Page 129 of Ruin
I swallow, bristling. “So?”
“So, you’re the obsession, princess. You left him fiveyears ago, and he hasn’t dated anyone since.”
“That’s not what I heard.” My voice sounds more jealous than I want it to, and I flush with embarrassment when Vin grins, wolfish.
“Taking someone out to dinner and fucking them in the mouth until he comes saying your name is not dating someone, Giovanna.”
My gasp tears out before I can stop it. Heat floods my face. “Jesus Christ, Vin! Do you have to be so disgusting?”
“Hey, it is what it is. I’ve heard the same story from easily two, three dozen women, which means it’s probably the same with all of them. My brother is a creature of habit. He doesn’t deviate.”
“Two or three dozen. That’s nice,” I snap, disgust curling low in my belly. Disgust, and—God help me—hope.
“Oh, at least,” Vin shrugs. “But don’t sit there acting holier than thou. You’ve been slamming Tony the Hack pretty much since the day you walked away from Tommy. Biggest downgrade I’ve ever seen in my life, by the way, but hey, I don’t judge.”
“Sounds like you’re judging.” My voice is sharp, defensive, because he’s right.
Vin leans in closer, dropping his voice. “If you left Tommy because he works with us, you should know Antonio’s been doing the same thing. Always has.”
“I know,” I admit tightly. Of course I know. I lived with Tommy long enough to see the signs, to recognize the late-night calls, the bloody shirts that never came back from the wash. Antonio’s version comes with all that plus perfume and lipstick smears. Same poison, different bottle.
“Do you also know Tony’s cheating?”
I glare at him, hating the way my silence says more than I want it to.
“What the fuck do you want, Vin?” My voice shakes, anger lancing through it. “You’re not my priest. You don’t get to stand out here and levy your judgments on my life’s choices. If you want, I’ll say a couple of Hail Marys and be on my way.”
“What I want is for you to stay the fuck away from Tommy.” His words slice through the cold night air. “You don’t see the mess you leave behind when he sees you at these galas. It’s gotten to the point that I can tell whether he talked to you, if he just saw you from across the room, or if he fucked you.”
I half cough and look over my shoulder to see if people are listening to him. One couple gives us a sideways glance as they rush up the stairs. “God damn it, Vin. It’s none of your fucking business.”
“No, princess. He’s my brother. It’s abso-fucking-lutely my business, especially after last year. He was wasted for over a month, refused to answer his phone, wouldn’t eat. I’ve only seen him like that twice: once when he thought you were fucking Tony before you guys got together, and once right after you dumped him. Seeing you last year?” Vin’s eyes narrow. “Worst thing I’ve seen yet. It was so bad, we had to take him to see the doc, change up his medications, have him monitored overnight. I’m here to tell you: do not fucking do that to him again.”
My throat closes. I thought I was the only one shattered, the only one struggling to live my life. “But he seems so…polished, so put together in the media. I thought Tommy had moved on.”
Vin scoffs. “You mean he puts on that fake ass smile that you taught him, spouts the scripts you told him to say so he can blend in with these assholes? Yeah, you cleanedhim up, princess, but you also made him meaner than he ever was, and that’s saying something. He was a ruthless son of a bitch before you. Now he’s a fucking trained assassin because it’s the only way he knows how to find relief.”
Vin regards me thoughtfully for a minute, as I start to shake. Tommy doesn’t just love me. He fucking needs me. In the face of Tommy’s pain, Aurelio’s threat feels like a distant dream. I thought I was protecting him, but if he’s still this fucked up over us after all these years, then I’ve only hurt him. Maybe even destroyed who he used to be. All because of the threats of a greasy old fuck who wouldn’t stand a chance against Tommy if Tommy decided to take him out.
I have to tell Tommy everything.
I start to push past Vin, but he grabs my arm hard and drags me back.
“Ow. Fuck.” I wrench out of his grasp and rub my arm.
“I’m not kidding, Giovanna,” says Vin, his brow furrowed. The fact that he called me by my first name and not ‘princess’ halts me more than his words. I glare at him.
“I had to stop him more than once this past year from fucking kidnapping you and tying you to a bed until you agreed to come home to him. He beat the shit out of Antonio more than once just on general principle. And by ‘more than once,’ I mean a few times a month. He put him in the hospital twice.”
I blink, staring at Vin. All those nights that Antonio was gone, I guess he wasn’t always with his girlfriend.
“Honestly,” Vin continues, “even if you stay away from him tonight, I doubt he’ll stay away from you. And your little bitch boy Antonio? Probably won’t survive the week if Tommy sees you tonight.”
“This is my home,” I say through clenched teeth. “I’m not going anywhere. My family’s here. I can’t help it that his family’s here, too. The plan was always to stay here.”
Vin’s tone turns lethal. “And do what? Start a family?” he snorts. “You gonna make a pile of little bitch boys with Antonio? Get married? Is that the plan? Jesus Christ, you fucking cunt, you fucking broke Tommy. If your plan is to come back around here and start parading some little sitcom family around him, I’ll fucking take you both out myself.”
“That’s never going to happen,” I snap, not realizing that the words are true until they come out of my mouth. I’m not marrying Antonio. I’m not having his babies. I don’t know why I didn’t get pregnant all those years fucking Tommy, but if I’m going to get married and have kids, it’s with him and him alone.
