Keeping My Bride by Angela Snyder
Chapter 22
Luca
“MY FATHER CERTAINLY liked you,” I tell Verona on the way back home. The whole night pissed me the fuck off. It’s almost as if my father just completely forgot that the Morettis are our enemies. The way they were schmoozing together all night made me fucking sick.
“Is that a bad thing?” Verona asks from the other side of the car.
I sink my teeth into my lower lip to keep from blurting out that yes, it is a very bad thing. I wanted my father to give my wife the same treatment that I have been giving her. Treat her like the nemesis that she so clearly is.
“What is your problem?” she asks angrily.
The question has me swiveling in my seat to look upon the beauty across the seat. Sure, she looks pretty on the outside. But I’m sure her insides are as rotten and black as her father’s. Morettis are scum. Every single one of them.
“My problem,” I say with a smirk. “My problem is that my own father can’t see you for what you really are.”
“And what is that exactly?”
“A Moretti,” I sneer.
She frowns as she glances out the window. “Well, at least Morettis aren’t known for cheating on their wives.”
Something inside of me snaps just then. Faster than I thought I could move, I’m up and out of my seat. My hand wraps around her neck, pinning her against the back of the leather seat.
I can feel her pulse beating angrily under my thumb as she gasps for air. “First of all, I didn’t cheat on you,” I hiss at her. I don’t know why I feel the need to tell her the truth, but I don’t want her tarnishing the Vitale name, even if it’s in her own damn mind.
“You didn’t?” she croaks out with wide eyes.
“I wanted to,” I confess. “But I couldn’t go through with it.” I squeeze her throat a little harder, allowing my anger to take over. “And Morettis are known for one thing and one thing only.”
She waits for my answer, gasping for air like a little fish out of water. I realize I want her to suffer, to fight for air just a little longer.
“They’re fucking cold-blooded murderers,” I tell her before releasing her and returning to my seat.
Verona coughs and chokes beside me as she desperately sucks air into her depleted lungs. I didn’t hurt her…even though I wanted to. I only scared her. And maybe that’s enough. For now.
