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His face hardens. “However I see fit given whatever circumstances I deem fit once I uncover the ploy.”
He’s saying he’ll kill her if he finds out she wronged him. “There is no ploy,” I say as I stand. He lets me.
“There is a ploy to bring me down.”
“What if there isn’t?”
“There is.”
“What if you’re paranoid, and it’s just Gio who wanted you dead?”
“And ended up killing himself?”
“Corrado shot Gio,” I say.
Severio snorts. “You don’t know anything.”
“I know what I saw.”
“Like you saw your dead father in the open casket?”
The casket was closed because Daddy hit his face when he collapsed. I press my hands over my ears. “Stop it.”
Severio pushes on. “After Gio took your father’s lands and properties, he kept everything intact besides the resort. The entire property is broken apart and the deed to the hotel is missing. We’ve spent days looking for it in the house. Do you know where it is?”
“You looked for that?” I slowly lower my hands, realization dawning. “Is that why you came to live with me? You were looking for the deed?” It’s a good thing hearts shred on the inside of a person so the one doing the damage can’t hear them rip.
Severio reaches for me, but I step back. He can tell I’m distressed, but not heartbroken. That allows me some dignity right now. “Did you?”
“It was one of the reasons we moved in, yes.”
“It’s been business all along.”
“It’s always business for me. The Order is my life.”
I fix my dress, my hair, and wipe my eyes because they’re getting teary. I better hold on until I go to my room. Or his room. The Order owns everything except the restaurant I work at, and now I must give him that too.
“I want to trust you, Cristina. But now I find out you own the deed to a hotel that should be mine. This makes me think you hid it.”
I laugh, becoming hysterical. “When my father died, he left us with nothing. I have no idea what you or Gio or my dad conspired about, but I just wanted my hotel saved so I and the people who work there can keep our jobs. It was the only way I knew that I could make my own money.”
“How did you get it back?”
I look him dead in the eyes. “Your uncle wanted my virginity.”
Severio’s face changes from hard to murderous. “Did he now?”
“I told him he could have it if he signed the hotel over to me and only me. I told him I didn’t want the Order involved in the hotel business. We made a deal.”
Severio’s breathing hard, suppressing anger, maybe even rage.
They say we shouldn’t poke the bear, but what about the great cats like panthers or lions? Can I poke one of them? No, I shouldn’t, but I’m hurt, sad, and everything in between.
I watch him grind his teeth at the idea that his uncle, whom he clearly despises, would’ve taken something Severio considers his. Me. My virginity, which he took for himself.
“How could you?” he asks through gritted teeth. “You would’ve fucked a man three times your age for a hotel you don’t even need. He would have provided for you. Your marriage was supposed to be a transaction. An arrangement without…intercourse.”
“We weren’t going to have kids. That’s all.” I shrug. “Besides, I gave you my V-card, didn’t I? Same difference.”
