Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
“No, I wasn’t. I was building an alliance with you. Not your family.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means what it meant the day we said I do,” I tell her, but this time I’m harsher than I mean to be.
“We married so we would ensure that war was over between our families.”
I shake my head.“I never once agreed to anything but an alliance. With you.”
She watches me closely as it all starts falling into place for her.“You wanted to turn me against him as revenge?”
I nod. “I told you that the night your family came here,” I remind her. We are too far into this to hide anything anymore.
“Right, but then what?” She slowly backs up to the bed and takes a seat on the edge.
“Then when the time was right, I would take down your family, and they would see you standing beside me as they burned.”
“So, I was the revenge for my father killing yours,” she reiterates to herself.“I thought, when all that came out when they were here, that I was revenge for their mafia feud. I thought I was just your way to finish your father’s life goal of taking over New York, if that was the case. I had no idea it was your plan to kill—”
“At first, yes, you were only a pawn, no matter the catalyst for my plan. Now, you are revenge and my redemption,” I answer what she asked me just hours ago. Charity work isn’t my redemption. Emelia is.
“What?” She shakes her head, and I drop to my knees in front of her and take her shaky hands in mine.
“I wanted your father to see you fall in love with me. I wanted him to see you would take my side and that you were mine. You belonged to me and had no choice but to turn on your own. Then…”
“Then what, Nico!” she screams, tears streaming, and I want so badly to lick up her tears and make love to her. Tend to her wounds and heal her. But I have to make her understand.
“Then we would take them down together, and when I met you and knew just how fucking badly your family treated you, I knew you would want that too.”
“You don’t know me! You don’t know that! It is my family, Nico!” she yells, placing her hands on her forehead and closing her eyes as the tears pour.
“Emelia, listen to me.” My voice turns stern. She has to listen.
“Your family treated you like garbage. They took your value and crumbled it. They hurt you. Do you honestly think they love you?” This hurts her. I can tell, because she weeps.
“Nico—”
“Tell me, baby, do you love them? Do you think they love you? What about that three-week hospital stay when your father threw you down a flight of stairs?”
Her head shoots up.“How do you know about that?”
“Emelia, I know everything. I’m part of the largest fucking criminal ring in the world. I did my research. You were treated poorly, and now that I love you, I will seek revenge and make sure they bleed harder than they ever made you. Do you understand?” She’s stone-cold then, but I am running hot. My breathing is heavy.
“You love me?” she prompts, and it’s then I realize what I fucking did.
Shit. It came out. I didn’t plan it or mean to; it just came out. Naturally.
Fuck. I was right. She made her fucking way in. Damn it! I curse myself.
“Nico?” I look at her, and she wipes at errant tears. “You love me? Or are you just trying to get me to forgive this?”
I wait a long moment, trying one last time to push back everything I feel, but I fail miserably. I am like my mother more than I thought. Where Emelia goes, I will. Fucking. Follow.
“Yes, I fucking love you, Emelia,” I snap out, more at myself, not her. “I fell so fucking fast for you. I need you every second. I avoided you, because even when we were in our rage, I fell for you. Your hate made me love you. The way you would touch me and then push me away, it drew me in.”
“Then why didn’t you come home and be with me? Talk to me? Tell me?” She cries still.
“Because I needed to distance myself. I don’t want to fucking need you. I don’t want to love you, but I can’t stop myself. If you aren’t breathing, neither am I. And I feel like a madman, because you have only tested me up until last night. You made me angry every day, but I saw through you, and I spotted something I knew I had to have forever these past couple of days.”
“What? What did you see?” she yells hysterically.
“I saw my parents. I saw that love could exist and I could fall for someone, and if I ever fucking lost you like my mother lost my father, I wouldn’t recover. You scared me!”