Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 108119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
I shuddered at the thought.
And knew I had my answer.
I would raise him to love as much as he hated.
And I would not let it break him the way it did me.
CHAPTER NINE
Alice
He locked me in.
I wasn’t sure if I was safe not with that man, not with any man, but at least he locked me in which meant he was keeping others out.
I wondered if that was my only future, being locked in rooms until the men around me decided what to do with my body, with my soul, I was worthless, a bargaining chip hardly worth using.
I was either dead by the Italians.
Or used by my own family.
No matter what, I didn’t really have a life, did I?
And as pathetic as it was, I was happier in that prison than I had been in my old room, waiting for the inevitable, waiting for the smell of whiskey as his hands touched me.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
No tears.
Six thirty-two didn’t cry.
At that I almost laughed.
My life had come down to this. A number.
A long ass number.
I walked down the dimly lit hall to the bathroom. I expected it to be the same as the rest of the house and was actually surprised when the entire thing was bathed in white marble. It was a walk-in rain shower bigger than most apartments, no doors, just a corner you walk around, there were jets sprouting out of each of the white tile walls.
I quickly turned on the hot water, pulled off my disgusting clothes, and walked into the shower.
The water hit my back so hard that I let out a gasp, and then I looked up and let it consume me as the dirt and blood ran down the drain, the color was so bright against the white, so telling.
I imagined I was washing away his hands too.
My brother.
I imagined him getting tortured, killed. And I wondered why it made me feel nothing but calm. I knew what the mafia did to people. I heard the whispers amongst my family about how much they hated the Abandonatos.
Most of all they hated the guy who was killing them all off.
Chase.
He had been married to Mil, our dead boss, the one that truly screwed us over in more ways than one. We were making money, doing fine, according to my father, but she wanted more, and her pride wouldn’t let her take it from her rich husband, so she worked for the Russians. That, I knew.
Who they were.
What they did.
And how she worked for them.
I had no idea.
I just knew that she got in too deep, and that she was killed for it.
I also heard that the scream from her husband pierced the universe it was so loud, and that the families knew it was a scream for our blood, our heads.
I remember the day because it was the first day I was locked in my room.
Today was the first day in a year and a half I was given a shower without someone standing by the door making sure nobody got in and that I didn’t escape.
I thought he was protecting me.
I even accepted that it was the only way my father knew how.
And yet he always let my brother in.
I grabbed the only body wash in the shower and started running it all over my body. It smelled like him, the blond fallen angel who wore gloves and was scary attractive.
His flawless complexion alone would make anyone do a double take, but it wasn’t just that or the icy blue eyes, or even the thick hair.
It was the way he carried himself, like the world should know who he was, and thank him for existing.
I shivered even though the water was hot, and rinsed off, taking my time not knowing if I would get the luxury again. It took me forever to get the knots out of my hair and I used probably half of the conditioner in that shower in order to do it, but finally I was able to rinse and run my fingers roughly through it.
I’d always loved my hair.
Funny how the things I loved the most about myself were the things my brother had hated.
My lips.
My hair.
He always commented on how both were too pronounced, like I was begging for attention.
Attention he always said he hated to give me.
I shut off the shower and reached for a towel and wrapped it around my naked body, feeling better than I had in years. I was alone. Safe and alone. For now.
I looked around for a bathrobe or something to put on and stared at my dirty clothes. I could always wash them, but putting them back on after that shower, after feeling like my old life was gone felt wrong.
So I put them in the trash and opened the door, looking both directions like someone was spying on me, before walking down the hall. The room he said I could sleep in was on the right. It had a bed, a dresser, a closet, and no windows.