Total pages in book: 52
Estimated words: 48018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Angelo and I are left in the car together.
“You should be more careful of him,” I murmur.
“Excuse me?” Angelo makes the inquiry with something like gentleness, or perhaps predatory softness. It is hard to tell.
“He’s dangerous, and he’s angry. He will hurt me, and he might hurt you.”
“Are you worried about me, Riley?” Angelo reaches out and turns my chin toward him, inspecting my gaze. “Are you already attached in some way? Do you know where you belong?”
I open my mouth slightly, but I don’t know what to say. I am worried for myself, but yes, there is some part of me that wants to preserve Angelo. I tell myself that’s because he is a capture target. He is not supposed to be hurt. He is supposed to be brought to justice.
“I know where I belong,” I tell him. It’s a non-answer, and he is not a stupid man. He knows that what I said doesn’t really mean anything, but he smiles approvingly anyway.
“Here.” Bobby opens the door of the car and tosses a heavy box at my midsection. “Clothes.”
“Thanks,” I say, more out of reflexive politeness than any true gratitude to him.
“Put them on,” Angelo says.
I open the box, revealing a simple suit and shirt combination. Angelo is going all out to disguise me as one of the boys. The agent Riley is fast disappearing.
It’s hard enough getting dressed in the back of a car, let alone in the back of a car between two broad-shouldered men, but I do what I can. It feels good to have pants on, at least. Having my legs covered is a psychological boost.
“She sits next to you, you call her your girl, you buy her things… You’ve known her less than a day and she’s already your new favorite.”
I hear jealous, bitter venom dripping from Bobby’s tone. Angelo has to be noticing this. Bobby is like a wild creature curled with its back against a wall, trapped between a bigger, wilder creature it must respect and what it thinks is a tasty little morsel it can control.
I’m still paying attention to what’s in the box, and what the point of it is. I think Angelo’s going to disguise me as a male, trying to throw the agency off the scent, as if they’re stupid enough to not notice that a male of my height and build has suddenly joined Angelo’s retinue.
Having gotten the pants on, I put the jacket over the shirt I’m already wearing, using the uncomfortable, twisting motions that are necessary to achieve those outcomes in the back seat of this car to slip the little knife from earlier into the pockets of the pants. These pants were made for men, so they have proper pockets. What a fucking relief. There’re even socks and shoes. The socks are thicker than women’s socks and comfier. The shoes are too. Somehow, it’s all my size.
Have we been getting screwed this entire time? Are suits actually… comfortable?
“Where’s the hat, Bobby?”
“They didn’t give me a hat.”
“There should be a hat box.”
“There wasn’t a fucking hat box.”
Angelo’s eyes narrow just a fraction as Bobby swears at him. “Go ask.”
Bobby sighs and slams out of the car. I can feel his rage depart with him, though I know it will be back, along with him. Less than sixty seconds, the cloud of his intensity returns. He wrenches the door open hard and fast, taking his temper out on every inanimate object in the place.
“Here.” He jabs the box into the car without looking, catching me off guard and also in the face.
Blood spurts out of my nose. It wasn’t that hard of a blow, but it did catch me at an unfortunate angle and now I’m bleeding all over the nice white shirt Angelo loaned me. Big red dollops of blood land down my front. I reach up to stop the bleeding with my hand, but that just puts it on my fingers, and from there, fucking everywhere.
Angelo comes to the rescue, shaking out a handkerchief and pressing it to my nose, stemming the flow of blood. He doesn’t make the mistake of tilting my head back. He knows better than that.
I feel immediately and completely taken care of. It’s wrong to feel this way. He’s an enemy and a captor, but with one hand on the back of my neck, and the other pinching my bleeding nose firmly, he feels like… I don’t even want to form the thought of the word in my head.
“What a fucking mess,” Bobby says as he ducks his head down to see the results of his carelessness, an expression of distaste on his handsome though petulant face. “We’ve got business to do.”
“I’m aware,” Angelo replies. “Go up front and relieve the driver.”
Smart. Angelo lets the driver take them into the city, but he doesn’t let the guy accompany them to any of their actual destinations. I bet if that driver were to be interrogated, he’d have a whole lot of intel that points the interrogator in entirely the wrong direction. Every single aspect of Angelo Vitali’s life is a misdirect of a misdirect.