Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 61672 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61672 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
“No right or wrong, Grace. Only consequences,” she repeats.
“I’m so sorry.” Sobs wrack my body at the thought of sacrificing my baby for this pointless cause. “I can’t do it, Mom. I just can’t.”
She sits like a statue beside me. My mom has never been very expressive.
In our world, emotions indicate weakness—even for women. We’ve been trained from birth to hold it in, to hide our true feelings.
That’s why I’ve never been a crier. Yet, in this moment, my shoulders shake with grief.
And idea pops into my head. “I know what to do. They’ve never seen me, right? We could hire someone to pretend she’s me. We could even find a woman who’d actually like the guy. Not someone like me. I’d hate being a mobster’s wife.”
“You don’t always get to choose in life, Grace.”
“I never get to choose,” I snap.
Mom gets up to her feet. “We’ll talk when you’ve calmed down.”
Matteo
“She still hasn’t called, huh?” Damon shoots me a provoking grin.
I tip my head and empty my shot in one gulp, letting the brown liquid scorch my throat. “Fuck you.”
“How long has it been again? Refresh my memory.”
“Two weeks.”
He laughs as he pulls out a stool next to me and orders a drink. “You know, maybe this is karma for all those girls you never called back.”
I glare at him.
Damon and I grew up together. He’s also just had a baby with my sister. Oh, and he hates my dad so much he tried to kill the old man, but everything’s cool now. It’s a long story that would take an entire novel to tell.
The point is, he’s one of my best friends, but now I’m regretting ever telling him about Ashley. “What are you doing out anyway? You’re abandoning my nephew at home?”
He chuckles. “Of course not. Your parents are there, cramping up the place. I just thought I’d get out of the way, thought maybe I’d find you here, moping. Lo and behold, I was right.”
I drag air into my compressed lungs and let it all out. “It’s not just about the girl, Damon.”
He picks up his glass of whiskey and takes a sip. “Yeah, I know. Sorry about the wedding. If I knew, I would’ve warned you.”
“What the fuck was my dad thinking? This is twenty-first century America.” I gesture to the bartender, ordering another shot. I need a fog of alcohol so thick I’d forget how fucked up everything is.
Damon shrugs. “Elena’s against it as well. But you know how Enzo is. He’d probably say something lofty about peace and the good of the family.”
“Fuck the family.” I down another shot, the burn spreading through my chest.
Damon laughs. “If it weren’t for Franco and Hector dragging you to that club, you wouldn’t have had any fun at all.”
“They didn’t do it for me,” I scoff, thinking about my two bodyguards who insisted on taking me to the club where I met Ashley to celebrate my coming home. “I’m the only one who can get them in there.”
“Wow, you’ve changed.” Damon presses the glass to his lips and takes another swig.
I used to spend all my free time at the club. But after a while, the shows on the stage got old. And none of the girls ever caught enough attention for me to want to spend more than five minutes with them . . . until Ashley.
Who the fuck is that girl? And where is she? What is she doing that she doesn’t even have time to call me? Was she lying when she told me she would.
I rake my hair. “I think she’s in trouble.”
“Who?” Damon frowns, knitting his eyebrows together.
“Ashley.”
“That girl you met at the club?”
“Yeah.”
“What makes you say that?”
I heave a deep sigh. “She would’ve called otherwise.”
Damon puts a hand on my shoulder. “Look, maybe she’s not that into you.”
“You didn’t see her, man. She was . . . I saw it in her eyes. She wasn’t lying.” My reasoning sounds lame even to my own ears.
Concern gleams in Damon’s eyes.
“I’ve got to rescue her,” I insist. “Her family sounds insane.”
“You mean just as insane as yours?” Damon asks. “You know what? I think I know what’s going on. You’re projecting.”
“What?”
“You’re projecting your own problems onto this girl.” Damon finishes his drink and slams the glass down, his eyes gleaming and his hands gesturing wildly. “You feel trapped by your own family—so did this girl, according to your story.”
“Hey, that’s literally what she told me,” I protest.
Damon wasn’t there. Franco and Hector told me the same thing, but they didn’t see her either—not clearly.
The fracture I saw in the hard shell hiding her true self . . . I didn’t imagine that. She was opening up for once, lowering her guard . . . for me.
“Okay. But listen to me. There’s a chance she’s just busy, right? Or maybe she’s met someone else.”