Sold: A Billionaire Bad Boy Mafia Romance by Natasha Tanner, Molly Thorne

kitchen.
    I’ve just flipped the first omelet and turned around to grab a paper napkin when I see her, standing in the middle of the kitchen. I suppress a scream as I barely avoid dropping the pan on the floor.
    “Veronica,” I say, as I try to decipher her expression.
    “You don’t know him.” There is a hard edge to her voice, as if she had chiseled it to use it like a weapon.
    “Oh, I do,” I reply. “Look, I’m sorry that you—”
    “You don’t know the first thing about him, stupid bitch,” she cuts me off. “I’ve been at his side for years. You don’t understand him at all.”
    I leave the pan on the stove and give her hands a quick glance. She’s not holding any kind of weapon, thankfully. “What makes you think—”
    “SHUT UP, WHORE,” she spits, her hands turning into fists and shaking visibly as her eyes become foggy. “I’ve kept secrets for him. Things even he didn’t know.” She looks around as if she were seeing the kitchen for the first time. “You’ll never be in the same place.”
    “Well, I’m here now, and I can kick you out anytime.” I don’t want to be harsh, but I’m not sure that she’s in her right mind at this moment. She could turn dangerous.
    “Well, that’s funny,” she fires back. “There is someone I could send back to Russia in an hour. It only takes a phone call.”
    A snarky reply comes to my lips before I could help it: “As funny as...” I start, but then I change my mind. I now see Veronica Redd as the wretched girl she really is. I’ve been in her place not long ago. What I utter next are not my words, but Gogol’s. I read Gogol as a teenager and I still remember the best lines as one remembers the touches of a loving hand.
The longer and more carefully we look at a funny story, the sadder it becomes.
    “There’s not much difference between funny and sad,” I say in the end. Yes, I paraphrased a bit. Maybe simplified the meaning. You can sue me.
    Veronica snorts. “You will be sad, I promise you,” she says.
    “I know about your secret,” I tell her quietly. “You should have told him about Rhonda. Why keep it to yourself?”
    She says nothing at first. A tear escapes the prison of her pretty eye, running down her smooth cheek and reaching the corner of her perfect mouth. Pretty, smooth, perfect, and so broken, and so sad.
    “Because it would have broken him. Ace is not as tough as he seems. He’s vulnerable. He must be protected.”
    I try to be firm and soft at the same time. I don’t know if I can. I pity her, but I want to defend what I have with Ace, too.
    “I think you give him too little credit.”
    She breaks down now. Tears run down her face as she leans against the wall. “Why did he have to fire me?”
    “Because he couldn’t trust you. You kept the secret from him for years. What were you thinking?”
    She keeps sobbing, her arms lying at her sides, as if she’d been drained of all her energy.
    “I don’t know,” she says. “I love him. That’s what I was thinking. I didn’t want him to get hurt because I love him.”

21. ESCAPE TO ROULETTENBERG
    VAN
    Three weeks later
    “OK, this is the big one,” Ace says, stepping into the pool completely naked and holding two beers. I grab one and look at him appreciatively. His body is so perfect that I have a hard time concentrating in what he is telling me.
    “The big one?”
    He comes to me, half floating and half waddling on the bottom. When he reaches me, he plants a kiss in my lips. The water is a little cold, and I welcome his warmth.
    “Monte Carlo,” he says. “We’ve set up a private room there, for some international players. It’s the first time we do it. Little Vegas meets Monaco. Do you like it? It will be fun.”
    “I bet,” I say, and then I laugh when I realize that I’ve made an involuntary pun. “I mean I don’t. I won’t play for you this time. But it will be pretty cool. Who came up with the idea?”
    “Pip did. Actually, it was your