Page 22 of Brutal Devil

“Planning to gut me with a butter knife, darling wife?” he asks.

“Don’t call me that either.”

“Why not?” He closes the distance between us. “It’s what you’ll be soon enough. There’s no other way for you, Luna. You see that now, don’t you?”

I shake my head. “There has to be another way.”

“Not unless you want to die.” He takes my hand in his and brings it to his lips, kissing my knuckles, the hot, velvety glide on my skin sending a shiver through me that has more to do with my body’s reaction to him than with the ominous pronouncement he’s just made.

“Maybe someone could talk some sense into Amedeo. He and I haven’t always been the closest, but if he understands what’s at stake, then?—”

“No,” he interrupts me, his denial curt and icy.

I bristle at his high-handedness, yanking my hand away. “You don’t have the right to tell me what I can and can’t do. Amedeo is my cousin, my family.”

“He’s also someone who will shoot you at the first opportunity and see that your pretty little body is dumped into the concrete foundation of his company’s next jobsite, where no one will ever find you.”

A shiver goes through me, because I’ve heard rumors about what happens to enemies of the Revellos who abruptly disappear, and it’s exactly what Priest is saying. Still, I don’t like to think Amedeo would do something like that to his own flesh and blood.

“If not Amedeo, then I need to speak with my father,” I tell him.

Because I need to know if what Priest is telling me is true. Not that I can trust my father. God, I don’t think I can trust anyone at this point. It’s me against the world.

“Tomorrow,” Priest agrees, surprising me. “After the wedding.”

And just like that, he’s infuriating me again. “I’m not marrying you—” I cut myself off before saying it all, pausing. “Not without seeing my father first,” I amend.

“You’ll see him after, and not a moment before,” he insists, jaw hard, voice harsh. “We have a contract, and I intend to see that it’s honored.”

Here is the man who threatened me, who held the barrel of his gun to my head without flinching. Here is the merciless sinner, the heartless assassin for the Andriani family. And, I remind myself, a man whose family was responsible for my brother’s death.

I can’t forget that.

“You expect me to trust your word,” I counter, far from finished. “The word of a man whose family has the blood of my brother on their hands.”

“We had nothing to do with Leo,” he says.

And he’s so quick, his gaze unwavering, that I want to believe him. For a nanosecond, until I remind myself this man is a conscienceless killer. A psychopathic enforcer who murders by day and dotes over his aunt by dinner, wearing a suit and tie.

“If it wasn’t Andrianis, then who was it?” I ask him, defying him to give me an answer.

A real answer, which I haven’t been able to pry from anyone in the wake of my brother’s shooting. Not my father, not a single fucking soul.

Priest looks away from me, a muscle tensing in his jaw. “I don’t know.”

He’s lying. I can sense it. I want to shout, to take up the nearest butter knife and plunge it into his black heart, but it’s no use. I’ve drawn closer to the table, and I can see the blade is far too dull to inflict any harm. Before I could even wield it against him, Priest would have me pinned to the floor, at his mercy again. Besides, if everything he told me tonight turns out to be true, then I may actually need this fucked-up monster.

I swallow hard against a stinging rush of emotion—fury, grief, resentment, fear. “Fine. It wasn’t you.”

“It wasn’t the Andrianis,” he repeats, then jerks his head toward the table. “The lasagna is getting cold. Let’s eat.”

My stomach grumbles loudly, as if it’s just been spoken to.

“Sit down, Luna,” he tells me sternly.

And we’re in a battle of wills again.

His blue, blue eyes jerk back to mine, and he rakes a hand through his black hair, leaving it mussed. “Jesus, woman. Sit. The. Fuck. Down.”