Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 89232 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89232 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
I swallow as an army of men enter behind him, all carrying guns. A choked sound comes from the vicar behind us.
Angelo advances slowly, trailing a path with his gaze over me. What I see in those dark eyes sends shivers through my body. Possession. Fury. A promise of vengeance.
The women make themselves small. Only Doris gets up, but the men have surrounded them, cutting off all paths to the exits. Celeste covers Brad’s eyes, whispering something about a game.
Someone closes the doors. They shut with a heavy bang.
I swallow again, trying to get my vocal cords to work, but Angelo beats me to it.
His smile is wicked, and his voice drips with evil sarcasm. “Did I arrive before the part where I get to object?” He lifts his arm, aiming the gun at Colin. “Or am I going to have to make you a widow before I can marry you, cara?”
Chapter
Twenty-Six
Angelo
* * *
My bride is a deceitful traitor. She steps in front of the man she has or is about to marry, protecting him from the bullet meant for his heart. She fucking shields him, placing the body and life that belong to me in the path of danger. By doing that, she puts herself head-on in the way of my wrath, because the fury that ravaged me a minute ago is nothing compared to the inferno of violent rage erupting inside me now.
I’ll fucking kill him. Them. Every single man. Right here. I don’t care if I do it in a church. The grace of a holy place won’t save them. You have to possess some reverence to respect a house of religion, and I don’t have a dignified bone in my body.
My voice doesn’t betray the level of my anger. My tone reflects a well-practiced calm. “Aren’t you going to answer me, bella?” I turn the gun on the vicar. “Should I ask him? Does he need a bullet in the stomach as motivation?”
“No,” she cries out, raising her hands in a placating manner. “We haven’t made the vow.”
I take her in, how beautiful she looks in the dress I chose, the dress in which she was meant to marry me. So help me, I’ll strip that dress off her perfect body and make her regret every second of her despicable, insulting betrayal.
First, I have to focus. I have to fight through the cobwebs of crazed jealousy that obscure my reason. I have to make sure my little traitor isn’t also a liar.
I direct my question at the vicar. “Did they say the vow?”
He shakes his head with fervor.
Not turning the gun away from his head, I say, “Swear it on the Bible.”
“I swear.” He lifts trembling hands in the air. “Check for yourself. They haven’t exchanged the rings.”
I shift my gaze to Sabella’s hand. All her fingers are naked. But under the dress, she already carries my mark. She had no right to give it to another man. How was she going to explain that to her husband on her wedding night?
Fuck.
The thought makes me put pressure on the trigger. I dispel the image that takes shape in my mind lest I kill the motherfucker behind her without making him suffer.
My command is cool and controlled, not giving away how close I am to snapping. “Step out of the way, Sabella.”
“No, please,” she says in a tremulous voice. “Don’t hurt him.”
She’s pleading for him? She’s begging me on his behalf? That does it.
“Take the women and the kid outside,” I instruct the guards.
“No.” Sabella jumps forward, pushing her chest against the barrel of the gun. “It was my idea. If you have to punish someone, kill me.”
My eyes tighten, narrowing involuntarily to slits at the sight of the hard, black metal of the pistol caressing the silk of the wedding gown right between her breasts.
“Have you forgotten?” I ask with an icy inflection. “Your life belongs to me.”
Her soft brown eyes glimmer with tears. “Please, Angelo.”
The sound of my name on her lips gives me pause. It jars me, just for a second, but she senses it, because she continues quickly.
“Let them go, Angelo. They had nothing to do with it. They’re innocent. I’m the guilty one.” She leans into the gun, putting her weight behind it. “I’m the one who asked them to do this.”
“I’m not leaving my husband,” a woman says in a shaky voice. “If he stays, I stay too.”
Celeste. The sister-in-law.
Stupid woman. Stupid but loyal.
Her husband, Ryan, grips her bicep and gives her a slight shake of his head.
Sabella’s voice pulls my attention back to her. “We can get married. Right here.” Her gaze is pleading. “The vicar can do it.” She even manages a quivering smile. “Please, Angelo. Let’s do it here. Now. Everything is ready. Let the others go.”
She’s offering me an exchange—her vow for her family’s lives. Only, her vow was always supposed to be mine. She can’t bargain with something that already belongs to me.