Page 130 of Ruined By Protection
"What the fuck is going on?" Matteo demands as he cuts the zip ties binding her wrists. "What are you doing here?"
Vanessa's body shudders as she gingerly fingers her freed wrists. "Elliott," she chokes out between sobs. "I've been working with Elliott."
My mind struggles to connect the dots of what she’s saying—this woman I thought was Matteo's lover, is now partnered with Elliott?
“You mean like a secretary?” I ask, completely naive but not wanting to delve deeper into the facts yet.
Vanessa cackles lightly and throws me a withering glance.
"Working with Elliott how? And what do you mean you didn't know what he was going to do?" Matteo demands sternly, making it clear he’s not going to fall for any of her wiles. “Goddamnit, talk Vanessa.”
Vanessa goes back to her vulnerable stance, swiping her cheeks and peeking up at him. "I saw him—Noah—at Evelyn’s bookshop. I recognized him as your sidekick from the casino.I'd been trying to get your attention for months after you ended things." She looks at Matteo with desperate eyes. "I thought if I could get close to your people..."
"So you stalked Evelyn?" I ask, disgust rising in my throat.
She nods, is that real shame coloring her face? "I started hanging around her bookstore, pretending I love reading, ugh. I just wanted to find a way back to you." Her eyes flick to Matteo again. "Then one day I overheard Evelyn on the phone, telling someone her cousin from Texas was coming—you." She looks at me again. "She said you needed to escape your husband."
My blood runs cold. "And then you told Elliott where I was."
"Not right away," she whispers. "I came to the cafe every day, listening. I overheard Evelyn and Lucrezia joking about how strange Matteo was acting. That this new woman staying at the mansion had caused a huge change in his demeanor."
Matteo's jaw tightens, a muscle jumping beneath his skin. “And then you plotted your revenge.”
"I admit I was livid," Vanessa tells me. "I wanted to hurt you so I found you on Evelyn's Facebook and sent you that photo of us together. From there I looked up your husband and contacted him saying I knew where his wife was."
“Why on earth would you…?” my question peters out. I’ve learned recently that there’s just no understanding the lengths some people will go to.
Vanessa's shoulders heave with emotion, real or pretend I still can’t tell. "When he got to New York, on the hunt for his precious wife, I didn't tell him anything about where you were living,” she says, like she did me a huge favor. “He was stupid enough to storm the Ferettis and get himself killed. I just wanted him to come and take you away from Matteo."
My stomach twists as I listen to her desperate attempts to justify herself. I remember the horror at Evelyn's bookshop, the destruction Elliott left behind.
"You never showed up at that book cafe and he got really mad." Vanessa looks at me with pleading eyes. "I spent some time with him, thinking I could calm him out of his mad obsession."
I suddenly clue in to what she’s telling me. “You mean you slept with him,” I say dully.
Matteo's hand settles on the small of my back, a silent anchor as my world tilts, but truly I have no emotion left for any of this. Other than justice.
"He wanted to have some fun," Vanessa says, brightly at first then turning bitter. "Well, I figured it was fair enough for me to fuck your man since you fucked mine."
The room spins around me. Elliott had been with this woman while hunting me and begging me to come back to him. How many other times throughout our marriage had he played this duplicitous game while raging at me for so much as looking blandly at some man?
And this woman had assisted him willingly, eagerly, all because of some twisted obsession for Matteo.
"You helped a man terrorize his wife because you couldn't accept rejection?" I say mostly to myself rather than quizzing her.
"I didn't know he was going to hurt you," she insists. "I thought he wanted to talk to you, to fix things, and then you’d go back with him and leave me with Matteo."
“Never would have happened,” Matteo growls at my side.
"Fix things." I mutter, and then laugh with deep irony. “Fix things with an abusive bastard who’s been hitting me and gaslighting me and threatening to hurt my family since the day we got married."
Vanessa's face slackens with shock, then she rushes in to correct me. "What? No, no, that can't be right. He doesn’treallyhurt anyone. It’s just that he enjoys a little sado-maso game, whodoesn’t now and then?" She giggles and the way she flutters her eyes in Matteo’s direction fuels my rage like she tossed a red rag at a bull.
"I don’t." I cut her off. “I didn’t enjoy it for one second. And if you imagine that you being tied up in this dark room is just a little sado-maso game, you’re going to be in for a miserable and painful awakening all too soon.”
Vanessa’s eyes pop at my outburst but I can see they still harbor doubt. Because for sure Elliott has regaled her with stories of what a crazy bitch I am, prone to inventing wild stories and abusing him with my lies.
“Here, you want to see what you have in store?” I shout, losing whatever cool I’d managed to hang on to. I yank up my shirt and reveal the lingering bruises painted across my ribcage. “You tell me since you understand him so well - is this the caress of a loving husband just playinggames?”
