Page 61 of His Vicious Desire

“Hey, what’s up?”

“I’m sorry.Did I interrupt you and Carina?”I should have thought about it before calling him and sent him a text instead.

“No.I’m getting ready for bed.Carina had a long day.She needed an early night.Hey, why did you pick out the ring you did for her?”

I shrug.“I don’t know.It was the biggest one in the trays.I figured someone like her would want it.”

“What do you meansomeone like her?I told you maybe two things about her.”

“Sandro, come on.Her social media is all you need to know about her.She’s half-naked with so much crap on her face you can barely tell what she really looks like.She’s all tits and ass.A slut like her, all she cares about is money and?—”

“I don’t ever want to hear you refer to anyone—let alone Carina as a slut.Whether she’s fucked five guys or fifty, you don’t talk like that about her or any woman.”He’s harsh in a way he’s never been before.

“Sandro.I didn’t mean it like that.”How come she gets to show her ass in pictures on social media, and I was told to change from a dress for a party?

He doesn’t say anything.Oh god, he’s really mad.

“Sandro?I’m worried about you!If someone like her doesn’t care about her own reputation then she won’t care for yours.Then, people will start looking at you.Your safety is important to me.I can’t lose you, San.You’re the only thing I have left.”

The tone in my ear sends my heart into my stomach.He hung up on me?How could he do that?Hands trembling, I type out a text.

I’m sorry Sandro!Please talk to me!

I can’t breathe.Please answer, please answer.My phone vibrates with a text.

No.I’ll see you Saturday.

Saturday?I send him another pleading text.Only to find he’s blocked me.My heart stutters in my chest.

It’s happening.Sandro is going to leave me, too.I close my eyes against the tears falling.Memories long buried begin unfurling, my mother crying, her words slurred of how she wished she’d never had me.How she was stuck with my father because he talked her into having me, and now she couldn’t leave.The night after my mom died, my father raging at me that it was all my fault.She died because she hated her life—hated me.Then he was gone, I never saw him again.Marissa, there one day and gone the next.She didn’t even tell me goodbye.I was old enough, I didn’t need her anymore, Sandro explained.

Why was it so easy to leave me?Sandro is going to leave me the same way everyone else has.He gets someone to love, to care about—even if he doesn’t want it.Despite only meeting her once, he’s picking her over me.If she said I couldn’t live with them, he’d side with her.He gets someone to love, to care about—even if he doesn’t want it.But I can’t have Gaetano because he’s in the Outfit.

ChapterEighteen

Gaetano

Christ, I’m exhausted.It’s almost three in the morning, and all I wanted to do when I got home was fall into bed.But I couldn’t with the sweat and heat of the day on me.I grab a pair of boxers and run the towel through my hair to dry it.

My doorbell going off pulls a curse from me.Snatching my phone off the bedside table, I open up my doorbell camera to see who the fuck it is.Bianca’s face fills the screen, red and swollen from crying.I move fast to my closet and pull out a white undershirt.Putting it on, I open the door.I don’t get a word out before she throws herself at me.

Catching her close, I pick her up and carry her inside.Fucking hell, her tears are clawing at my chest.

I’m in the recliner with her in my lap.Her face buried in my neck, the air out of her shudders with every breath.

“What’s the matter, baby?Talk to me.”I run a hand through her hair.

“Sandro, he’s not talking to me.You have to call him, please.He’ll answer if you call him.I need to tell him that I’ll be good.I promise.”

Fuck, it kills me how desperate she sounds.If he were standing in front of me, I’d deck his ass.“I can’t, Bianca.I’ll talk to him for you.What do you need me to tell him?”

“I’m sorry.Tell him that I’m sorry.I didn’t mean it.It was just a ring.I’ll do better.”She babbles.

“It’s okay, angel.Everything is going to be okay.”

She shakes her head.“He’s going to leave, too.They always leave.My dad left without looking back—he never tried once to see me before he died.For more than a decade, he lived less than fifteen minutes away and never once tried to see me.Marissa didn’t even say goodbye.What’s the matter with me, Gaetano?I try to be good, I try so damn hard.What can I do to make them stay?”

This woman, her pain is more than I can bear.I tighten my arms around her.“It’s not you, angel.You’re perfect.You don’t have to do anything.”

---