Black Hearted (The Margarelli Brothers 1)

It wasn’t doing much, but it was satisfying to beat the hell out of something.

The sweat dripping down my neck to gather around Vincent’s collar wasn’t helping calm me down, either. How could he do this to me? He had treated me like an animal! I had no doubt that he would microchip me next!

I froze as that horrible thought settled in. I ran to the closest mirror in my expansive home gym. It was on an upper floor, a huge sitting room or parlor that had been converted for my own personal use. It was light filled and gorgeous. The room was a combination of old and new, with large mirrors set inside the intricate plaster work on the walls along one side.

I was not the sort of person who would take out gorgeous plaster molding or paint over burnished hundred-year-old wood.

Had he chipped me? I wondered. Was it possible that he was even more controlling than he’d shown himself to be?

I lifted my hair, checking my neck for a scar, a lump, anything. Nothing. My skin was smooth. Untouched. I looked at my wrists. Nothing there either. I exhaled, realizing he had not chipped me after all. I would have noticed a wound, even a small one.

But just to be sure, I would have Maria look me over when I got out of the shower. As soon as I was finished beating the hell out of my imaginary ex-boyfriend.

Damn you to hell, Vincent Margarelli! We could have been so good together. So happy.

Why did he have to go and ruin it? I had been so in love with him. And now I had no choice but to protect myself. To protect my heart.

Even if that meant breaking it.

The evidence was too clear to ignore it, even if I wanted to. And part of me did want to ignore this. To forgive him. I hated that part of me. She was weak. And I would never be weak again.

A man who made you wear a tracking device was too controlling. Not just in the bedroom. That sort of behavior would eventually lead to the same situation I had been in before. Sure, things were good now. Too good. But what happened the first time I displeased him? Would he become jealous? Abusive? Critical?

Would he lock me in a room without food for days? Beat me? Yell at me?

All that had already happened during my first marriage. All that and more.

Not Vincent, a voice cried out inside me. He would not do that. He would never, ever, ever hurt you.

But after everything I had been through, I wasn’t sure I could trust that little voice. I shoved it away. That was the weak part of me. I needed to silence it.

The voice got quieter.

And quieter.

And quieter.

Until I couldn’t hear it anymore.

I wiped the sweat off my face and throat, glaring at the collar again. Then I went to get cleaned up. Somehow, I would get this damned thing off my neck!

I would be free.

And no one would ever make me feel this way again.

Chapter Forty-Three

Vincent

“Are you still at it?”

I didn’t even glance up from the iPad to respond to my cousin’s rhetorical question. Clearly, I was still at it. I was tracking Francesca. I had barely stopped in hours. Days.

Ever since the moment she had walked out the door, naked as the day she was born and gloriously regal as a queen. An unstoppable woman.

A force of nature.

A goddess.

A goddess who hated me.

“She’s in the gym,” I muttered. “Trace got a more sensitive tracking system. Cain is still cursing me for that particular upgrade.”

“Oh, great, what is she doing now? Jump squats?”

“Your sarcasm is not appreciated. Nor is your input.”

“If you had listened to my input, you would not be in this situation. And you would not look like a goddamn hobo instead of one of the richest men in the world.”

I glared at him, my eyes promising retribution. But he just smiled, completely unconcerned. My cousin was far too relaxed and happy for my liking.

Michael settled into the chair across from me, sipping a fragrant cup of coffee. He was a profound disappointment as a drinking buddy. He was supposed to be wallowing with me. How dare he look well-rested and happy when I was still drunk from the night before and miserable beyond anything I had ever known?

My world felt like it was ending, and that motherfucker looked fresh as a daisy.

A knock on the door. I ignored it, as I had been doing for days. My cousin raised his eyebrows and went to open it. Auntie rolled in a tray filled with breakfast and a pitcher of coffee.

“Thank you, Auntie,” he said with a faint smile to me. “Did you think I brought myself coffee and left you to suffer?”