Marcus laughed. A laugh I used to love. Now it felt like poison.
“No chance. She’s clueless. Dumb enough to fall for me. Doesn’t even know I only kept her around to get revenge on her mother.”
My ears rang.
“That scar she was so ashamed of?” he continued in Italian. “That was me. I was behind it all. I had her kidnapped. I let them rough her up. She should’ve known what it felt like to lose everything.”
I froze, mouth dry, breath caught somewhere in my chest.
Seth sounded stunned. “You let them do that to her? She used to be so beautiful, man.”
“She deserved it,” Marcus spat. “Her mother ruined my family. My mom died because of the stress her mom caused—being my dad’s mistress. So yeah, I made sure her daughter would suffer. That no one would ever want her. Now she’s broken. And stuck with me.”
The mask on my face wasn’t the one I had just removed.
My entire world crumbled in that moment—not because I was no longer beautiful, but because I had loved a monster with every shattered piece of my soul.