I Married The Villain To Destroy You

The air in the pits tasted of acrid exhaust fumes and the cloying sweetness of cheap champagne.

It was a bitter cocktail.

I watched Marco berating the track officials, his face a mask of mottled rage.

He looked like a petulant child who had dropped his ice cream cone, not a Capo who had just hemorrhaged a fortune.

Sienna stood behind him, her hands clutching her stomach, her eyes darting around the crowd like a cornered animal.

Then, she saw me.

More importantly, she saw Dante standing beside me, his hand resting casually, possessively, on the small of my back.

Her expression shifted.

Fear curdled into something sharper.

Something venomous.

She started stalking toward me.

I didn't move.

I stood at the top of the concrete stairs that led down to the lower paddock, feeling the cold wind bite through my silk dress.

Sienna stopped two steps below me, forcing me to look down at her.

"You did this," she hissed.

Her voice was trembling, but her eyes were manic.

"You rigged it. Marco told me. You and that... that murderer. You stole his money."

I looked down at her, unimpressed.

"I didn't steal anything, Sienna. I just bet on the better driver."

She stepped up, invading my space, her perfume overly floral and suffocating.

"You think you're so smart," she spat. "But you're empty. You're a dried-up husk. That's why he chose me. That's why I'm carrying the Vitiello heir and you're standing here with the enemy."

She placed a hand on her belly, rubbing it in a grotesque display of maternal pride.

I felt a wave of nausea roll through me.

Not because of her words.

But because of the secret I held inside my own body.

A secret that was currently the size of a poppy seed, yet it anchored me to the earth with more gravity than I had ever known.

"He doesn't love you," I said quietly, my voice devoid of malice, only pity. "He loves the idea of what you have."

"You're a liar!" she screamed.

She lunged.

It happened in slow motion.

Her hands, manicured with gaudy rhinestones, slammed into my chest with frantic strength.

I wasn't expecting it.

I was expecting insults.

I was expecting tears.

I wasn't expecting physical violence from a woman who claimed to be protecting a child.

My heels slipped on the damp concrete as her shove threw me off balance.

My arms flailed, grasping at the air, grasping for a railing that wasn't there.

"Elara!"

Dante's voice was a roar, but he was too far away.

Gravity took me.

I fell backward.

The world spun.

Concrete.

Sky.

Agony.

Pain exploded in my shoulder, my hip, my head.

I tumbled down the flight of stairs, my body striking the hard edges with bone-shattering force.

I landed at the bottom in a heap of torn silk and bruised limbs.

For a second, there was only silence.

Then, the real pain hit me.

A sharp, cramping agony low in my stomach.

It wasn't the bruises.

It was deeper.

It felt like something vital was tearing away from me.

I gasped, curling into a ball on the dirty asphalt.

I felt a warm wetness gush between my legs.

No.

Please, God.

No.

Footsteps pounded toward me.

"Elara!"

It was Marco.

He skidded to a halt, looking down at me.

Then he looked up at the top of the stairs.

Sienna was standing there, fake tears already streaming down her face, pointing a shaking finger at me.

"She attacked me!" Sienna shrieked. "She tried to push me! I had to defend myself! My baby! Marco, she tried to kill our baby!"

Marco looked back down at me.

His eyes weren't filled with concern.

They were filled with disgust.

"You crazy bitch," he snarled at me. "You tried to hurt her?"

I couldn't speak.

The pain in my womb was consuming me.

The blood was soaking through my dress, pooling on the cold ground.

My baby.

My secret.

It was slipping away, dissolving into the asphalt.

Marco raised his hand, as if to strike me while I was down.

Then a shadow fell over us.

A dark, terrifying shadow.

Dante Moretti didn't say a word.

He moved like a blur of lethal intent.

He hit Marco.

It wasn't a fight.

It was an execution.

Dante's fist connected with Marco's jaw with a sickening crack, sending my husband-my ex-husband-sprawling into the dirt.

Dante didn't even look at him.

He dropped to his knees beside me.

His amber eyes were wide, frantic.

"Elara."

He saw the blood.

He saw the way I was clutching my stomach.

He understood.

He understood what Marco was too blind to see.

He didn't ask if I was okay.

He knew I wasn't.

He slid his arms under me, lifting me as if I weighed nothing.

I buried my face in his chest, smelling leather and gunpowder and rain.

"Put her down!" Marco shouted, struggling to get up, blood dripping from his mouth. "That's my wife!"

Dante turned.

He looked at Marco with a coldness that froze the air in my lungs.

"She was your wife," Dante said, his voice low and lethal. "Now, she is the woman you failed to protect."

He turned his back on Marco and carried me toward his car.

I closed my eyes.

The darkness took me, and for the first time in my life, I welcomed it.