Page 126 of Emerald

Babe?

“You’re right, I’m sorry, she just riled me up,” Damon says, continuing to point his gun at me.

“I know, babe,” Anna says, trying to soothe Damon’s anger. “Damon is the son and heir of the head of the Bratva. I met him in New York at a college party. He was already working for the agency tasked with keeping an eye on us until the agency was ready for us.” The agency? How did I not know any of this? “He told his family about us, that the agency wanted to recruit us, and his job was to recruit us first.” I’ve never seen this man before in my life. “He saw me first, and that was it,” Anna gushes.

“I fell in love with her right away,” Damon adds, gazing at her adoringly.

“He chose me, not you, me, to be his bride.” Anna sneers at me.

Bride? “You’re marrying him?”

“Yes. I needed to prove to his family that I would make the perfect Bratva Queen beside her King,” Anna explains.

“That’s when she thought up the jewels,” Damon adds proudly.

Anna created the jewels. It was her monstrous idea. I stare at my oldest friend. Did I ever really know her? “How could you do that to those women? How could you do that to any woman?”

Anna rolls her eyes at me. “Please, you seemed only too happy to spread your legs for every man in college, I thought this was right up your alley.” Anna shrugs.

Her words are like a sucker punch to my gut. “You made me a jewel?”

Damon chuckles, loving seeing the anguish on my face. “She suggested you’d make the perfect honey trap for the agency and the Bratva, and she was right.” My best friend set me up. She sent me to hell to play with the devil. “Is she going to cry?” Damon laughs.

“I think so.” Anna chuckles.

I push my emotions down. “Why did you choose Anna over me?” I ask Damon, my question catching him off-guard.

“Oh … um …” He stumbles over his words.

“Don’t you speak to him. He would never have fallen for you because you’re a whore.” Anna sneers at me. “He wanted someone pure. And he got that with me.”

“He’s who you lost your virginity to?” I ask her.

“Of course.” She huffs.

“And he was fine sharing you with all those men in Mexico?” I question her.

Damon stiffens. Anna’s eyes narrow on me. “Pedro was her husband, I understood she had to do what she had to do,” Damon answers.

“I’m guessing she forgot to tell you about sleeping with her husband’s son and right-hand man, didn’t she?” I question him.

“Fucking lying whore,” Anna hisses at me. “Ignore her, baby, she is trying to get under your skin. Those men forced themselves on me, that’s why I killed them. Fucking monsters,” Anna explains to Damon who believes her.

“And did Damon tell you about him sleeping with Mackenzie?”

“What! You slept with her?” she screeches at him.

“Baby, what no,” he stammers. “I only kissed her.”

“That’s not what Mackenzie told me,” I add.

“She’s fucking lying, baby, I didn’t.”

“You promised me,” Anna says as tears stream down her cheeks.

“You don’t get to be upset with me. You were fucking your pig of a husband.”

“I know, baby, but that was my job. She wasn’t your job.”

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