Page 55 of The Strength Of A Woman

“I’m listening,” he thunders.

I might look scared as he adjusts the volume and speaks again.

“Tell me.”

“He harassed me.”

“Elaborate.”

“Why does it matter?”

“I want to know what he did to you?” he pushes out through clenched teeth. “Did he do anything inappropriate to you?”

I find my mojo.

My jaw tenses as I look up at him and fiercely hold his stare.

“Define inappropriate?”

“Don’t play games with me, Leilani,” he says, his hand falling away from my chin as he steps away from me, visibly irritated.

“What do you think can happen to someone like me in the family you married into?”

He dismisses me with a clipped motion of his hand and swiftly reaches for his phone.

“Cosimo? I’ve got a job for you.”

Just as quickly, I get a feel of what he is about to do, and snap out of my paralysis.

My hands reach for his phone, while he pulls away from me.

“No, no,” I bark, trying to drown out his voice. “Don’t do that.”

“Stay out of this, Leilani,” he warns me as I wrestle him to get his phone, having no chance of accomplishing that.

“He’ll know I’ve talked to you,” I finally argue, and my words make him shift his attention to me.

“Give me a second,” he says to Cosimo and ends the call.

“I need to know what happened to you.”

“Why?”

“I just do. And stop asking silly questions.”

“You can’t change anything about this.”

A dark smile creeps up his lips.

“You’d be amazed at the kind of things I could do.”

“Harming him will make them lock me up. They can’t do anything to you, but they can do a lot to me.”

“Then talk.”

“Only if you promise not to do anything to him.”

“I can’t make that promise. You need to talk if you want to reason with me.”