Page 100 of Scorned Beauty

Fucking hell, Luca noticed too. Who else did?

“Kirill asked me to find a way to kill the match. He wasn’t too keen on his innocent sister marrying a deviant like you.”

“Deviant?” I barked a laugh. “Kirill is one to talk.”

At this, Margo’s mouth gave a slight smile. “Right. That’s another reason why he was willing to go to the Outer Banks. He wanted to make sure you return to Manhattan with Sloane and forever dispel any hope of a match between you and his sister.”

She lowered the gloves on the table, smoothing them out before giving me her attention. “Anyway, you do business with Grigori and it’s my assumption it’s to find a way to get the properties back. After all, Grigori is in charge of them. And then I find out Sloane was their cleaner and how her brother was entangled with the bratva. Quite a pickle you’ve landed yourself in, Dom.

“I looked into Sloane’s background. I see what draws you to her. I’ll have you know, Grigori sees Sloane as a commodity, too.”

“Fucker.”

“She’s not the usual age that his clients go for, but she fits the requirements of a particular one.” She stared at me.

“Who?”

She walked over to the wall and hung the apron on the hooks, letting me stew in my frustration. “I’ve debated whether I should reveal a name, but despite the distaste in my mouth of what he has become, he was once my client. I would be breaking the covenant.”

“Fuck your covenant,” I growled and moved menacingly toward her. Those damned covenants. Margo liked to use the archaic term for her contracts. Nothing was simply a verbal agreement. Everything needed to be signed. Even the numerous truces with the Russian mafia. “Give me a name.”

She raised a brow. “Or what, Dominic? Shoot a sixty-year-old woman?”

“Strangling you would be more satisfying.”

She emitted a tinkling laugh that only incensed the reflexes of my fists. Margo Winthrop was more than an ice maiden, she was forged of steel and I wondered how she managed to have two powerful ex-husbands. One of them was dead. She probably had the poor bastard killed. Mental note to have Trevor do more research on this woman.

Her mouth curved in a derisive smile. “Then you’re no better than the man who strangled Sloane.”

“You know about Anton?”

“The night it happened. But can you say the same about yourself?” she said. “So tell me, who has Sloane’s best interests at heart?”

“Who is she to you? Why do you care about her?”

She moved around the tables full of flowers. Instead of answering me, she said, “Do you know why Sloane downplays her looks with frumpy clothes and pale makeup?”

“Of course. She works for the mob. She didn’t want them interested in her for her physical attributes.”

“Typical men. All surface level.” She moved to the edge of a potting shelf and extracted a single key from her suit’s tiny pocket to unlock a drawer. She lifted a picture out of it and handed it to me.

A grainy photograph. Like it was from surveillance footage, but I could make out Sloane and an older woman beside a dumpster. “What am I looking at? This is Sloane… Is the woman her mother?”

“She was sixteen here. They used to clean for the old-monied folks of Manhattan. The client accused Sloane of theft because the woman’s husband fancied her. She purposely threw her jewelry in the trash and declared it stolen. Maliciously suggested that Sloane and her mother go dumpster-diving to look for it or she would call the police.

“It was an emerald necklace worth seven figures, a family heirloom, but she threw it away to make a point to Sloane and her husband.”

I was speechless with outrage and disbelief.

“No charges were pressed. The necklace was found, but Sloane and her mother were blacklisted and found work with criminal organizations. But I have a feeling that’s why Sloane downplayed her looks. At sixteen, when she was about to blossom into a woman, her beauty was used against her. It was used to shame her. She and her mom nearly ended up on the streets because of it. Billy was still in rehab. Harriet helped them. After all, she helped cover up the murder of Sloane’s father. That’s why I don’t think Sloane will remain angry at Harriet forever.”

“I want names!” I roared, uncontrolled fury coalescing into words, otherwise I would end up breaking every piece of pottery in this room.

But Margo remained unfazed and continued to stare at me stoically. “Wealth, power, and social imbalance separate you from the woman you love. But we know money doesn’t rule the world. Power does. And don’t tell me that’s the same. You have all the money, but you still can’t get through to a woman of Sloane’s spine. Do you know why I put her near a beach? She had bottles of sleeping pills beside her.”

“You fucking bitch.” My chest rose and fell with all the fear that had festered inside me with Sloane’s proximity to the ocean. Many times I wanted to hide the prescription drugs by Sloane’s nightstand but she needed them.

“I had to make sure she was worth my time.”