Page 193 of Sinful Lies

I scoffed to myself.

Her love.

Was she even fucking capable of it?

Was it all fake? Just some goddamn act?

I swear to fucking God, I’d seen it in her eyes—the love, the admiration, the fucking longing.

Had I mistaken it because I wanted it so damn badly to be true? Because I’d been desperate for her to love me just as much as I’d fucking loved her for the last six years?

You can’t love me, Angelo. Not after what I’ve done.

If I wasn’t sitting in this fucking interrogation room with these bastards watching my every move, waiting for me to snap, I’d destroy every goddamn piece of furniture in here, furious at myself.

I told her there was nothing she could ever do that would make me stop loving her.

But this?

Betraying me, lying to me, stealing from me…

“I love you too, Angelo,”she had said. “So much. Too much, and I shouldn’t. But for some reason, my heart betrayed me and chose you.”

When Vittori called me tonight, telling me that Alia Jasper, head of the New York City FBI field office—the woman he’d befriended and occasionally had in his bed—informed him that her own sister, Alexandra Jasper, Fox News’ top journalist, had compiled a sixty-two-page folder detailing my life, and accusing me of murder, embezzlement, kidnapping, threats, and more.

I was not only fucking shaken, but utterly destroyed.

Then I turned around to see her—mia diavoletta—gun pointed high at me, ready to shoot.

She claimed I killed her sister.

Stella.The same name she had cried in her sleep many times.

But the Cyrus Project was the reason her sister died, not fuckingme.

If she had just fucking come to me and been honest, I would have helped her get the revenge she so desperately needed—because I knew exactly who was behind it all.

La freccia della tua vendetta ha colpito il cuore sbagliato, amore.

A heavy breath clogged my lungs as I checked the time again.

2:35 a.m.

When I entered the feds’ car, Vittori texted me that his Alia would get me out at 2:45 a.m. That I had to stay at least twenty minutes to pretend, for the employees there, that I was a nobody—without money to buy this fucking country and every bastard that came my way.

The doors opened, and a pretty agent—Detective Naomi McLauren—sat down, her cheeks pink, eyes wide as she scanned my face and lips. She explained why I had been arrested, but in the process, was unable to hide how attracted she was to me.

I barely listened to her, my mind still on Jade, waiting for her to explain the fucking sinful lies that had slipped from those pretty lips.

When my Rolex hit 2:45 a.m., I put my blazer back on and left.

Despite every fucking betrayal, my soul was still fucking empty, craving its soulmate—even though she was the reason I was in this mess in the first place.

Jade Whitenhouse.

My employee. Mia Diavoletta. My light.

How could this woman be my redemption and my ruin in the same breath?

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