Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 59804 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59804 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Maybe I was the selfish one.
I captured her lips again and again, and with each kiss, I fell deeper under a spell I wasn’t sure I wanted to be snapped out of. One minute we would stop, maybe two, and everything would be normal. We’d get the door.
But I needed more time. That was one thing I knew I never really had a lot of.
Andrei had spies everywhere, and there I was kissing Andrei’s sister in the middle of the fucking Home Depot light section.
Give me more of this dream.
Give me more of this alternate reality where I get the girl. And I don’t die.
What a fantasy.
What a life.
What a tragedy.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Mafia is a process, not a thing. Mafia is a form of clan—cooperation to which its individual members pledge lifelong loyalty… Friendship, connections, family ties, trust, loyalty, obedience—that was the glue that held us together.” —Joseph Bonanno
Katya
When we got back from Home Depot, it felt like a live wire had been attached to my body every time Santino walked close to me. Had our kissing and sex somehow tethered us together, or was I a victim of my own imagination? His hand grazed my lower back as we walked into the house. The men were already hard at work grabbing everything we’d purchased, and I was already disappointed that I was most likely going to be bored out of my mind the rest of the day or roaming the massive mausoleum once again.
I shivered from the air conditioning—at least, that’s what I told myself. Nobody really paid me any attention, which was good because I was wearing my emotions all over my sleeve. I looked guilty and well and truly screwed; it’s not like I could make up something, and I wasn’t the best liar. Santino would have to help me with that.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Santino barked.
Nixon chose a bad time to walk around the corner holding a sandwich in his hands. His eyebrows rose as he looked between us, then he held up his hands, slowly turned around, and walked away.
My body pulsed with the need to either run up the stairs and away from Santino or run into him and say yes to whatever he had in mind. “What do you mean?”
“Does a promise mean nothing to you? Does sex? Blood? Sweat?” His massive boot took a step toward me, followed by the other, and then I noticed the hammer in his right hand. “Mean nothing?”
I couldn’t breathe. He was magnificent and terrifying all at once. “It does. It means everything.”
His body bent over until his mouth was so close I could taste our kiss from earlier. “What about fear? What does that mean?”
“More.” I trembled.
Santino raised the hammer and used it to lift my chin up, so we were face to face. “Good, then follow me; your lessons of darkness and control that you so desperately want, begin now.”
Hands trembling, I nodded. The feel of the metal against my chin was almost a loss, and his eyes said he knew it too when he pulled it away and gave me his back.
I wondered if he knew, at that point in my life, I would follow him into the very depths of Hell if that was what he asked of me.
He was the only one who saw me. Who said yes, who really got it.
Maybe that’s why some people preferred the monsters under their beds rather than the heroes who rode in on white horses.
The hero came to save you.
The monster, however, came to devour.
At this point in my life, all I wanted from Santino was to be devoured because maybe then the memories of my past would be devoured too.
Maybe then… I’d get justice for my twin.
Maybe then, if I was ever kidnapped again…
I’d become a monster too.
Santino went to the basement door and opened it. “You need to prepare yourself for darkness.”
“No,” I whispered. “I need to prepare myself for war.”
So, down into the darkness I went, putting one foot in front of the other. Following my monster down the stairs wasn’t nearly as frightening as I thought it would be.
It was exhilarating.
It was better than roaming the huge house or lying in my bed and crying myself to sleep over my brother, over my trauma.
Santino’s back flexed beneath his black shirt. The hammer was still in his right hand, beckoning me, and I had a sick thought of what I would have done if I’d had such a weapon when I was kidnapped.
I would have used it on that man’s balls and relished in the pain on his face when I crushed his windpipe next.
Santino stopped once we reached the bottom of the bare hallway; there was a door on each side, metal.
“What’s in there?” I pointed.
Santino dropped his head a bit, a cruel smile spread across his face. “Bad men who do bad things.”