Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
And there, buried at the bottom, is a text chain with a guy named Roc.
I’m buzzing with excitement. This is everything that Angelo wanted. Proof Tommy’s up to something. I keep snapping away, not slowing down to read what’s on the screen, and when five minutes have crawled past, I finally decide that’s enough and Angelo will have to be happy with what I’ve got. I make sure Telegram is shut down, double-check that nothing looks weird, before locking the screen and leaving the bathroom.
Nobody jumps out from a doorway. Guards aren’t waiting for me in the hall. I hurry to the bar, get rid of the empties and the dirty napkins, and load up on new drinks. Tommy’s phone is a weight under a scrum of paper towels in the far corner, but the bartender is too busy to notice what I’m up to. Nobody even looks at me twice, and I’m starting to wonder if I might actually get away with this.
It feels like there’s a neon sign glowing on my face that says GUILTY, KILL ME NOW except there isn’t. I just look like me.
Back in the meeting room. Tommy’s engaged in loud banter with the foreign guys. He’s telling a dirty joke about a farmer and a blonde with big tits and a horny bull, and he’s making wild hand gestures all over the place. I kneel down and put the drinks on the coffee table.
My heart’s racing and my palms are sticky with sweat as I quickly bend down as if I’m picking something up, only to slide Tommy’s phone right under his chair.
For a beat, I think I got away with it. Tommy doesn’t pause his story. His two friends are both very much engaged, both of them glassy-eyed and clearly drunk. I feel triumphant, elated. Tommy will find his phone under his chair later tonight and figure it fell off the coffee table at some point. He won’t suspect that I took it and went through it and snapped pictures for Angelo.
Except when I look over my shoulder and start to stand, Serena’s staring at me from the couch.
I go very still. I’m frozen, midway up. My eyes lock with my sister and she is very much awake and extremely aware. Her eyes narrow, her brows knitting together like she’s confused, and there’s no avoiding it. She saw what I did, and now she’s starting to put it together in her head.
Understanding dawns on her face. And oh, god, she sits forward, very alert now, watching me with pure surprise. I bet she never dreamed that Claudia, her goody two-shoes older sister would ever do something so stupid, so brazen, so very much against the rules like steal Tommy’s phone.
If she wants me gone, this is her chance.
Her comments from the bathroom drift back into my head.
She can make me go away. My judgmental stares, my pathetic obsession with her, my constant nagging and hanging around. If she wants her annoying older sister to disappear, all she needs to do is open her mouth.
It wouldn’t be hard. Tommy would do the dirty work.
Slowly, I get to my feet. I feel light, almost dizzy, like my blood’s completely gone. But I’m also happy it was her.
We can be done with this. Tommy will hurt me and Serena will get what she really wants. All the drugs in the world without a tether to her old life holding her back. Maybe Tommy won’t kill me, or maybe he will. Either way, this is finished, and I won’t be useful to Angelo anymore.
It’ll be crap jobs in my crap apartment with awful Uncle Rodney breathing down my neck.
Except Serena doesn’t say anything. She’s got a little curious smile on her lips and she leans back against the cushions again, still staring at me, but her mouth remains shut. I move away from the coffee table, and Serena still hasn’t started shouting—why hasn’t she started shouting yet?—and I walk stiffly to the door. Serena’s dead silent while the three men laugh loudly as Tommy’s joke hits the punchline.
I don’t understand it, but Serena gives me a little shake of her head as I glance back over my shoulder and makes a tiny shooing gesture with one hand, and I pause for a beat to let that sink in, before I step back into the hall.
Only to find Angelo waiting for me.
He comes close. I don’t have time to react as he takes my arm and leans in close. “Hello, baby,” he whispers. “Should we get another private room together?”
Chapter 21
Claudia
I’m confused and I’m so relieved it’s physically painful. I don’t put up a fight as Angelo leads me down the hall, up the stairs, and through the lobby of the third floor. I catch a few looks from the girls on shift and I notice Rodrigo sitting at the bar. He seems bored by the whole scene and not at all surprised that I’m getting dragged along behind Angelo Bianco.