Page 64 of Vicious Behaviors (The Next Vicious Generation #3)

Isobel

The mid-morning sun cuts through the windshield, bright enough to make the road ahead glare.

I keep my hands steady on the wheel, but I can feel Mina’s eyes on me again, flicking toward my throat and neck.

I catch her staring at me through the rearview mirror and force a casual smile.

Even under all the foundation I applied and the scarf I’m wearing, the red marks on my skin are impossible to conceal.

Mina looks away too quickly, as if she’s been caught spying on a secret.

Her restraint frays at the edges as she struggles not to confront me and ask point-blank if my bruises were Marcello’s doing.

The questions are all there in her eyes and deep-rooted frown, her suspicion hovering thick in the space between us as the car hums toward the gym.

“It’s not what you think,” I say at last, cutting through the tense awkwardness between us.

“It never is.” She scowls, staring at the window to hide the anger in her eyes.

“I swear to you that it isn’t,” I insist, shaking my head, unwilling to let Marcelo’s sister-in-law think the worst of him.

“I bet the next thing you’re going to say is that you tripped and fell,” she mumbles in annoyance.

In Mina’s mind, it looks like I’m protecting my abuser with any flimsy excuse I throw at her. Can I really blame her for such a reaction? I’d think the same if I were in her shoes.

Damn it. Marcello better have told his brother everything by now, like I asked him to. If he didn’t, the bruises on my neck are bound to raise a shitload of questions.

Not everyone will be as forgiving as I was when they see the ramifications of Marcello’s one night bender. Especially if I can’t explain that it wasn’t him who strangled me last night in our bed, but his alter.

I saw it so clearly in his black eyes—the fiend staring back at me, wanting nothing more than to completely erase me from Marcello’s life.

I had become its worst enemy, and for good reason, too.

I represent a change in Marcello’s life.

A life where he doesn’t have to be tormented every day by a voice that only wants carnage and bloodshed.

I represent hope when the demon inside him only offers despair and misery.

I embody love and light, where his alter craves only the cold black abyss of death.

My one sin is that I want to save Marcello while his alter only seeks to destroy him.

However, I did lie to Marcello yesterday.

I did fight back and try to break the psychopath’s grip away from me.

But then I saw a flicker of the man I fell in love with push through, trying his best to fight through the darkness.

Trying to come back to me with all his might.

So that’s when I decided to stop resisting and let it all play out.

Marcello wasn’t exactly thrilled with me gambling with my own life.

And in the light of day, he was right to be apprehensive.

It was by far the riskiest, most life-threatening experience I have ever put myself through, and that’s saying something since I spent over three years stuck in a war zone.

Still, I had my own selfish reasons to take such a risk.

If Marcello’s love is as deep as mine, then I know in my bones that he will do everything in his power to ensure no real harm will come to me.

I literally bet my life on it. And now that Marcello sees that he’s stronger than his alter, maybe he can start to heal from all the torment and anguish he had to endure alone.

After the lengthy conversation we had last night, where Marcello explained in vivid detail how the alter even came to be, I’m positive he is now ready to take the necessary steps to seek professional help to deal with his mental health disorder.

Yes, it was risky. But the reward is far greater.

Yesterday, Marcello and I learned that we would die for each other if we had to. But now that all our secrets have been revealed, my only wish is that, united, we can find a way to fight and live for each other.

I tap my fingers on the wheel, wondering how much I could explain to Mina about this peculiar circumstance.

I don’t want to say too much since Marcello needs to be the one to confront his demons if he has any chance of overcoming them.

It all starts with him telling the truth to his family.

Still, every second that Mina stares at my bruises is another second that her hatred for the man I love grows. And I can’t have that.

“You might not believe me,” I begin, my gaze nervously flicking between the road and the rearview mirror.

“But I promise that these bruises are not at all what you’re thinking.

I mean, haven’t you ever gotten a little carried away in the bedroom?

Where things just got out of hand, but in a good way?

” I blurt out, sex games going awry being the only explanation that I could think of.

“Do you honestly expect me to believe that this,” she pulls down my scarf to show the welts on my skin, “was consensual?”

