hers?”
Because I wanted to see if I could remember. But I don’t tell him that. “You’ll apologize to her.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“Look here—”
“She’s a human being.”
“She’s cartel trash. The same blood as those who executed your family.” His expression turns ugly. “Who assaulted your mother.”
I wipe spittle off my face and take a deep breath in. “How did you know that?”
“Are you fucking serious right now?”
“That detail about mom. How did you know?” It’s like fire is coursing through my veins. I want to smash something. Someone.
Lying on that floor watching it, watching what that bastard did to her, impotent to help the one time she needed me to help her. Fuck, it fucking kills me, that detail. That one fucking detail.
I rub the back of my neck, agitated. I can’t think about that. Not now. Not here.
My phone goes off again, but I ignore it.
“I had it taken out of the official report, you know that. I told you that. I didn’t want her humiliated in death like she was in life,” my uncle says. “Now as far as Scarlett, remember what she is. A means to an end. Family first. We’re not like them, not like the cartels who can execute their own. Don’t let her turn your head. Make you forget even that. She’ll exploit your weaknesses if you let her. You need to fuck her and get her out of your system so you can get your focus back. Get your head out of your ass, Cristiano.”
“I haven’t lost my focus.”
“No?”
“Where’s Dante?” I ask, realizing my brother isn’t here.
“Something came up in the Milan office. I thought you wouldn’t mind if I asked him to take care of it.” My uncle has offices all over Italy and I know my brother’s been working with him in the years I was incapacitated. He’s grooming Dante to take over his businesses although I’m not sure what Dante wants.
“No, I don’t mind,” I say because he is safer away from me, away from any ties to the mafia family he came from.
We’re interrupted then by someone who knows my uncle. I’m amazed at how quickly my uncle dons the mask of ease, a smile that looks so fucking real that it makes me wonder if I imagined what just happened. How he looked. What he said.
When my phone vibrates in my pocket for the hundredth time, I excuse myself and head in the direction of Scarlett as I answer.
“What is it?” I ask Antonio.
“I’ve been trying to get hold of you. We’ve got a problem.”
20
Scarlett
I’m heading toward the lady’s room when I see Jacob leering at me from the opposite corner of the room. He raises his glass to me, the sea of people between us his only protection as far as I’m concerned because Cristiano hasn’t come after me.