Page 67 of Unforgiving Queen

Dante’s eyes, on the other hand, studied me with an unreadable expression. The only person who knew him enough to decipher it had butchered my heart and left it to rot.

“We should probably set aside some time to get to know each other better, Reina.”

I bit the inside of my cheek to stop the words burning my throat from coming out. Judging by the look in his eyes, he knew exactly how I felt about the idea.

“Sure,” I gritted. “I’ll give you my assistant’s number.”

I didn’t have an assistant, but he didn’t know that. He could call and be unsuccessful in reaching her every time. The joke would be on him.

Papà rubbed his hands together, satisfied with my response and oblivious to my lie.

“Excellent, you two work it out. I’ll let Marchetti know and we’ll set the date.”

I watched him weave through the crowd, catching a slight limp in his gait. Guilt flickered in my chest. In the grand scheme of things, I knew he was trying to protect us in the only way he knew how. He just couldn’t grasp that Phoenix and I didn’t need that kind of protection.

Turning back to face my past and my future, I narrowed my eyes on both of them.

“Now, let’s drop the pretense,” I hissed under my breath. “What the hell do you want, Dante?”

“You, obviously.” His eyes flickered above my head and I followed his gaze to Phoenix. “We’ll be a big happy family.”

“The Leone family’s idea of what qualifies as ‘happy’ is vastly different to ours.”

“We can meet in the middle,” he drawled, ignoring my passive-aggressive jab. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll even fall in love.”

My gaze darted to Amon without my permission, but I quickly averted it and met Dante’s darkness.

“Falling in love is overrated. Not that I’m talking from experience or anything.”

The lie on my tongue was bitter, because even as I spoke those words, I knew my time on this earth would be spent loving only one man.

The one who didn’t love me back.

I turned to leave but then changed my mind. There was no time like the present to set boundaries.

My hand flew across the air and connected with his cheek. “Call my sister ‘lacking’ again and it will be the last word you ever speak.Capisce?”

Thank fuck for theGodfathermovies I watched with my girlfriends, although judging by my fiancé’s expression, he didn’t appreciate it at all. A muscle in Dante’s neck twitched, my handprint already forming on his cheek.

Amon didn’t move, and I didn’t dare look at him.

Instead, I walked away from the two of them without looking back.

24

AMON

Iwatched her walk away while fury and bitterness burned my tongue.

It was the first time in my entire life that I wanted to truly fucking murder Dante. For taking something that should have never been his to look at, never mind touch.

I turned to look at my brother, Reina’s handprint visible on his cheek, and even that pissed me off. Because it meant she’d touched him and not me. Jesus fucking Christ. I was losing my goddamn mind.

Maybe I should follow Reina’s lead and punch my brother too. I was certainly tempted.

“Is this the reason you asked me to be here?” My voice dripped with tension and unveiled anger.

“I need your help taming her,” Dante drawled, but the calculating gleam in his eyes told me there was something I was missing. Whatever the fuck that was.