Page 59 of Ruthless Sinner
Chapter 59
Dante
Adalina slumps in the backseat, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Her knuckles are white as she clenches them, her gaze fixed on the diamond engagement ring glinting on her finger. I can practically feel the heat radiating off of her. She is fuming mad.
“How’s your wrist feeling?” I venture to break the silence pervading the car.
She whips her head around to face me, each movement sharp and deliberate. Her eyes are filled with a fiery mix of anger and frustration, radiating from every pore of her being. And then come the words, like daggers thrown with precision: “You’re a fucking predator.” The venom in her voice drips with disdain as she spits out the accusation, leaving a bitter taste in the air between us.
“I can see how you’d think that,” I begin.
“No,” Adalina cuts me off. “I don’t think that. I know that. You’re a predator. You asked me to marry you when I was high on pain meds.”
“Well, if we’re getting technical, I think it was a combination of anesthesia and pain meds.”
Adalina purses her lips. “I hope someone T-bones this car right now, and it kills you.”
Now, she’s just being dramatic. I know she has feelings for me; they are there in every glance, every touch, and every word spoken between us. “If you really didn’t want to marry me, you wouldn’t have said yes, high or not. But I think being high helped you get in touch with your true emotions for me.”
“If we don’t get T-boned, I’m going to murder you in your sleep,” she threatens.
Enzo snorts in the front seat and tries to cover it with a cough. He’s thinking the same thing I am: this is what my brothers were afraid of. I hope he keeps that information to himself, though. The last people who need to hear about my future bride’s death threats are Salvatore and Luciano.
“Just think about it, Adalina.”
“What about your other wife?” She retorts. Now that we’ve left the hospital, the meds are wearing off quickly. Adalina is just as sharp as she was before the drugs.
“I don’t have another wife. I was engaged to Lucrezia, but I’ve taken care of that.” At least, as far as I’m concerned. Saverio has other plans, but he can’t do anything. I broke my contract with his sister fair and square.
Adalina returns to staring at the diamond engagement ring, her eyes turning into thin slits of anger. “You should have stayed engaged to her. She would have made a nice wife. While I, on the other hand, am going to wind up in prison for killing you in your sleep.”
I wouldn’t have put it past Lucrezia to get a jealous hair up her ass and kill me in the middle of the night. Honestly, after our broken betrothal, I half expected to wake up at 2:00 am with my former fiancé holding a gun to my skull. Luckily for me, she hasn’t been able to get past the gates. “I haven’t been to prison myself, but I’ve been at the county jail a couple of times. The charges didn’t stick,” I add. “I’m Teflon, baby.”
“Call me baby one more time, and I’ll kill you before we get home.”
Oh, she is definitely not in a good mood. “I like the way you call it home.”
Adalina raises her arm, and the car jerks suddenly. Enzo sees the motion in the rearview mirror and immediately pulls over. “No, keep going,” I snap at him. “I can take care of myself.”
But he glares at Adalina through the mirror. “I’ve got some zip ties in the glove compartment. You need’em, boss?”
“If you zip-tie me, I’ll lose it.”
She makes me laugh; she’s so cute when she’s angry. “No. She just had surgery. We can’t zip tie her wrists.” I could zip-tie her arms together at the elbows if I really wanted to, but I sincerely doubt Adalina is going to hurt me. Right now, at least. “Listen, I’m not forcing you to marry me.”
“Yet,” Adalina mumbles under her breath.
True. I don’t think there’s any part of me that will allow her to leave my home before there’s a ring on her finger and a tentative agreement between us. “Anyway,” I continue, “I’m not forcing you to marry me, but I really want you to. I wouldn’t have proposed if I didn’t.”
“If this is some sick way to get me to have your children, I’m not doing it.” Adalina pouts in the seat beside me, her face shadowed in anger.
“I never wanted children or a wife, actually.” I confide in her because we’re going to be together for the rest of our lives, even if the rest of our lives is only a few short months before one of us kills the other.
Adalina peeks at me from beneath her eyelashes. “Then why were you engaged to that other girl? And why do you want to marry me?”
It’s tough to explain this lifestyle to someone who hasn’t lived it. Adalina’s had one foot in the door her entire life, but she’s never been all in. “My father arranged my marriage to Lucrezia a few months ago. It wasn’t what I wanted, but he was trying to strengthen the Terlizzis by marrying me to the family in power. The Castigliones run the Midwest through force and fear, and Father thought it would make us untouchable if I married Saverio’s youngest sister.”
I spark her curiosity. Adalina no longer stares angrily at her engagement ring. Instead, she looks at me with wide eyes. “How did my father fit into the family?”