Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Nino gave me a look that said he wanted to stay, wanted to at least wait until I was in a better headspace about it all, but there were some things that were out of his control.
So he went to the elevator, waiting for his brothers, then dropped the bags inside the door. All the while, I stood with my arms wrapped around myself, feeling almost nothing, detached from it all.
“I won’t be long,” he insisted, caressing my arms, then placing a kiss to my forehead.
Everything about him said he didn’t want to go.
But he had to.
So he did.
I watched the door click, felt the sound kind of reverberate through me, but I must have stood there a while longer before I was snapping slightly out of it.
I went to the bags, placing them on the island, and methodically going through them.
There were snacks and fresh food ingredients. All completely unnecessary since there was a giant insulated bag full of tins with frozen meals in them. Easy to pop in the oven and eat while you’re staying at the safe house.
I couldn’t help but wonder how many times his mom had been through this. Watching the men she loved have to flee and hide out to stay safe. Because someone wanted to kill them.
How did a wife and mother to mafia men keep themselves from crumbling into a pile of anxiety all the time?
It seemed as though maybe Nino’s mom took all that anxiety and harnessed it, used it to power through and do what she could. Cook. Shop. Assist.
There was no mistaking that the men were strong.
But I had a sneaking suspicion that it was the women who kept the family going.
Aside from food, there were bags of clothing for me. All in my size. And, almost unbelievably, all in my style as well.
Moms.
There was no one else like them in the world.
At that thought, a pain seized my heart, making me almost double over with it on my way to the bedroom to put the clothes away.
She was going to be fine, damnit.
She had to be.
With that, I pulled on some panties and one of the outfits Nino’s mom had provided—canary yellow linen pants and a simple white t-shirt—then made my way back out into the main area of the house.
That was when I heard it.
Ringing.
Something was ringing.
But Nino had taken his phone with him. And as far as I could tell, there was no landline.
There was no mistaking it, though.
A phone was ringing.
And the sound was coming from the… island?
Had his mom provided me with an extra phone? So Nino could contact me?
Even as I thought that, though, I brushed it aside. Because this was a familiar ring. One I’d recorded myself because it was loud, but not alarming, so it didn’t give me a jolt of anxiety whenever it caught me off guard.
It was my phone.
They must have brought it from Nino’s house.
With that, I flew across the suite, my heart lodged in my throat. My arms shot out, knocking random items—a disposable razor, a bottle of lotion, and a variety pack of tampons with “Just in case!” written on the front with black permanent marker—to the ground in my haste.
My hands were shaking as I looked down at the screen.
And there it was.
Mom calling.
“Mom?” I yelped into the phone, my voice sounding like the panicked little girl I very much felt like right then.
“If you want to see your mother alive again, meet us at the old bike shop off of Taylor Avenue. You have thirty minutes.”
Click.
It was straight out of a freaking action movie. Or some serialized drama show on TV.
People actually made calls like that?
Made demands like that?
I guess the films and shows had to base it off of something real, right?
I didn’t stop to think.
I mean, why the hell would I waste that kind of time?
What I did do, though, was run back into the bedroom, finding the gun that I’d seen nestled in the nightstand.
I didn’t know a damn thing about guns. But they didn’t exactly seem like rocket science. Point, pull trigger, boom.
It was surprisingly heavy in my hand, and my stomach flip-flopped as I shoved it into my bag.
There was a set of keys amongst the mess of bags. I figured the chain must have belonged to Dante or Santo, and they’d left it because the three of them had gone wherever they were going in the same car.
I would ask for forgiveness later.
But I was stealing his car.
I grabbed the keys in my hand, then made my way out the door.
Nino had taken the elevator key with him, but I was hoping that it would go down even without it. You know, for fire safety reasons and such.
I’d been right to guess that.
My heart was in my throat as I rushed through the lobby, heading out into the bright sun.