Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“They’re not foolish. Papa—”
“Stop it. Right now. Go get a gun, go to the girl, and finish this job. You have been nothing but a disappointment to me and I hoped you’d be able to do one thing right, and here we are, another fuck-up. Once the girl is done, call me back, and I’ll pretend like none of this happened. Fuck, you’re going to kill me.”
He hangs up and the line buzzes.
I stand there, seething, trying to calm myself down. I keep pacing, back and forth, back and forth. I’m a fuck-up? I’m a failure? I’ve done nothing but follow his orders and pull off some of the most dangerous hits anyone has ever attempted. Nobody in this world talks to me the way my father does, and he’s the only one that could ever get away with it. I despise him for that, for treating me like I’m a moron, like I’m useless, when I lead his best squad of killers, when I’ve been nothing but reliable for years and years. And yet he still acts like I’m a dumb, sullen teenager, and talks to me like I’m a child.
I whip open my drawer and grab a gun.
Kacia’s room is next to mine. My head’s a fucking mess of voices, some of them my father, some of them pieces of me, dark pieces of me. Some of them are the voices of my victims, goading me on. What’s one more name on the list, one more ghost in the chorus inside your head? Do it, Luca. Take another life. The voices don’t mind when I dig my fingers into the windpipe of an enemy and keep digging until they stop moving. The voices urge me on in combat, make me faster, make me pull the trigger without hesitating. The voices turned me into a killer, a monster.
They’re all a part of me. It’s not like I’m losing my mind.
It’s more like I’m torn in a dozen directions.
I stand outside her door, gripping the gun, before I yank open the lock and throw it wide.
She’s standing next to the bed, her tank top in her hands, waving it in the air. Her face whips around, her mouth falls open—
Her breasts shake. Full, beautiful, pink nipples still stiff from outside, from our kiss. Sun-tanned skin, smooth and lovely. Collarbones, shoulders, flat stomach with a birthmark next to the belly button. Her mouth drops wide and her tank top falls away, fluttering to the floor, as her arms whip over her breasts to cover herself.
“I was trying to dry it out,” she says quickly, backing away as I slam her door behind me. “It was soaked from running and I don’t have a change and—”
I walk to her with the gun in my hand. She looks down at it, trembling, half naked and so vulnerable and so fucking beautiful it makes my heart hurt.
“Is that it then?” she whispers.
I grab her by the throat and push her back against the wall. She gasps and her hands come up to grab my wrist. I snarl in her face and hold the gun against her head.
I should fucking do it, blow her brains out, scatter her ashes in the fucking sea, and be done with this chapter of my life. I don’t need her, I don’t need anyone, not Fio, not my men, not my father.
Not this fucking girl.
But she doesn’t look afraid.
Instead, she’s staring back at me, almost like she wants me to do it.
Like she made her decision.
Is this girl worth it? Worth the hell?
My eyes drift to her lips. My thumb between her lips. I look down to her breasts. The stiff, pink nipples are practically begging for my teeth. I look back up and meet her eyes.
“Did you choose yet, flower?” My voice comes out strangled.
“No,” she whispers.
I kiss her hard. I bite her lower lip and keep my gun to her head. She moans into my mouth and my grip on her throat loosens. What the fuck am I doing? I don’t know anymore. I can’t think straight. Slowly, my hand drops from her neck down to her breasts, cupping them, teasing her nipples as the kiss deepens and her moans get lower.
I press the gun tighter to her temple.
“Make me put it down,” I whisper, forehead against hers, hand moving back into her hair. “Come on, flower. Give me the excuse. I fucking need you to give me a reason to put this gun down.” My ears are ringing, my pulse is hammering, and I’m desperate for her to say something, anything, to make this stop.
“Kiss me,” she says, staring me in the eyes. “Just kiss me. That’s all you have to do.”
I kiss her, slower, deeper. I luxuriate in that kiss. The voices that are screaming at me to do it, to pull the trigger, start to quiet.