Total pages in book: 767
Estimated words: 732023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 3660(@200wpm)___ 2928(@250wpm)___ 2440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 732023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 3660(@200wpm)___ 2928(@250wpm)___ 2440(@300wpm)
He ends the call without waiting for my answer.
“What evidence?” Nico snaps.
I shake my head. “It’s a bluff. Unless Corey’s working with him.”
“Corey’s not working with him,” Sondra cries, fingers balled into fists. “How could you even think that?”
I drop my chin to my chest in defeat. “I don’t. I really don’t. Would she go to him for help?” I ask Sondra. “Do you think she’s with him?”
“No way—never. I’m telling you, she’s not even on speaking terms with him.”
“So what’s the play?” Nico asks.
“I meet him. Find out if he knows where Corey is.”
“Then what?” Nico wants to know.
I shrug. No fucking clue. “I’ll figure it the fuck out.”
“Take Leo and Eddie. Are you bringing the cash?”
“No.” My voice is harder than stone. No fucking way I’m giving that man more money. He already robbed Corey of hers and he still thinks he can blackmail me? Fuck him. Dirty feds stink worse than the lowest of the underground.
“Good.”
Yeah good. But I’m still no closer to finding Corey. “Sondra, if Corey calls you…” I break off and rub my sternum because I don’t know what the fuck to say. Even if I tell Corey I believe her, is she really going to come back here with me?
After the way I treated her? Threatened her life?
She’s a smart, self-respecting woman. If she’s not in trouble right now, then she’s already as far from here as she can get.
The thing that kills me is that she might be in trouble. I left her with very few options.
And I know hundreds of unspeakable things that happen to women who run out of options in Vegas.
“If I hear from her, I’ll tell her you fucked up and you really want to apologize,” Sondra fills in.
I throw her a grateful look.
“Yeah, exactly. Thanks.”
Sondra’s eyes look haunted, though, and she can’t even be half as worried about Corey as I am.
Madonna help me.
#
Corey
It’s four in the afternoon and I’m still in the nasty motel bed. It’s not like I’ve slept. Well, maybe I drowsed a little, but every time I do, I dream of Stefano getting shot. Or shooting me.
I wake up with a pain in my chest like it really happened.
How did things get so messed up? How can I make it right?
I simply can’t allow Stefano to believe I used him. Why did I never tell him how much he meant to me? That he’s the only guy I’ve ever fallen for? How much I appreciate—no, appreciate isn’t deep enough—how he devastated me with his thoughtfulness. His love. I know he never said it, but only love would make a man work so hard to lift his woman’s belief in herself. If only I’d done something to show him my love, too. Then he wouldn’t have doubted me. Wouldn’t have believed I could betray him.
I stumble out of bed and take a shower in the dingy bathroom.
What’s my plan?
I need a plan. Finding out where I really stand with the Tacones would be a start. I need to call Sondra. And maybe she can help me figure out a way to prove to Stefano I wasn’t a part of my father’s plan.
I put on my dirty clothes and walk to a Walgreens on the corner where I buy a pair of flip flops, leggings and a t-shirt so I at least have something to change into. I also get a burner phone to make calls.
I hardly have anyone’s number memorized anymore, but Sondra and I have been close since before the dawn of cell phones. I still know her number by heart. I dial it, my nerves jangling as I wait for her to pick up.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s me.”
“Corey, thank God! Where are you? Where have you been? Stefano is looking for you.”
“I was afraid of that. My dad—”
“Stefano told me about the bug and that you tried to pay your dad off. He’s already called Stefano to blackmail him for more.”
“What?”
Of all the possible scenarios, that one hadn’t crossed my mind.
“Yeah, Stefano’s meeting him tonight in the Hard Rock parking garage.”
My heart thuds painfully against my chest. This is exactly what I need—my dad and Stefano in the same room—or garage, as the case may be. A chance to prove to Stefano I’m not a part of my dad’s nasty schemes.
“Thanks, that’s what I need to know,” I say.
“Wait, Corey!” Sondra yelps into the phone to stop me from hanging up. “Where are you? What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to prove to Stefano I wasn’t a part of this shitstorm. Or at least make him believe I didn’t know I was bugged. I should’ve told him about my dad investigating him—that’s on me. But I had no idea my dad planted a bug.”
“Stefano’s worried about you.”
My chest constricts painfully.
He still cares.
I can fix this.