Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 127484 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127484 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Yes, all of this was romantic to her, and she got swept up with the wrong man.
Trouble ensued, as it tended to do with my sister.
I tried to come to her rescue, as I always had and always would with my sister.
Usually, I was a dab hand at dealing with trouble.
Not this time. Not only did I not get her off the mob’s radar, but I somehow got myself in the crosshairs of the don of the mob. The don being the big boss. And though he seemed polite enough in the scant interactions I had with him, I was under no illusions that one got to the top of a ruthless, international crime syndicate by being nice.
I knew he was a murderer, among other things. And that did not charm me.
It sickened me.
His suits, his shiny, Botoxed skin, the manicured hands, the smiles that never reached his eyes... All of it.
He wasn’t unattractive, but he turned my stomach, nonetheless.
I didn’t let this show. Though I might not have been practiced at moving around in the criminal underworld, I’d been in the dating scene since I was eighteen, so I understood that even the ‘safest’ of men could turn deadly if they were rejected.
As I’d been trying to do, all while slowly coming to the realization that if I didn’t want to be involved with this gross murderer, I would either have to learn how to fight off him and his underlings for the rest of time, go to the police, or disappear.
I was competent at defending myself, no slouch at all. I didn’t own one, but I knew how to operate a weapon. Though I understood that I wouldn’t be a match for men who literally killed for a living. And again, my knowledge of the mob was based solely on my love for The Sopranos, but I understood that going to the police in any capacity was likely a death sentence, especially since I had no actual evidence of anyone breaking the law, merely them grossing me out with unwanted advances.
Therefore, disappear it was. Disappear from the job I loved, the friends I’d made, the home I’d finally settled into and the cat who had just recently decided he might tolerate me. Not to mention I’d have to figure out a way to bring my sister with me. Most likely I’d have to chloroform her because she wouldn’t go willingly. And even then, if I did manage to convince her we couldn’t come back to New York, she would probably make some slip-ups when it came to disappearing from your old identity so that killers couldn’t find you and punish you for running.
It was somewhat of a conundrum. And though I’d done a lot for my sister, I would do almost anything for her, I didn’t think I could date—and maybe marry, if he was to be believed—a crime boss.
With all of this chaos swimming through my mind, I’d understandably been distracted during my run this morning.
Running in Central Park at six in the morning wasn’t exactly a dangerous pastime; there were plenty of other people around. But as a woman doing it alone, it was risky. Made even riskier when you were on the radar of a mob boss who you very politely rebuked. Multiple times. And he just kept coming.
Half of me was expecting it. Some kind of attack, or at least an intimidating man in a leather jacket coming to tell me what might happen if I did not accept Stone’s not-so-decent proposal.
What I didn’t expect was the man in a bespoke suit, looking like midnight against the sunrise, standing directly in my path.
I knew immediately he was there for me.
I’d done all the things women were supposed to do. I ran differing routes at differing times, never making my routine predictable, trying to make myself less vulnerable. There was no way he could’ve possibly predicted where I could’ve been running. Yet there he was, standing in my path. Evidence that no matter what precautions you took, being a woman existing in a world of men was a dangerous thing in and of itself.
I could’ve gone around him; there was a wide enough berth for me to do so. And I was in gear equipped to run while he was wearing loafers that wouldn’t do well in a chase. Theoretically, I could’ve gotten away from him.
But some part of me knew, just by laying eyes on him, that he’d catch me eventually. A part of me was tired, exhausted by living in this state of fight-or-flight, waiting for this to happen. I was relieved, in a way. The parts of me that weren’t utterly and completely terrified, that was.
Nausea swirled through my gut as the music from my earphones continued playing. Not loud enough for me to be defenseless from the world around me, though.