Borrowed Bride: Chapter 23

“Dead?” The word is ash in my mouth as a hurricane of thoughts swarm me in three seconds.

Fawn is here.

Somehow, she is in my penthouse, and I have no idea how she got here. The last time I saw her, she was grappling with Marco intent on killing him, and she was successful. With Freya asleep in the other room, I have to do everything I can to keep Fawn focused on me.

“I’m not dead.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Fawn mutters. “All this time …” She trails off, pinching the bridge of her nose and then she begins to pace in front of my unlit fireplace.

“I’m sorry. Why on earth would you think that I am dead?” It’s the only thought I can latch on to amidst the rush of confusion. I’ve been in hiding, certainly, but Fawn is a woman of many talents, and I had been led to believe she would be hunting me down to kill me. Yet she stands in my lounge looking very nonlethal.

“What?” Fawn looks up at me, then her shoulders slump. “You have no idea, do you?”

“Look, if you’re here to kill me then …” I glance around, looking for anything I can use to protect myself. “Just so you know, I know how to look after myself now and I won’t make it easy!”

Fawn sees straight through my lie and laughs dryly. “Kill you? The last time I tried that, I got this.” Fawn lifts up the hem of her red tank top to reveal a large, twisted burn scar across her abdomen. It’s long healed but the sight of it still makes my gut twist uncomfortably.

“That?”

“Yes, that.” Fawn lowers her shirt. “Please tell me you remember the explosion and I’m not dealing with some insane memory loss here.”

“The explosion? When you killed Marco?”

Fawn stares at me blankly, then she snorts. “Wow. Okay, let’s get something straight. I didn’t kill Marco, okay? Believe me, I wanted to. I watched and waited for him at the wedding but had no idea that he would bring an entire blood bath with him. I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist you and yes, I followed you because I was going to kill him.”

As she speaks, I continue to scan the room for anything I can use as a weapon, but as far as decorations go, my only options are a tasseled lamp and a metal dolphin statue.

“I failed,” Fawn mutters. “It turns out Marco fights like an animal when he’s trying to protect the woman he loves. I’d admire it if I wasn’t so disgusted by him.” She sneers slightly. “Anyway, after the building came down on top of us, I barely made it out with Cherry’s help. The next thing I know, I’m hearing that Dante and his convoy gets attacked and you were killed in the firefight.”

My heart skips a beat and a static sensation fizzes just beneath my ribs. Fawn’s words almost don’t make sense, like she’s trying to tell me some kind of story that I know in my bones not to be true.

“What?” I whisper. “That … that’s not true.”

“Well obviously,” Fawn mutters. “You wouldn’t be standing here right now if it were true. But the story is out there. Everyone died except Dante. He barely escaped with his life, not that it mattered because Marco was in a coma for so long that he didn’t know until it was too late.”

“Wait—” Without thinking, I surge closer to Fawn. “What do you mean he was in a coma?!”

Fawn’s sharply lined brows lift. “Exactly that. The building came down and he took the brunt of it. Eight months he was dead to the world. I would have finished the job but …” She indicates to the scars of her old wounds and purses her lips.

“So he … I’m sorry, are you telling me that Marco is alive?”

Fawn meets my eyes, and for the first time I see something other than coldness in there. A flicker of warmth mingling with confusion. “Marco is alive, of course he is. The guy’s harder to kill than a fucking cockroach.”

“Oh my God …” The room spins and the air grows thin as I struggle to breathe, pressing one hand against my chest. Fawn is there with me, and while her lips move, I can’t hear anything she’s saying.

Marco is alive.

All this time, he’s been alive.

And they think I am dead.

What the fuck is going on?!

It takes Fawn twenty minutes to calm me down, in between assuring me that she isn’t here to kill me. She reveals that she has been looking for Marco to finish the deed and after countless dead ends, stumbled upon the old deed for this building. According to city records, this place was demolished thirty years ago but it still stands, so Fawn started digging.

A fingerprint-controlled lift is no match for her.

We move to the kitchen and I begin to make tea until Fawn demands something stronger.

Vodka it is.

“So,” I say after getting my breath back. “Everyone thinks I’m dead?”

Fawn rises up from where she was cleaning up the broken glass from my wine, and nods. “Everyone. Why do you think the war between Barrone and Simone has been raging for so long? They both think each other killed you. Of course, Marco is in hiding because he’s fucking smart. He can cause a lot more carnage from the shadows.”

“But why?” I say, passing Fawn her drink as she sits beside me. “Dante knows I’m alive. He’s the one that brought me here with my daughter. He told me there were guards downstairs and he visits every few months.”

Fawn frowns over the lips of her glass as she drinks, a look of disgust in her eyes. “Gianna. There are no guards downstairs. This building is empty. It’s just you and your kid.”

“But …” I lift my hands and massage my temples. “He still visits. I mean, I haven’t seen him in maybe six months, but the food still arrives and the power is still on. Why would he do all of that if not for Marco?”

Fawn drains her glass then she sets it down, rocking it back and forth. “I’d say to protect you from his sex trafficking son, obviously, but he’s just as fucking twisted as Marco.”

It hits me then that Fawn doesn’t know the truth, and I clutch at her arm without thinking about how dangerous she is.

“No, Fawn. You’re wrong! I confronted Marco about everything you told me and he denied it.”

“Of course he did,” Fawn mutters, snatching her arm free.

“No, listen. He showed me proof and he told me everything. All of those women and children, the ones you were so convinced he sold into the black market? He wasn’t selling them, he was saving them. From abusive husbands, and arranged marriages, and cruel families. Each time he caught wind of someone suffering, he took action and saved them. Often killed the abusive pricks they were scared of so that no one would come looking. He’d set them up with new lives, new identities, and allowed them to live in peace.”

“Cute story,” Fawn growls. “I ain’t buying it.”

“You must! He has all this documentation that was destroyed in the explosion, but this past year or two, I’ve been digging too. Everything I could remember about what he showed me. I tracked them down, I spoke to some of the women, and they are all safe and happy. All the ones I could reach at least. Marco told me he was happy to let the rumor build that he was in the skin trade because it was a good cover.”

“He lied to you,” Fawn says tightly.

“No!” I clutch at her hand. “I’m telling you, I spoke to them. He’s not the sex-trafficking monster you think he is. And when I told him you were alive, he was genuinely stunned. Please, Fawn. You have to trust me on this. He’s telling the truth.”

“No.” Fawn jerks her hand away. “I know it’s bullshit.”

“How?” I press forward, my heart racing. Is it stubbornness or pain that prevents her from accepting the truth? “He saved those people, Fawn.”

“No he didn’t,” she spits. “That’s impossible because not long after I was kidnapped and sold, I was bought and used by Dante. So tell me, Gianna. Tell me how he saved those people!”

My blood runs cold. The pain bleeding into Fawn’s voice is the most emotion I’ve ever heard from her, and it brings me no reason to doubt her.

My stomach churns and I feel sick.

She was bought by Dante? I can’t fathom such a thing.

How can this be? How can the man who is protecting me and my daughter be the same man who subjected Fawn to such cruelty?

Something is still missing.

My heart breaks for Fawn as she drums her fingers on the counters.

“Fawn I … I am so sorry, I can’t imagine⁠—”

“No, you can’t,” she snaps. “You need to stop, Gianna. Stop trying to justify the twisted acts of that fucking family!”

Suddenly, she pulls her phone from her pocket as it jingles to life, and all emotion vanishes from her face. The cool, collected assassin is back.

“We need to get you out of here. Now.”