Page 75 of Unforgiving Queen

I should feel regret. Sorrow. Yet I felt absolutely nothing. My mother kept way too many secrets from me, and I was tired of her manipulations.

She held my gaze with a harshness I hadn’t noticed before. “What truth? I told you everything.”

My jaw clenched and my next words were uttered with an unnatural calmness. “You can start with the document you are so desperate for Dante and me to find, and end with telling me why Diana Glasgow accused us of destroying her family.”

My mother’s eyes hardened. “I’m assuming she’s talking about the fact that I sought her daughter out and told her the truth about Romero. She killed herself shortly after.”

I reached out, wrapping my hands around her neck and nearly crushing it in my hand. Her eyes widened, a flicker of fear entering them.

“You did what?”

She swallowed, the movement shifting under my palm. “I told her the truth about Romero.”

“Which is what?” I gritted.

“That he breaks promises.” Another vague comment. No surprise there. “I told her that Angelo would marry Dante to one of her daughters.”

The fucking agreement went that far back? Motherfucker.

“Get out of my home before I say or do something I will regret.” I leveled my voice when I spoke the next words.

27

REINA

Iwas a mess.

I’d been up most of the night going crazy with thoughts about how to divert this catastrophe my father had orchestrated.

What the heck was he thinking, arranging a marriage to Dante Leone? Did he think so little of me that he wouldn’t even ask for my input?

The success of the fashion show was a distant memory, although it happened less than a day ago. The nightclub outing was short-lived. After I returned home, I’d spent six hours on a cleaning spree, leaving the apartment spotless in time for my friends and sister to stroll in from their walks of shame. Of course, after my berating and their tasteless jokes, they’d all gone to sleep, leaving me alone with my thoughts again.

I flickered a worried look to Phoenix’s closed door. She hadn’t said much, but the redness around her eyes didn’t escape me. I didn’t know how to fix any of this.

I couldn’t admit to her that Angelo Leone was her father. It would destroy her.

Protect her.

My mother’s words were clear as day. She’d known it’d come to this, and it was up to me to fulfill my promise.

My feet silent against the hardwood, I made my way down the hall, passing the single bathroom in our cozy apartment. It looked completely different, but I still saw the body… and what we’d done to it. The other girls had apparently gotten over it after it was completely renovated, but my mind refused to forget the image of bloodied, dismembered limbs.

My hand trembled as it reached the doorknob of Phoenix’s bedroom. Ignoring the way the door creaked because she couldn’t hear it, I poked my head in and found my sister curled into a ball, her shoulders shaking with soundless tears.

My heart twisted with pain and I rushed to her bedside, falling down to my knees and wrapping my arms around her. Startled by my presence, she stiffened and met my eyes.

“I’m sorry.” My throat squeezed, unable to utter a single word, so I stuck to signing. Just like when we were little girls and we didn’t want anyone to know we were awake. “I’ll find a way to fix it all.”

The pain staring back at me was gut-wrenching. It tore at my soul and left it weeping.

“I told you, it won’t matter. He doesn’t want me.”

I wanted to throttle both Leone brothers and make them pay for the pain they’d put us through.

“But you still want him,” I pointed out softly. “You still love him.”

She balled her fists and I imagined the crescent moons she was digging into her palms. “There is so much I haven’t told you.”