Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90642 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90642 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
I’m ready to give up. My friend thought Brody would be here, but maybe she was wrong, or maybe this is his rest day. I smile and slip around toward the weight room, pausing to admire a particularly shredded gentleman doing what look like impossible sit-ups with weights and an incline, when I feel Stefania tugging at my elbow.
“Hold on, he’s on ten and I think he’s going to keep going. My god, look at that guy’s abs. I want to eat them.”
“Elena,” she hisses. “You can’t eat people. Also, look over there.”
“Fifteen! He’s going for twenty! If he makes it, I might just reward him with—”
“Elena.” The tone in her voice finally gets my attention and I follow her gaze.
He’s standing near the mirrors in a pair of shorts and a sleeveless gray t-shirt. His hair is dark, blacker than I expected, and he’s taller than the men around him. His legs are thick, the thighs muscular, his ass like a tight basketball, and his back flexes as he does bicep curls, his expression completely locked into the zone.
“Good form,” Stefania murmurs.
She’s not kidding. His arms are ripped and his chest is filled out with a pure slab of muscle. I spot a nipple poking out of his shirt each time his arm pumps up and down. A thin sheen of sweat glimmers on his forehead, and I’m pretty sure his eyes are a bright green. Square jaw, crooked nose, full lips.
Handsome. Extremely handsome, actually, like panty-melting sexy, if I’m being honest with myself. He makes the abs-guy look like a dickhead by comparison.
“Really good form,” I agree.
Stef gets closer and takes my arm. She leans her head on my shoulder and sighs. “Are you happy now?”
“I don’t know,” I admit because now I’m feeling all sorts of conflicted.
This is what I wanted. A glimpse of my future husband in the wild to prove to myself that he’s a real man and isn’t going to be some eighty-year-old troll with dagger teeth and ichor dripping from his hungry maw. That’s an exaggeration but even though I know Brody Quinn is thirty-five, a successful lawyer, and the head of his family’s criminal organization, I couldn’t bring myself to accept that he’s going to be my husband, sight unseen.
Now he’s sight seen, and I like it.
“He’s hot,” Stefania says. “I mean, Davide’s hotter—”
“Ew, that’s my brother, but yes, objectively Brody is very hot.”
“And that’s good, right? I mean, that’s what you were worried about?”
I nod my head and try to smile because I’m Elena and I’m always smiling, always worried about other people, always holding everyone together, but inside I’m wondering.
Is that what I was worried about?
“We should go,” I say and turn away from the man I’m going to marry.
“Yeah, probably.” Stefania hangs on my arm as I drag her back toward the smoothie bar. “But why don’t you go talk to him?”
I snort-laugh at her. “I thought you said this was a bad idea? Talking to him is absolutely going to piss Simon off.”
“Yeah, probably, but you don’t seem happy.” She chews her lip and I don’t want her to look at me that way. I’m the one who looks at people like they need a hug and I’m the only person with arms. I don’t get that look.
My family is big and dysfunctional. That comes with the territory, considering we’re an enormous and powerful mafia in the middle of a bloody war. The Bianco Famiglia has been running Chicago for a long time, but our power’s teetering over a precipice, and my brothers are doing everything they can to make sure we don’t tip over into the abyss.
Meanwhile, I do everything I can to make sure they don’t crack under the strain.
That’s always been my role. Nobody made me take it on, but it came naturally. Where my brothers are big, brooding, and angry, I pride myself on being outgoing and carefree in a way that lets them relax a little bit when I’m around. When they started getting married, I took it upon myself to make their wives happy and comfortable, which wasn’t really a burden since they’re great. And then there’s Angelo, my incarcerated brother, and my little sister, Laura, who’s probably a psychopath but we all love her anyway. They’re like my flock of misguided ducklings, and I do my best to make sure nobody strays too far from the fold.
Now I feel like the spotlight’s on me, and I hate it.
“Let’s just go home, okay?” I face the smoothie bar and start reading the menu. “Seriously, I’m getting one of these stupid drinks to go, and then we’re going to pretend like I never came here, okay?”
“We could do that,” Stefania says while looking back over my shoulder.
“Do you want anything? Actually, I’ll just get two of whatever and if you don’t want it—”