Brutal Husband (Brutal Hearts #3)

Chapter 15

15

Nero

“ Y eah, she’s cute, Nero,” Laz says in a flat tone as he stands up and takes his baby back from me. Antipathy and mistrust flash in the other man’s eyes as he sits down next to his wife, his baby held close to his chest.

I pull out a chair and sit down without waiting for an invitation. Laz glares at me in silence. Rieta averts her gaze from me and sips her orange juice. Mia hunts through her bag for something, and then draws Laz into a conversation about where Mirabella’s favorite toy has gone.

I don’t follow the chatter at the table because I’m too engrossed in Rieta. My wife looks as beautiful as she did on our wedding day. I can’t stop staring at her, drinking in the curve of her cheek and the way the sunshine lights her glossy hair. Every now and then she glances at me, her cheeks redden, and then she quickly looks away again.

I grin at her, remembering how beautifully she came as I fucked her this morning. God, how I’ve missed her. We didn’t get to have hours of sex on our wedding night, which I’ve been regretting ever since. We had a rocky start, she and I, but I was always able to charm her back into being such a good girl for me. This time it’s just going to take a little more charm and a few forceful reminders of who her husband is.

Eventually, Mia starts making noises about leaving. Laz pays the bill, and Rieta gets to her feet.

I put my hand on the small of my wife’s back. “Let’s go, cara mia . My car is just over there. I’ll send someone to pick yours up.”

Rieta steps away and turns her frosty gaze on me. “Who says I’m going anywhere with you?”

I give her a hard smile. “Marriage is forever, Rieta. I haven’t forgotten the day we exchanged vows. Have you?”

Laz gets to his feet and stands nose to nose with me. “You heard the lady. Rieta doesn’t want to go with you.”

I’ve had few interactions with my brother-in-law. The man is three years younger than me, and for a while, he was my father-in-law, which is fucking ridiculous, but it doesn’t mean he gets to play protector over my woman.

I flick my gaze up and down his body. Lazzaro Rosetti doesn’t intimidate me. I can fight dirtier than he can. I had to, or I wouldn’t have survived these past months.

“Tell me, how do you stand the smell of engines and exhaust? Especially when the stench follows you around all day.”

“How do you sleep at night after abandoning your wife?” Laz counters, his fists tightening.

That’s funny, coming from him. “How’s Giulia these days?”

Anger blazes in Laz’s eyes.

Rieta steps between us and pushes us apart. “Enough, both of you. Thank you, Laz, but I’m all right. Nero and I should discuss our respective futures.”

I wrap my arm around Rieta’s waist and pretend I didn’t hear her say futures , as if hers and mine are different. “Discuss our future together? Sounds wonderful, and don’t mind me, cara mia . I’m just out of practice playing happy family. We’re all friends here, aren’t we?” I smile at Laz and Mia, who don’t return my friendliness.

Mia looks worried as she kisses her sister goodbye. “Call me if you need anything. Laz and I aren’t far away.”

“Day or night,” Laz says, and gives me a final dark look before he and Mia leave.

I keep a firm grip on Rieta as I lead her to where I’m parked. “I’m looking forward to our cozy family brunches when we have a baby.”

“You’re an asshole,” she mutters under her breath as she gets into my car.

As soon as we get home, Rieta jumps out of my car and hurries inside, locking the door behind her. I let myself in with my key and glimpse Rieta’s figure fleeing up the stairs. As I follow her, a door slams, and when I try the bedroom door, it’s locked.

I don’t have a key, and I glare at the painted wood. I could break the door down. I dearly want to, but I take a deep breath to control my temper and go wait in the kitchen.

A little over an hour later, Rieta comes downstairs. She’s taken off her makeup, she’s wearing sweats, and her hair is piled in a messy bun on her head. No doubt she thinks this will put me off from wanting to touch her, but I’ve always loved my Rieta just as she is.

I make her a cup of coffee, and set it in front of her on the kitchen island.

Rieta stares at the coffee and then up at me. “That’s not how I take my coffee. Where are you staying, and how long are you back in town?”

“Here. This is my house. And I’m back forever.”

Rieta makes a dismissive noise and shakes her head as she walks away from me around the expanse of marble, putting it between us. “You’re not welcome in this house, and forgive me if I don’t believe you about how long your presence here is going to last. Where have you been all this time?”

I clench my teeth. She doesn’t want to know the answer to that question. “It’s better if you don’t know.”

“You don’t get to decide what’s good for me. I decide what’s good for me. Why did you leave?”

I circle the kitchen island toward her, but she walks around it away from me.

I open my mouth. The doorbell rings.

Neither of us move.

“I didn’t want—” I begin.

The doorbell rings again.

“Fuck,” I mutter, and stalk to the front door, ripping it open. “Yes?”

There’s a feminine gasp of pleasure. “It is you. Isabel said she saw you in town with Mia and Rieta, but I had to come see for myself.”

Oh, great. My mother-in-law. I glare into Giulia’s irritating, beaming face. She’s just as I remember her, without a sincere emotion on her face. “What do you want?”

She pushes past me and walks confidently into my house. “Rieta, darling. Why didn’t you tell me that your husband is back?”

When I enter the kitchen, Rieta is still standing at the kitchen island, but she’s picked up the coffee I made her and has wrapped her hands around it for comfort.

“Oh, hi, Mom. He only just got back,” my wife mutters, not meeting her eyes.

Giulia turns to me with what I’m sure she thinks is a dazzling smile. “Welcome home, Nero. Now you’re back, I know that you and Rieta will be able to get past your marital problems and return to trying to start a family.”

Return to trying to start a family. I want to take the mug Rieta is holding and smash it against the wall.

