Brutal Vows

25

He grins. We stare at each other until our grins slowly fade and we’re somber.

He says gruffly, “You have my word I won’t lose my temper around Lili again. You’re another story, but…I’ll try.”

I glance away, unable to look at his face one second longer. “Thank you. May I ask why you did?”

His pause is short, but charged. “No. Now come inside. Your brother promised me you’re going to make me dinner.”

“My brother has the IQ of a tadpole.”

“You will, viper,” he says softly. “You’ll feed me.”

I look back at him and find him gazing at me with burning intensity.

My heart skips a beat, but I keep my voice light. “And why would I do that, Mr. Quinn?”

“Because it’s suppertime. Because you’re a good hostess.” His pause is almost too brief to notice, but the drop in his voice isn’t. “And because I’m ordering you to.”

My heartbeat goes from skipping like a silly schoolgirl’s to pounding with anger. I say coldly, “You seem to be under the mistaken impression that when you tell me to jump, I’m supposed to ask how high.”

He smirks. “You are.”

“Oh, look. The man who thinks he’s Main Character of Earth is back.” “So’s the woman who could freeze off my balls with one look.”

“Tiny things freeze so easily, don’t they? And thank you for disabusing me of the silly notion that you can sometimes act human. Now get out of my space. You’re sucking up the oxygen with all that mouth breathing you do.”

I grab the door handle and try to pull the door closed, but he blocks it, stepping closer.

“I’m not done with you yet,” he snaps.

“Then let me borrow your gun. I’ll only need one bullet.”

“You want to shoot me now?”

“The bullet’s for me.”

When he growls, I can’t help but send him the kind of smug, shiteating smile he’s always sending me. “Careful. You’re dangerously close to breaking your promise about your temper already.”

“That’s because you could turn Father Christmas into the Grinch, woman.”

“What did I tell you about using the word ‘woman’ as a pejorative?”

“Something I couldn’t hear over how loud your resting b***h face was screaming.”

My smile dies. Breathing hard, we glare at each other in blistering silence.

After a pause that feels endless, he says tightly, “You don’t have to like me, Reyna. But you do have to show me respect.”

“Right back at you, Quinn. And let me make it perfectly clear for you in case it already isn’t: I don’t like you. And I especially don’t trust you.”

“And why is that?”

I answer without thinking, saying the first thing that comes to mind.

It’s something I believe absolutely.

“Because a man who’d marry a woman for any reason other than love has the soul of a monster.”

He clenches his jaw. He stares at me, visibly restraining himself from speaking, until finally he says from between gritted teeth, “You ever consider you’re not the only person on this f*****g planet who’s been hurt before?”

“Of course I know that.”

“Aye? Because you’ve got a stick shoved so far up your arse about how bad marriage is that it’s blinded you.”

Exasperated, I say, “Blinded me to what?”

After a long, blistering pause, he growls, “Forget it. It’d be a waste of my f*****g breath.”

“No. No way, Quinn. I’m not letting you off the hook so easily. If you think I’ve got a stick up my ass about marriage, you’re right. You know why? Because a man gains everything when he takes a wife. A maid, a cook, a housekeeper, a social manager, and a toy he can f**k whenever it suits his convenience. But for a woman, a wedding is where her life ends.”

“If you really believe that, you’ve been hanging out with the wrong women.”

I scoff. “I was raised in the Cosa Nostra. All the women are in the same situation I was. That Lili is. We’re auctioned off like assets to men who don’t know how to love.”

“Or ones who just can’t bear to be broken again.”

He lets that hang in the air between us, crackling like a live wire.

I stare at him, speechless. I simply can’t find any words.

Not only because of the raw vulnerability of it—something I never would have believed him possible of—but also because I know in my heart of hearts that what he said is the truth.

His truth.

He’s not like Enzo, or any of the other made men I know who take young brides in exchange for power, money, or family gain without a second thought to the girls’ feelings about it.

For Quinn, marriage isn’t part of a bigger game. It’s not about positioning his pawn on a chessboard like it is to my brother, or to have someone weaker to rule over with an iron fist like my husband did.

It’s about escape.

He wants to escape into marriage with the same longing I wanted to escape from it.

For me, marriage vows were the beginning of a long, horrible tumble into the dark.

For Quinn, they’re the end of it.

He’s been hurt so badly, he doesn’t think he can survive it again.

Everything I thought I knew about him was wrong.

I’m about to make another apology when he snaps, “Do us both a favor and get someone else to be Lili’s chaperone from now on. You’re too bitter a pill for me to swallow.”

He turns and walks away, shaking his head.

“Wait. Quinn, wait!”