Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
He grins, reaching for his tee on the floor. I pretend I’m not watching as his muscles bulge — I pretend I’m not staring at his honed abs, the breadth of his broad shoulders, or the light smattering of hair on his chest and abdomen.
I swallow and look away.
I’m…not the only one who’s grown up.
The door to the bathroom clicks shut as he goes to get ready. I take a deep breath.
I pull on jeans and a top, my hands shaking as I run a brush through my hair and wonder why they need to see us. Experience tells me that nothing good comes from urgent meetings at odd hours when you least expect it.
Or when you do.
Why does Tosca seem so certain that Timeo and I are…way more than brother- and sister-in-law? I wish I had the same assurance.
I pause at the voices outside my room. There are like fifty rooms in this damn place, why are they standing outside mine?
I look over my shoulder to make sure Timeo’s still in the bathroom. Ugh, I haven’t even had a chance to check my phone today, and I need to.
I open the door, step into the hall. It looks like they’re further down the hall than I thought.
Walking toward the voices, I flick open my phone, not surprised to see it’s blown up overnight with more notifications. I rifle through until I see Maya’s.
You alright? It’s not like you to be so absent!
I bite my lip and type a quick reply.
Timeo’s home
“Starla, there you are.” Sergio’s standing in the doorway to the reception room dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved tee.
Shit. Tosca is one thing, but Sergio is another. I don’t even know what I’d say to him if he saw me and his youngest brother — both of us single — barely dressed and sharing a bed.
If only he knew how boringly, perfectly chaste we kept it.
“Glad you survived the blizzard,” I mutter.
Sergio’s gaze darkens. Through the windows behind him, the road is crystal clear, though a faint dusting of snow covers the grass on the lawn. “Don’t be petty, get in here.” He steps back into the room. It isn’t fear that makes me hop to when it comes to Sergio. I’ve come to respect him and all that he’s done for me. So I do what he says.
“Timeo around?’
“Here.” Timeo walks in fully dressed, his hair still damp, a gun visible in the holster on his hip. You wouldn’t know that yesterday he looked like shit and that he was snoring three minutes ago. “What’s going on?”
Another door to the reception room opens, revealing Timeo’s oldest brother Ricco and their cousin Romeo.
My heart sinks to my toes. Romeo was in Italy and now he’s home.
Something’s gone wrong.
If Romeo or Sergio, either one of them, had any idea that Timeo spent the night in my bed…
“Where’s Eden?”
“Eden’s fine,” Sergio answers, but he doesn’t say where she is.
“I didn’t ask if she was fine. Where is she?” Panic chokes me. Wordlessly, Timeo reaches for my arm and tugs me into a seated position on a reception room chair he’s pulled out next to him.
“Patience,” he says under his breath in a low voice.
Ricco talks first. “Last night, Timeo alerted us that one of the bushes outside The Castle was obviously trampled.”
I shake my head, confused. That seems like such a small, trivial detail. Why would it concern them so much?
“Okay?”
Ricco and Sergio share a look. Tosca stands with her arms crossed on her chest, her lips pressed together in a thin line.
“The Castle’s been compromised. We ran over the footage from yesterday, and it appears there’s been a plant.”
Ricco holds up a tiny device in the palm of his hand.
“What is it?” I ask.
Timeo reaches for it. “This is a tracker. Sort of like an AirTag. But this one is highly equipped and prepared to detonate.”
My jaw drops open.
“None of you are safe here until we make a professional sweep of The Castle,” Romeo continues. “Mama, you and Nonna will go stay with Orlando. Staff’s been put on paid leave until further notice.”
Tosca nods, not surprised or knocked off-kilter by the suddenness of this.
Sergio speaks up next. “Timeo, you’ll stay at Bella Notte. Starla, you’ll stay with me and Eden.”
Of fucking course they’ll separate us.
I shake my head. “I don’t understand. Why do I have to stay with you if it’s The Castle that’s been compromised?”
Sergio blows out a breath and exchanges a look with Romeo before he turns back to me. “It wasn’t just The Castle.”
My heart beats faster. I’m on my feet, shaking my head, afraid for Eden and my friends —
“Your apartment, Starla. It’s been completely destroyed. Someone sent us a message.”
CHAPTER TEN
Timeo
This is all my fault, and I know exactly why.
Starla remains stoic as Sergio and Romeo tell her what happened and show her footage of her apartment.