Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 91840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
I drop my arms and take a step toward him. “Nothing could change the way I look at you.”
He lets out a laugh, but it’s hollow and humorless. “That’s an easy statement to make when you don’t know everything.”
“So, tell me.”
He shakes his head, like he’s having an internal battle with himself.
“Gabe…”
“I used to sleep with women for money.”
“What?”
“And my parents are in prison for drug trafficking, racketeering, and murder.”
Ava
“I’m sorry, what?” Reeling from what he just said, I reach out for something to hold on to, but there’s nothing but air.
“Ava, do you need to sit down?”
“Uh, yeah. I think so.”
I walk over to the sofa on wobbly legs and sit down on the edge, fingers gripping it.
Gabe stays standing by the window. The light frames him, making him look incandescent. And beautiful. So very beautiful.
He’s not looking at me. His dark eyes are on the floor.
His words keep echoing around in my head.
“I used to sleep with women for money.”
“And my parents are in prison for drug trafficking, racketeering, and murder.”
I thought his parents were dead. Apparently not.
He’s not saying anything. I think he’s waiting for me to speak.
Honestly, I don’t know what to say.
But I go with the latter, as that seems more important. “So, your parents aren’t dead. They’re in prison,” I say in a quiet voice.
“Yes.” His voice is rough.
“Both of them?”
“Yes.”
“How? Why?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got all the time in the world.”
His eyes finally meet mine. Emotions are running riot in them. It makes me ache for him.
He looks away from me. “My dad is originally from Italy. He was born into the Russo crime family.”
He glances at me, a question in his eyes, and I shake my head, not familiar with their name.
“My grandfather was the head of the family, my dad his eldest son. And my grandfather built up a business relationship with a Jewish mob boss who pretty much ran Las Vegas. My grandfather sent my dad out to Vegas to secure the deal with the Jews, and he was to head up the running of it.
“My dad met my mother, who was the niece of the Jewish mob boss. She worked in one of his casinos. They got married. I was born a few years later. Tate, five years after that. Together, they ran several casinos. Or so I thought. The casinos were a front for the money laundering and drugs they were filtering through the casinos.”
He comes and sits down on the sofa chair beside me. I shift to face him.
“I knew they weren’t squeaky clean. I knew my dad’s family history. I knew they did some dodgy dealings. Kids would say stuff about them to me at school. The police came calling at home a few times. But, honestly, I didn’t know the true extent of it. I didn’t know they were mixed up in drugs or…that they’d killed people.
“I was seventeen when the house was raided, and my parents were arrested. It was the middle of the night. Tate and I were dragged from our beds, put into the back of a police car, and driven to a boys’ home ran by social services. We weren’t told anything. We only knew what we read in the newspapers in the following days. They wouldn’t let us see our parents. Tate was devastated. Then, I heard that my mom and dad were being charged with racketeering and the murder of several people. I knew that Tate and I were never going home. At seventeen, about to turn eighteen in six months’ time, I was smart enough to know that I’d stay in the boys’ home, and with Tate being twelve, they would try to rehome him.
“I’d just lost my parents. I wasn’t going to lose Tate as well. So, we left. My parents’ assets had been frozen by the government, but I had some savings in my account. So, I withdrew everything I had, and I bought two bus tickets to Los Angeles. I thought the idea of living near the beach sounded good. So, we rode the bus here, and I decided to change our surname to Evans in case anyone came looking for us.”
“So, your real name is Gabriel Russo?”
“Yes.”
“Why Evans?” I ask him.
“The bus driver had on a name badge that said Evans.”
“That simple.”
“Yeah, Speedy, that simple.” He grabs his smokes from the table and lights one up. He takes a drag and exhales the smoke.
“I managed to find us a studio to rent, using the rest of my savings. And I got a job waiting tables. I got Tate enrolled in school. But the one job wasn’t bringing in enough money, so I got another. In the end, I was working three jobs.
“There was a guy I waited tables with. The night he quit, he told me all about how he’d scored this job being an escort, and he was making a shit-ton of money doing it. So much that he didn’t need that job anymore. He said I should give it a try. He gave me a card with the number of the place he’d started working for. So, I gave them a call. What could it hurt, right? And, if taking some women out for dates or whatever would give me more money to give Tate a better life, then it was all for the better.