“What do you say we forget about all the things that were said in the heat of the moment between us?” Giulia continues, her eyes glinting like a viper’s. “Water under the bridge. A fresh start for you and my daughter, and a fresh start for this family.”

I fold my arms and glare at the woman who punished my wife God knows how many times by locking her in the dark and making her scream.

Rieta is nervously chewing on her nail, and out of nowhere, Giulia slaps it away from her face. “What’s wrong with you, Rieta? You should be smiling now that your husband is home.”

“Sorry, Mom,” she mutters automatically, and drops her eyes.

After all this time, nothing’s changed. Rieta is still afraid of her mother.

I smile at the hateful woman. “What have you been up to lately, Giulia? Read any good books? Locked any daughters in the basement and listened to them scream for hours on end?”

The fake, happy expression freezes and dies on Giulia’s lips. “You and I haven’t always seen eye to eye, but I thought you’d want an ally under the circumstances, Nero.”

So that’s why she was so excited to come running over here. Giulia wants to use this as an opportunity to get her claws into our relationship. Me and her, ganging up on Rieta.

“Go fuck yourself, Giulia.”

Giulia snatches her handbag from the marble counter and stalks back down the hall, swinging her hair like a whip over her shoulder.

I shout after her, “It was pathetic of you to send Isabel to spy on your daughters who can’t stand the sight of you.”

The front door slams, and I laugh to myself. Good riddance.

I turn back to Rieta, and her eyes have softened.

“Thank you, Nero. That was…”

I walk slowly around the kitchen island toward Rieta, and this time she doesn’t back away from me. I stand over her, her tawny eyes huge as she gazes up at me.

“Let me ask you a question,” I say. “Why did I leave you?”

Rieta’s expression fills with confusion. “That’s what I want to know.”

Good actor? Or liar? “Don’t you know?”

“No, I don’t know.”

The words burst out of me, and I slam my fist on the counter. “For fuck’s sake, Rieta. Just be honest with me about what you’ve done.”

Indignation fills her eyes, but something else as well. Fear. There’s something she’s not telling me. I advance on her, and she backs away from me.

“Stop accusing me of things, Nero. You’re the one who abandoned me. I don’t want you here. Please leave.”

“This is my house.” She can’t call the police on me when this is my property, and it’s not like her father can throw me out because he’s dead.

“Then stay away from me. You’re not welcome in my bedroom. Sooner or later you’ll decide to abandon me, just like you did before.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Rieta,” I shout after her as she heads for the stairs. “I’ll discover what you’re hiding from me, sooner or later.”

Three and a half weeks pass, and I follow Rieta everywhere she goes for every single one of those days. To the supermarket, running errands, visiting her sister, and to some sort of community support group. I keep out of sight, but she often glances over her shoulder with big, worried eyes, somehow sensing that I’m there. She knows I’m watching, so she doesn’t dare do anything incriminating.

But one day, the errand she runs makes me angrier than I’ve ever been in my life.

She goes into a divorce lawyer’s office.

I sit fuming in my car as I stare at the covered glass windows. How dare she try to get away from me. I haven’t given Rieta permission to leave me.

I grow angrier and angrier as I wait for her to come out again, and when she does, I follow her closely all the way home. Threateningly close. Rieta realizes I’m there and keeps glancing into the rearview mirror at me with fearful eyes.

At home, she jumps out of her car and races inside.

Oh, you shouldn’t run, cara mia .

Because now I have to chase you.

Inside the house, I thunder up the stairs behind her and reach the bedroom door just as it closes and the lock clicks.

I pound on the door with my fist. “Rieta. Rieta . Open this fucking door.”

I’ve been overtaken by an all-consuming rage. How dare she shut me out when I want answers, and I want her as well. She’s never fucking leaving me.

“The longer you lock me out, the angrier I’ll be with you. Fucking let me in! ”

Rieta doesn’t listen, and so I have to break down the bedroom door and the en suite bathroom door to get to her. The place is in shambles, with wood splinters all over the floor and tears on my wife’s face. Rieta needs to be taught a lesson, and so I pull her over my knee and spank her ass. Her bare flesh turns gloriously red under my hand, and my cock gets so hard that I ache.

“Did you let another man touch what’s mine, cara mia ? Did he dare put his filthy fucking hands on you? I lay awake night after night picturing another man touching you. I know it happened. I know it . It’s driving me insane.”

She goes on denying that she’s keeping anything from me, so I throw her on the bed and fuck her the way I’ve been dreaming of, night after night. Hard. Hungry. Selfish. I’ve never needed a woman as much as I need Rieta.

I want to come so badly, but I make myself stop so I can catch my breath. Every time I was rough with her, I knew what I was doing and had control of myself, and I have always stopped short of crossing that line and losing control.

I sit down in an armchair and watch her, getting my breath and my senses back.

Rieta is slumped on the floor, gazing up at me with hurt filling her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me you got a vasectomy?”

I grip the arms of the chair, my fingers digging into the upholstery.

“You made me believe you wanted a baby,” she whimpers. “You tortured me month after month as you watched me take pregnancy tests that were never going to be positive. That’s what hope is. It’s torture. Now I’m glad you never gave me your child because there’s even less to tie us together.”

I can’t listen to this, or I’ll go crazy. I shoot to my feet, throw her face down on the bed, and take my cock in my hand.

“I have news for you, cara mia .” I snarl, driving into her pussy. “While I was gone, I had my vasectomy reversed.”

She doesn’t believe that I’m able to knock her up, but I’ll prove her wrong if it’s the last thing I do. I’m a man possessed as I fuck her as hard and as deep as I can.

“That’s right, take every drop of my cum. You belong to me, Rieta. Every drop of blood in your veins. Every breath you take. This baby I’m putting in your belly. All fucking mine.”