Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 72496 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72496 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Clean up the blood.
And clean up the brokenness and hatred between us, but some things were easier said than done, some scars you purposefully keep fresh because what the hell would happen if they healed?
“Yeah, Ivan, clean up the mess,” Bella said, mentally slapping me out of my own morose thoughts and insecurities, it was her gift, and it made the anger even stronger, the hatred that I could never fully grasp. I knew I felt it, and I directed it at her, but I never truly knew why it bothered me so much which bothered me more, because then I wondered if there was something innately wrong with me, my bloodline, my personality, and then the thoughts went to…
You’re. Just. Like. Them. The De Langes, and one day, you’ll prove it right and the castle will crumble beneath your feet, leaving nothing but dust.
Phoenix stopped at the door. “Bella, rule number fourteen.”
“No provoking Ivan,” she said under her breath.
Looking over his shoulder, Phoenix said, “Get along or I’ll have both your heads, and Bella I don’t care that Nixon’s my best friend, he’d encourage it, you’ve been spoiled way too long. It’s time to grow the hell up.”
With that, he left the living room. The silence was deafening. We’d pushed him too far—we’d pushed all of them too far, and for what? Rage built up in my soul when I stared down at the drops of blood on the carpet, I had only one choice in order to tamper it down, the abandonment and the very real feel of blood being on my own hands and never being enough no matter what I did, not having a life despite lives being taken from me, no identity outside of what I was born into. I blamed her. I looked at her and thought to myself that somehow it was her fault, her Family’s fault, and I clung to it, because looking inside was too hard. I flashed her a smirk. “Think OxiClean will do it or not?” I stepped on it and smushed it into the carpet. “Maybe you should hurry up and get on your hands and knees? Should be pretty natural for you, though I am curious… do you close your eyes or keep them open?”
“I loathe you.” She grabbed the rag and rubbed it further into the carpet with her tall black boot, refusing to get on her knees like I knew she would.
I instantly snapped and grabbed her by the thigh, digging my fingers into her leg and flipped her onto her back, pinning her to the carpet and against the blood, good, let it mix with her perfection. “I think you have a new stain on your shirt now, little girl.”
She tried kneeing me in the balls and flipping me over.
Footsteps sounded. “Son of a bitch, rule sixteen!” Nixon yelled.
“Sorry daddy.” She tried to roll out from underneath me.
“I’ll be your daddy.” I leaned down and whispered in her ear, just to piss her off.
It wasn’t long, maybe five seconds, before cold water was dumped on both of us.
Shit!
Bella’s scream was almost worth it.
I scrambled back, Nixon tossed the bucket on the ground. “Play nice.”
And then he was gone.
CHAPTER THREE
“The calm before the storm is more terrifying than the storm itself.” –King Campisi
King
“They’re getting bolder, that’s for sure,” Junior muttered as he tossed a blood-soaked shirt onto the table.
I tilted my head and examined it. His dark hair was longer now, messy, also covered in blood, I wasn’t sure if it was his or someone else’s, as the Capo, the new leader of the Five Families I was almost afraid to ask.
Maksim was dealing with the Sinacore side of things, which left me here with the remaining few.
Santino helped out with the Petrov Family under Valerian, while Junior kept the shit that was the De Lange Family and all of their missing pieces together.
The Alfero’s were the easiest since Dante had them pretty much sedated with so much money coming in that it was borderline embarrassing… as long as people got paid, they forgot past grievances, wonders never ceased. Dom basically floated around but mainly stayed on to help Junior with the chaos that was the De Langes.
I was probably missing a dozen people at this point… it didn’t matter too much since everyone worked so cohesively, including my Family. And mine? The Campisi throne was running like a fine-tuned machine.
Often it felt like we were too young to lead, but we proved to our parents we were ready, just like they had proved (in bloodshed) to their own that they were ready. Ours was more of a it’s our turn, back off mentality.
And they let us, slipping into cheerful retirement yet still looking like they were in their thirties ready to pop out more kids.