Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 118245 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 591(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118245 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 591(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
She crossed her arms and leaned against the car. “It all started when Antonia told me she was pregnant...”
“So you told your sister I was at Carnevale, and she still refused to leave with you?”
The only tiny kernel of redemption in how I'd treated my girl that first night was she at least got pleasure out of it. That still didn’t forgive my barbaric behavior toward an untried virgin. That I thought she was her sister was not enough of an excuse for my guilty mind.
I wrapped my left hand over my right fist. “He did what?”
She had barely gotten to the part where her sister drugged her and then pawned her unconscious body off on some thug ex-boyfriend and already there were several people I wanted to straight up murder.
“I’m going to need his full name when you’re done.”
Hell, Dante might not have enough soldiers in his mafia syndicate to continue once I was done cleaning house. Problem solved.
My fingers dug into my brow bone as I rubbed my eyes. “So that’s why you tipped the tray over?”
Ella spread her arms wide. “Antonia told me I had to make it believable!”
Just another link in the chains I would be wearing in hell for how I'd treated this sweet, innocent creature in the beginning. Christ, that was the night I treated her like a pony and used an e-stim riding crop on her.
Fuck, I was totally going to hell.
I kept my eyes shielded as I groaned, “Continue.”
I paced in front of her, running my hand through my hair. “You’re telling me that you’ve been handing over all sorts of incriminating shit to this asshole, Fino, for months now?”
She twisted her hands in front of her. “He said if I gave him information on my father, he’d look into my mother’s disappearance.”
My lungs filled with crisp winter air as I took a deep breath and prayed for patience. Desperately trying to keep my voice even and calm, I asked, “Would I be correct in assuming all this evidence can be traced back to show you’re the one who took it?”
She bit her lip and grimaced. “Yes, but that’s not the worst part…”
My girl had a “fun” definition of bad if she thought making a mortal enemy of not just her own father, but Dante as well, wasn't the worst part. She obviously didn’t consider that in her zeal to reveal her father’s criminal actions, she would be implicating the entire Agnello syndicate.
It was a fucking miracle she wasn’t already dead and rotting in some unmarked grave.
Placing my hands on my hips I stared down into the dirt, afraid I’d shake her if I met her gaze. I sighed before asking, “What is the worst part, baby?”
She gestured to me. “See, you’re angry. I don’t want to tell you now.”
I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her close. After kissing her forehead, I said, “Yes. I’m very angry. Possibly the angriest I’ve ever been in my life, but not at you. Now tell me.”
“You’ll yell.”
“I promise I won’t.”
“Are you motherfucking kidding me?” I yelled once she finally related the true circumstances of how I found her last night.
She stamped her foot. “You promised you wouldn’t yell.”
Through clenched teeth, I growled, “That was before you told me some asshole snuck onto my family’s land and tried to choke you to death.”
“He wouldn’t have really killed me. He needed me alive to…” Her voice drifted off. “Spy on your family,” she finished in a small voice.
I threw my arms in the air. “Well, that makes all the difference.”
A tentative smile crossed her lips. “It does?”
Storming toward her, I wrapped my hand around the base of her skull and pulled her close before slamming my mouth down on hers. Thrusting my tongue inside her sweet mouth, I devoured her in a hard, possessive kiss before breaking free.
I leaned my forehead against hers as I rasped, “No, my sweet girl. The only difference it makes is instead of putting a bullet between his eyes, now I’m going to use a knife to puncture every major vein in his body and force him to watch as the blood slowly drains from it.”
She blinked. “You’re not serious, are you?”
“Deadly serious.”
She gripped my shirt. “You can’t kill him.”
“I assure you, I can.”
“You don’t understand. I need to get to Judge Delluci to convince him to arrest my father. And Fino is the one with access and all my evidence. I think my father has attacked my sister. I already might be too late. Toni called me earlier screaming for help. I haven’t been able to reach her since.”
There was very little chance the phone call Ella received was genuine.
Because my father informed me not an hour earlier that Antonia had made her way to the mainland yesterday, having fled the moment she learned I knew of their switch. And there being no evidence her blowhard father even knew anything was amiss, it was doubtful it was real.