Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 71312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
“Now, tell me what you want, Savannah.”
“Put away the gun, Miles.”
“Are you crazy? You think you can make that kind of a request? That kind of a demand?”
“What are you going to do, shoot me? If you’re going to do that, you would’ve done it by now. I don’t think you can shoot me, Miles. I think there’s an agreement with our families, and if I’m dead, that agreement all goes away.”
He says nothing.
“So why don’t you tell me what that agreement is? Why you’re still after me all these years later? When we apparently came to a deal after I finished college?”
“That deal went away when you left your parole officer position in Austin.” He nudges the gun farther into my back.
I hold back a gasp, hold back a wince.
“So that’s what you want? You want me to go back to Austin, to my position there?”
I’ll do it. I’ll do it in a minute if it will spare Falcon.
“I’m afraid that deal’s off the table, you little bitch.”
Icicles hit my neck at his words. Not that he called me a bitch. But if he doesn’t want me back in the parole office, he obviously wants me for something else. And that could be anything.
“Tell me what you want,” I say, willing my voice not to stammer.
A caustic grin splits his face. “You’re going to be my bride, Savannah Gallo.”
I shake my head, calming the tremors inside me. “You don’t love me, despite what you said five years ago in that locked room.”
“No, I don’t. In fact, I hate you.”
Without thinking, I turn around, face him, his gun now pointed at my belly.
“Then what’s this about? Why do you need me to marry you?”
He pushes the nose of the gun into me. “Why don’t you ask your daddy?”
I swallow my fear of the pistol now touching me. “Do you see him here? I’m asking you!”
“Let’s get this straight, Savannah. I agree to listen to you. You tell me what you want. If I agree, you will walk to my car quietly, at my side, and we will be husband and wife by morning.”
I gulp, forcing the nausea down my throat. My stomach is churning, acid trying to float upward, but I steel it down.
“I want you to leave Falcon Bellamy alone.”
He lets out an acidic scoff. “The guy who killed Abel? I don’t think so, Savvy.”
I take a deep breath then, let it out slowly. I used to hate when Ashley called me Savvy. Now I would gladly listen to her on repeat for the rest of my life rather than hear it once more from Miles’s lips.
I draw in one more breath, let it out again. “Those are my terms. Whatever you think you have against Falcon, make it go away. Pay off the cops if you have to.”
“The guy’s an ex-con, Savannah.”
“He’s innocent.”
He laughs sarcastically. “Right. We’re all innocent, Savvy. There’s not one among us who’s guilty.”
I suppress my shivers, gulp down nausea once again. “I believe he’s innocent. Whether you do or not is inconsequential to me. He paid his dues, did his time. You know very well that he was acting in self-defense when he pistol-whipped Abel, and I know you can make this go away. Do that, and I’ll go with you. Now.”
“You think I have that kind of power?”
“If you don’t, your father does.”
“So does your father, Savvy.”
“You know as well as I do that this has to come from your side. Abel was your man. Make it go away, and make sure Giancarlo here lives, and I’m yours.”
“And you know what that means?”
I nod my head, again suppressing the quaking that’s going inside my body.
It means I’m his commodity. Owned by him. By Miles McAllister and the McAllister family.
He will rape me, and impregnate me, force me to bear his children, and if they’re girls? They’ll be auctioned off to the highest bidder as I was.
I hope I only have boys. Boys who escape like Vinny did. Not boys who die, like Michael did.
I nod again. “You must think me naïve, but I’m not. I know exactly what being your wife will mean. My only consolation is that you won’t bruise up my face or anything else that can be seen.”
“No,” he vows. “I will not. But I resent the implication that I’ll harm you in other ways.”
I sniff back a tear. “You’re already harming me, Miles. You’re forcing me into a marriage that neither of us wants. Marriage that somehow means some kind of alliance between our two families. You’re getting way more than me. There’s something you need, otherwise you wouldn’t be pushing this, not at this late date.” I pause a moment. “So do we have a deal?”
A moment passes.
Then another.
Until—
“Deal,” he says.
That’s all he says. He doesn’t offer me any explanation as to why. He doesn’t have to. I know something else is at play here. Something far more sinister than me fudging some parole records. Far more than both of us being forced into marriage.