His lethal stare bores into mine, the venom seeping out of him in waves. “You’re a liar, Shayne Mariano,” he mutters in a chilling tone, briefly dropping his gaze to his waist, taking in the way my shaking hand falls back to my side, his blood coating my fingers.
I shake my head, the tears now freely falling down my cheeks. “I didn’t lie.”
“You lied about shooting Marc,” he says, continuing as though I didn’t say a word. “And you’re lying now.”
My jaw clenches as a wild storm brews beneath the surface. “I’m not a fucking liar.”
His finger brushes over my collarbone, sailing down between my breasts, making sure to bypass every harsh bruise coating my skin before finally coming to a stop over my stitched stomach. His obsidian eyes come back to mine as I sense Levi getting up and slowly moving across the room toward us. “You don’t hate me,” he says, capturing my whole attention as my heart thunders wildly in my chest. “You couldn’t hate me even if you tried. You want me, you want to know what it’d be like to feel my hands all over your body, to feel my lips moving with yours, to be the one woman who could tame the wild beast inside me. Even after everything I’ve put you through, you would still kneel before me. You don’t hate me, Empress, not even a little, and that cold, hard fact does nothing except make you hate yourself.”
“You’re wrong,” I spit.
He tsks me, the irritating sound instantly playing on my nerves. “That’s just the thing,” he mutters as I feel Levi stepping in beside me. “I’m never wrong, and deep down, you know it. Being with me and my brothers, locked up in our little haunted house, has been the fucking highlight of your miserable life. You’ve been fucked harder than you’ve ever been before, experienced more thrilling emotions than you’ve ever felt, and fuck, Empress, you’ve even managed to grow a fucking backbone, but it’s not enough to save you.”
Levi meets Roman’s hard stare over the top of me before dropping his cold gaze to mine. His fingers play at the side of my strap and as it breaks free, I suck in a deep breath, only now just realizing how restrictive the straps had been. “I’m giving you one last shot,” Levi tells me, reaching down further and adjusting the surgical bed until I’m sitting. “Tell me exactly what went down with Marcus last night, and if you’re honest, we might even kill you quickly. Lie to us again, and you will experience the full wrath of the DeAngelis brothers. The choice is yours.”
I stare into his eyes, hating this version of him. He’s not the man I’ve been getting to know, not the man who held my knee under his father’s dining table, the man who would watch over me everywhere I went, the man who scooped me into his arms after finding me in the woods, broken and beaten after being tortured in a bathtub. He would whisper sweet words of encouragement, willing me to be okay, willing me to pull through, but this man who stands beside me is void of all emotion. It’s like someone flipped a switch and the humanity drained out of him, leaving nothing but the chilling man from every child’s worst nightmare.
My fingers curl around his wrist. “I didn’t do this,” I plead to him, letting him see the true pain and torment hidden deep within my eyes. “I would never hurt Marcus like that. I swear, I’ve been telling you the truth.”
He shakes his head. “It’s not possible. No one can enter our home without us knowing about it. You’re lying to us, Shayne, and now’s the time to come clean.”
“Don’t do this to me, Levi,” I beg him, squeezing his wrist, willing him to come back to me, to find that goodness that I know is buried deep inside him. I quickly glance toward Roman before looking back at Levi. “A woman slipped into my bedroom in the middle of the night. I wasn’t sleeping well. Marcus gave me ecstasy and I’d never had it before. I was coming down after the high and I saw a shadow. At first, I thought I was going crazy but then she stepped into my room. She was in a black hooded cloak that went right down to her feet. Her face was covered but I could see that she had dirty blonde hair.”
“Convenient,” Roman scoffs. “I’m sick of your bullshit story. Last chance. Who were you working with? Someone had to have given you that gun. Was it Ariana? Did she get to you during my father’s dinner?”
“What?” I breathe. “No. Are you that fucking messed up that you just assume every last person is out to get you? Ariana wanted nothing during that business dinner except to get her rocks off. She’s a dirty whore, but she’s not fucking stupid. She was pissed when I turned her down, but she sure as fuck wasn’t plotting some fucked-up revenge against you assholes. Besides,” I add, my frustrations getting the best of me, “if I were going to be stupid enough to try and kill Marcus, I would have slit his throat while he slept and then ran for my fucking life. Only an idiot would have shot a gun in your stupid castle. That bitch set me up. She told me to leave. She didn’t want me here, but I told her no. I didn’t want to leave, and after everything that went down with your father and the fucking Miller brothers, I knew I was safer here, but she wasn’t having it.”
“Come on, Shayne,” Roman laughs. “You can do better than that. At least try to make it believable. You expect us to believe that some hooded bitch just came strolling into our home in the middle of the night, not alerting us or even the wolves that she was there. Somehow pulled up a getaway car to the front fucking doors and got a code to get through the entrance. Right.”
“I swear, I’m telling the truth,” I seethe, trying to pull my back up off the table but the pain that shoots through my stomach keeps me grounded. “She snuck into my room and when I tried to wake Marcus, she pulled the gun and told me not to. She said she wanted me out of here, that she didn’t want me to go through the same bullshit you’d done to her. She said you three were hers, so maybe you should be asking yourself how many crazy bitches you’ve been fucking with. This shit ain’t on me, this is all you.”
Levi growls and takes my chin, forcing my gaze to snap back to his. “You better be fucking careful with what you’re insinuating here because it sounds a lot like you’re blaming my brother’s death on us.”
“Maybe I am,” I spit, that same vengeful wrath bubbling deep inside me. “I don’t know who this bitch is but she sure as fuck seemed to know you.”
Levi’s hand drops to my throat, his eyes narrowing with hostility. “What did Ariana offer you to kill us?”
Fucking hell.
My nails dig into his strong arm, desperately trying to pull it away, my breath coming in sharp, shallow pants. “I told you, she had nothing to do with this, though I wouldn’t fucking blame her if she tried.”
“Well, luckily for your fuck up, she’ll never get a chance,” Roman growls.
Levi releases me and I let out an amused laugh. “You think I’m supposed to give a shit what you do to that bitch? I owe her nothing, but you’re only hurting yourself. After all, you’re the one who’s been hanging off her every word since high school. Tell me, I’m curious how she reels in the famous Roman DeAngelis. Does she leash you like a dog? Spank your ass when you’ve been a bad boy?”