“Oh, come on, Mina. I thought you were more evolved than stooping to kink shaming.” I nervously laugh, hurrying to fix my scarf.

Mina’s forehead creases as she eyes me intently. “You asked for this?” she asks, a sliver of doubt finally reaching her head.

I hate lying to Mina since I really enjoy her company and hope to build an actual friendship with her one day, seeing as she’s Marcello’s family and all.

But right now, my only concern is protecting Marcello.

When he finally sits his family down and tells them the hardships he’s faced alone during most of his life, then I can tell Mina the truth. Not before.

“What can I say? A little choking and dabbling in breath play is kind of our thing. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”

“That and camping in your living room, it seems,” she adds, still unsure if she should believe me or not.

“Weird, right?” I chuckle awkwardly. “But it works for us.”

“It appears so,” she retorts, still not completely buying it, but not entirely ruling it out either.

Good enough for me. At least for now, I bought Marcello some time. I call that a win.

The accomplished feeling barely has time to settle in my chest before reality comes crashing back. As I turn past the stoplight toward the gym, I see patrol cars blocking the street, including the familiar black SUVs of the FBI.

“No, no, no,” I blurt out, stopping the car in the middle of the street.

“Bollocks.” Mina’s out of the car as fast as I am, leaving both doors wide open while we sprint toward the scene.

“You can’t pass through, Miss,” a beat cop says, blocking the view to the entrance of Carmine’s gym.

“Listen here, you little cunt, my husband is in there. This is his grandfather’s gym. I demand you let us in this very minute,” Mina shouts in his face, her posh London accent doing very little to earn us any favors with him.

“I said move, or I’ll make you move. You’re not in England anymore. We do things differently here,” he says, tapping his hand onto his baton.

“If you so much as touch us, I’ll report you to your supervising officer for unnecessary, exaggerated force and police brutality,” I retort, my FBI assertive tone coming through.

“Just back the fuck down, Karen,” he says, pulling his baton from the ring on his belt, as if to threaten he wouldn’t think twice about using it on us.

I don’t think. Just react. I take the baton from his hand and grab him, spinning him around until the baton is pressed against his throat. “Now you’re going to listen to me very carefully. My name is Isobel Graham. Special Agent Isobel Graham, and you’re interfering with my crime scene.”

He’s too afraid to even ask to see my badge, which is a good thing since I have it stashed away in a shoe box in my apartment.

The steel in my voice is enough to prevent him from even demanding such a thing.

Good, since I’m not in the mood to take shit from anyone right now, let alone a fucking beat cop whose only job was to hold the perimeter.

“Now, are you going to let us through, or do I have to make you?”

He nods, sputtering for breath when I move the baton away from his throat. I don’t wait for him to say anything else, grabbing Mina’s hand and pulling her to follow me.

“Quick thinking there, luv. You almost had me convinced that you really were a Fed.”

I don’t reply and hurry toward the gym instead. I’m halfway there when I stop cold in my tracks as I see none other than Haynes walk out the door with Marcello in tow, his wrists handcuffed behind his back.

“Don’t tell them anything, Marcello,” Jude shouts from behind them, pulling my attention to the familiar woman wearing a dark blue windbreaker bearing the letters FBI across the chest. It’s Theresa, one of the first clients I enrolled in the gym, and she’s now helping Haynes escort Marcello to a nearby SUV.

“They can’t make you say anything without a lawyer present. ”

“I’m already on the phone with Giovanni,” Carmine howls at Jude’s side, phone already pressed to his ear. “It will all be alright, son. It will all be alright.”

Haynes laughs at that while placing his hand on Marcello’s head to push him down into the car. And that’s when Marcello’s eyes lock with mine. His blue orbs are a pit of despair and sadness.

“Jude,” he calls out to his brother before Haynes is able to shove him inside the car. “Tell Gio it wasn’t hubris that got me in the end. It was love.”

Haynes slams the car door before the SUV drives off with the love of my life in it. The sight has me running toward Haynes, so I tap him on his shoulder to turn around, just in time to meet my fist hitting him square in the jaw.

“You son of a bitch!” I shout, just as fucking Theresa and another agent jump to attention and hold me back by the arms, preventing me from having another swing at him. “You’re going to pay for this, Haynes!”