Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
"Sergio! Sergio! Tu sei qui!”
Nonna welcomes me with both arms open.
"Who is she?" she asks, her eyebrows puckered curiously.
"Her name is Eden. She works for me."
The Rossis don't miss a thing, so even though I feel their gazes on me, nobody asks any more questions.
“Okay, so we’ll have to talk, but not tonight," Orlando says. “We’re here to party."
Rumor has it if you want to eat, you go to a Rossi house. If you wanna party, you call the Montavios.
When I go in, my brother Ricco sits at the table, nursing a drink. "She's in the kitchen."
Ricco has never met Eden, but he also knows this is the first time I've ever brought a woman to our house.
“How’s Martina?”
His eyes darken, and a shadow crosses his features. His voice is gruff when he responds, looking at the table. “Not good."
I knew they were doing an experimental treatment on her and waiting to see if she tolerated it. I don't wanna pry or ask any more questions. "If there's anything I can do…"
"Nobody can do anything, Sergio. That's the problem."
He looks back up at me and gives me a smile. "But you're doing a great job. Saving lives? Now that one I didn’t see coming.”
I groan. “Can we please change the subject?”
“Nope,” Orlando responds. “Because of this.”
He taps his phone, and for the first time I realize there's a screen set up at the end of the dining room. God. It looks like we're going to be watching films from our childhood, but instead, footage of the accident Mario and I got into appears on the screen.
I'm not prepared for how I feel when I see the car going airborne, the truck coming straight at us. Ice pulses through my veins, and my heart is threatening to explode. I make myself stare. I face it. I can’t look away and won’t.
And then I feel a gentle, quiet presence next to me. Eden says nothing, just holds my hand. She stares at the screen with me, her own face reflecting the horror that I'm watching.
"Son of a bitch," Ricco mutters. "That was no accident."
Shit.
Of course it fucking wasn't.
I’m breathing heavily. I don't even realize it until Eden strokes her fingers across the top of my hand. She says quietly, “Remember how you told me to breathe."
I breathe.
I watch the car crash. I watch myself thrown from it and the car crumpled under the weight of the truck. I watch the truck driver hit the ground with a force that would kill anybody. They say he was dead on impact. Fucking suicide.
And when I see the wrecked mess of glass and metal on Mario, it's like watching a horror flick, only this one is all too real. Why the fuck is Orlando showing us this?
Tosca's hand is over her mouth, Marialena is crying quietly. Orlando stares at the screen unblinking. I see myself come to. It's weird, like an out-of-body experience. I remember what it felt like, remember how I was scared but I knew that I had to get that car off Mario.
I watch myself lift the damn car off of him. I’d do it again, of course. That surge of supernatural strength, that adrenaline pumping through me was the only thing that got me through that moment. Orlando clicks a button, and the screen goes blank.
“Romeo asked me to show this to you. He wanted to prove that you saved Mario’s life. He would've died in the crash. Seconds later the car explodes, Sergio. You were there, but you want to tell us this is everyday behavior. It wasn't, brother. You saved Mario's life." He stares at me. “The second reason is, we need to find out who did that. We're still working that out, because the best guy we have on surveillance is held up at the moment in the hospital."
Mario would be able to tell us.
"But that's a question for another day, boys," Tosca says with a smile. The room stills.
"Is it?" Another voice joins us. I look to the doorway to see my mother standing there. "Will you dismiss a threat from our enemies that easily, Tosca?" She shakes her head. "I shouldn't be surprised."
I remember a time when my mother was kind. I remember a time when vengeance didn't fuel her fire. She was a go-between among me and my siblings at the time. But since my father and brother's deaths, coldness settled into her bones like an iceberg. I very rarely see any of the kindness I remember in her.
Some people are wounded by what happens to them. Some are able to rise from the ashes. And some are fully submerged in the depths of Hell with a need for vengeance. That's my mother.
Eden quietly draws closer to me.
"And who do we have here?” There's a coldness in my mother’s voice I feel in my veins and wish I could shield Eden from. But if we are going to outlast everything and stay together, she needs to handle my mother.