She shakes her head, her gaze flicking toward Giovanni’s. “I … I didn’t,” she says, her ability to lie appalling. I mean, damn. At least put a little enthusiasm in it. “I swear, I had nothing to do with it.”
Giovanni steps in beside me and tears the phone out of my hand before looking over the video for himself. In an instant, his big hand crushes the phone until the screen cracks. He throws it hard against the wall and steps toward his wife. His hand cracks hard against her face and something tells me it has nothing to do with her meeting with Lucas Miller but more so the fact that she stepped out of his home in the first place.
He leans into her and she shakes. “I will deal with you later,” he seethes before turning back to his sons, knowing the show is only just getting started, only the moment he turns his back, Ariana grabs the door handle and goes to make a break for it.
“NOOO,” I scream, not nearly close to being done with her. I bolt after her but the second I go, a knife sails through the air with absolute precision and plunges deep into her hand, pinning it right in the center of the big door—a skill that only Marcus DeAngelis could possibly pull off.
A loud, agonizing scream tears out of Ariana as she stumbles forward, her weight pressing against the door and slamming it closed with a loud bang. She grips the hilt of the knife with her other hand, giving it a hard pull to free herself, but the blade is lodged so deep in the door that she doesn’t have a hope of getting it out.
Realizing just how fucked she is, she turns around with heavy tears in her eyes and looks to Roman. “Why?” she cries, her mascara smearing all over her face. “Why are you doing this? I’ve done nothing but protect you all these years. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
Roman steps over the body at his feet and I don’t miss the way that Giovanni discreetly adjusts himself, something I’m sure the boys are all too aware of. “I’ve told you a million times, Ari. War is not fair. If you stab a knife in my back,” Roman says, his eyes trained heavily on hers, “is it not expected that I stab one straight through yours? Only I would have the decency to do it face to face.”
Roman stops walking and stares at the woman who has crushed him, the woman who he thought he could trust with his life, but she’s nothing but a power-hungry bitch. “There’s only one thing that I don’t understand,” he says as Giovanni watches on with a cautious stare. “Why did you do it? Shayne means nothing to you. She’s a nobody. She holds no power. No threat. Just the kidnapped daughter of a dead man. Why hurt her?”
Jealousy sits in her eyes and she clenches her jaw, staring back at the man who she once loved. “Because you were going to fall in love with her,” she finally says, the admission coming out like nails on a chalkboard. “I could already see it, after just that first time. You were going to fall in love with her, just like Marcus and Levi would have. You were all mesmerized by her, just like you were with Felicity. I wasn’t going to let that happen again. I only just got you back.”
“Got me back?” Roman spits as Giovanni straightens, anger wafting off him like a bad smell. “Let us get one thing straight. I might have thought you were hot in high school, maybe let you suck my dick every now and then, but you have never had me, not even close.”
Ariana shakes her head. “That’s a lie,” she spits through her teeth. “I know you, Roman. I know you better than anyone in this room. You don’t mean that. You loved me. You always have, that’s why you keep coming back.”
“I keep coming back?” he questions. I know it must be hard for him because, even though he’s denying it, I know that once upon a time, he truly did care for her and maybe has all these years as well, but that is more than over now. “Or do you keep showing up? There’s a difference, Ari. A big fucking difference.”
“No,” she says, the hard sobs getting stuck in her throat. “I did it to protect you. She was going to destroy you. You would have followed her blindly. It was supposed to be me by your side. We were going to do this together. We were going to be more powerful than anyone, with people kneeling at my feet.”
Roman laughs and looks across at me. “Why don’t you show her what Lucas Miller did to you that night,” he suggests.