Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 96129 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 320(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96129 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 320(@300wpm)
“Is that the only thing you told my brother?”
“Yeah. Well, the only thing he’d be in trouble for, anyway.” She zipped up her duffel bag and put the strap around her shoulder. “In confidence, but obviously he’s an idiot and didn’t keep it confidential.”
“Yeah.” I reached out and took her bag, putting it over my shoulder. “Let’s go.”
7
ROSIE
Of all the people in the world to be stuck in a car with, Dominic De Luca would be my last pick. He used to go into the ice cream shop I had a part-time job at and blatantly flirt with me in front of whatever girl he’d taken there on a date. It was morbidly embarrassing, since of course, instead of being mad at him for being an asshole, the girls would get mad at me. When I started dating Gabe, the flirting stopped and the asshole-ness started. It was like dating his brother automatically put me in enemy territory. After that, whenever Dominic visited the ice cream shop, he ignored me. Once, another employee told me to give him the family discount since he was practically my brother, so I did, thinking it would earn me at least a simple thank you, but no. Instead, Dominic shoved cash into my hand and practically screamed, “I’m not your fucking brother.” I stopped trying after that. He and Gabe may have shared a womb and some facial features, but they might as well have been from different planets.
Unlike his brother, who was all kind smiles and expensive suits, Dominic was pushy, broody, and full of muscles and tattoos. He was just the right amount of rugged, the type modeling companies salivated over. I knew I’d noticed differences the other night, but I chalked it up to poor lighting. With his large hand engulfing the stick shift, and his forearm twitching when he switched gears, it was impossible not to notice them now. Each time he glanced over at me, with those dark eyes that held a confidence few men carried, my heart sped up. I tried hard not to dwell on the fact that his brother hadn’t made me feel this way, not ever. It wasn’t like it mattered to Dominic anyway. He clearly still had it out for me and was only doing this as a favor to Gabe. He hadn’t let me listen to the voice message, but I wondered if, in it, Gabe made it sound like we were together or something. It would make sense, seeing as he asked me if Gabe knew I was fucking another man. I wondered how long I could let him believe that was the case, and why it mattered to me that he didn’t know I was available.
“So what have you been up to besides eavesdropping, dancing, and trying to whore yourself out?”
“Fuck you,” I said between my teeth. “I do not whore myself out.”
“Sounds like you do.”
“I don’t.” My fists clenched on my lap.
“So you’re telling me you didn’t get a job at Oui a couple of days ago?”
My jaw dropped. “How do you know about that?”
“I’ve learned a lot of things about you these last couple of days.” He looked at me fully when we stopped at a red light. My pulse quickened.
“You went through my things,” I said, “when you took the bullets out of my gun.”
“Naturally.” He looked at the road again and started driving.
“Naturally? That’s illegal.”
“Do I look like a person who gives a fuck what’s legal and what’s not?” He raised an eyebrow.
I sighed. For some reason, that filled me with disappointment. “Let me guess, you followed in your father’s footsteps.”
“And if I did?” He spared me a quick glance.
“And if you did, then I guess I’d say congratulations on becoming your mother’s worst nightmare.”
“Don’t talk about my mother.” His hands clenched around the steering wheel and stick shift.
“Your mother was a good woman.” I looked out the window. “She tried so hard to get you two away from that life.”
“Shut up, Roselyn.”
“I’m just saying, she wouldn’t be proud.”
“Shut the fuck up, Roselyn.” He slammed a hand against the steering wheel, punctuating each word. I jumped in my seat. “You’re in over your head, got your boyfriend mixed up in your shit, and you want to lecture me about what my mother would think about me? What would Tesalia say about her sweet, innocent daughter cheating on her boyfriend with Anthony Costello, of all people? What would she say about you being mixed up with those kinds of people in the first place?”
I swallowed back the tears that threatened and looked out the window. They say you shouldn’t dish out what you can’t take, and in this case, I’d done just that. I could’ve made the argument that I wasn’t cheating on anyone, least of all his brother, but I couldn’t do that without confirming the Anthony bit and that made me feel sick. Both our mothers died that night and there was no use in pretending – the loss still affected us deeply. Sometimes I thought maybe if I’d lost my mother to an illness or some kind of freak accident, it might have been okay, but I knew better. It doesn’t really matter how you lose someone. The fact is, they’re gone forever and you’re always left missing them and wondering what could have been. What happened to us was unfair and traumatizing, though. Armed men walked into our homes, tied us up, and shot them point-blank. They didn’t even bother taking anything to make it look like a robbery.