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)
“She’s being abused.” I shake my head. “Was being abused.” I won’t let that shit happen again.
He curses under his breath. We’re both quiet for a minute.
We both know men who hit their wives. Our generation decided to do better. Mario finally shakes his head. “I’ll help you serve that justice. But yeah, according to state law, you can’t do anything about that unless she’s the one who presses charges.”
I laugh. Actually laugh. “Since when have you ever known me to give a fuck about what’s legal?’
Mario grins. “True.”
“Tell me more.”
He taps the steering wheel as the world around us whips past like someone’s pressed fast-forward.
He tells me when they were founded, and what the rules are. Gloria located an online account of one woman who escaped and now blogs about it. She talks about the strict rules and adherence to punishment, the cruelty she experienced at the hands of her father and eventually her husband, how she was forced to have babies and told she would raise them with the same strict methods. How when she miscarried, she was told it was punishment for her sins.
I feel sick. My family’s not exactly a bunch of nice guys, but this…
“That’s fucked up.”
Mario shakes his head. “You have no idea. Anyway, Gloria thinks Eden escaped because there was a missing person report. Eden’s husband seems to think she was taken.”
This is so fucked up. “Right.”
I want to take her. I want to protect her. I want to show her that she deserves so much better than anything she’s ever had before. I’d cherish her innocence and honesty and never hurt her. I couldn’t.
I shake my head as I think about the possibilities.
I’m engaged to be married. I’m supposed to be solidifying the family bonds for our family by marriage. The rules are clear.
If I do what I want to—if I rescue Eden the way I want to, if I do anything even close to romance—I’ll not only push her away but screw my family.
And family’s everything.
“God, what a fucking mess,” I say on a sigh.
“For real. And Sergio… listen… Dude, I need you to make me a promise. But first, you have to tell me you won’t shoot the messenger.”
“Mario,” I say warningly.
“I’m driving this fucking car, Sergio. Don’t do anything that would make me crash us.”
“Who do you think I am?”
He winces. “The toughest brawler I’ve ever met in my life. The man with a fist of steel. I love you, brother, but you made me practically wet the bed when I was a kid, and I haven’t totally outgrown that shit.”
I snort but don’t deny it. I won’t apologize for who I am.
What the fuck is he gonna tell me?
“Go on.”
“Promise me first.”
“Jesus,” I mutter under my breath. “Okay, fine, I promise I won’t kill the messenger. Not while he’s driving anyway. Go on.”
“Well, Gloria also looked into your… betrothed,” he says with a forced smile. “She’s, uh… got quite the reputation.”
Oh fucking hell I already regret making the promise. I grit my teeth. “Oh, does she? How so?”
“Apparently, she’s taken out twelve credit cards in her name and run up fifty grand in debt.”
I sigh. Alright, so she’s a spender. I’ve got money and if all it’ll take to make her happy is some plastic—
“Whatever. Anything else?”
“She’s got her goddamn face plastered all over social media. Loves to be in the public eye.”
That could be a problem. God.
“I just don’t know if she’s—”
It happens so fast I barely have time to process.
An eighteen-wheeler jumps the guardrail, heading straight for us.
Mario curses and swerves but we’re too small and the truck’s coming way too fast.
I never knew until that moment what it meant to have your life flash before your eyes.
It has to be seconds, or even fractions of a second. I see everything as if it were a vision, like someone’s playing a recording in my mind’s eye on fast-forward.
My father and mother, pouring wine at a birthday party. I can see the white and blue icing on the cake we got from the bakery. I’m blowing out candles—four of them.
I’m in high school walking across the stage on the football field where it was set up, stifling hot in a suit covered by a cap and gown, without a breeze or speck of shade in sight. I can see Principal Wallace, his face ruddy as he holds the diploma out, handing it to me.
I’m at Ricco’s wedding. We’re toasting the bride and groom.
The rest happens in milliseconds, flying by like cars on a freight train, faster than the speed of light.
A trip to Corsica. Dinner with the Rossis in Gloucester. Securing the location to Bella Notte.
The first day I saw Eden.
The way the sun filtered through the window as if she was an angel… my angel.
Mario screams in fury as he maneuvers us as far from the truck as he can.