Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
He texted back to tell me that he had it covered.
And, honestly, if anyone could, it was Miko.
Which left me twiddling my fucking thumbs as I waited for the ferry.
“Yo, wait up,” Gio called as I started to walk toward the building.
I turned, finding not only Gio, Ciro, and Elio, but Matej walking toward me. The latter’s face was a mask of pure fucking fury.
“Matej, you could have stayed. I don’t even know if there’s a problem yet,” I said, even as my stomach twisted tighter with each passing second that I didn’t hear from Miko. Even as my common sense told me he was likely twenty minutes out from the studio himself.
“There’s a problem,” he said, voice tight.
As we all boarded the ferry, I had to admit that I believed that as well.
We were exiting the ferry when my phone finally started to ring.
“Miko,” I answered, hearing the desperation in my own voice.
“There was no one at the studio,” he said. “And before you ask, Venezio, Brio, and I checked out the row house. It’s empty.”
“Fuck,” I hissed.
“Could she be home?” he asked.
“Maybe,” I said, giving him that address. “Anywhere else you want us to look?”
“She has a warehouse in El Barrio,” I told him. “I’m on land now. I’m going to head there.”
“If there’s nothing at her place, we will head that way too.”
I relayed the information to the Morellis and Matej as we went toward the row of cabs.
I gave one cab the address before climbing into another with Gio.
“Hey, we’re going to find her,” Gio insisted.
Yeah.
I had no doubt about that.
But what if we found her too late?
What if her apartment or the warehouse looked like Matej’s kitchen?
Visions of Saylor writhing around in her own blood, hands gripping at the walls, spreading bloody handprints all over the surfaces spread across my mind, becoming more vivid with each passing moment as we drove from the port all the way up to Spanish Harlem.
We had the cabs drop us off a block away and started out on foot.
There was no one around that seemed out of place, so I rushed toward the warehouse.
But it was no use.
The doors were locked.
I didn’t know the code.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Saylor
I was still trying to shake off the strange sadness clinging to me as I climbed into my SUV and started the drive back to Spanish Harlem, stopping only once when the traffic was at a near standstill, and I needed to get some coffee and something to eat if I was going to make it all the way from the port to my warehouse without some serious road rage.
I found myself only ordering a corn muffin because, get this shit, I didn’t want to fill up by myself. I wanted to wait to eat until I could share a meal with Anthony.
That was insane.
Or, at least, it felt that way to someone who almost always ate all my meals alone.
Suddenly, maybe for the first time in my life, I kind of wished I had a female friend to talk to about the whole situation with Anthony.
I mean, yeah, I had my mom. But I also knew what my mother thought about my, er, situation, with Anthony. She might not have said as much, but I could tell she was already picturing me in a white gown, and debating what kind of flowers would look best at my wedding. And, of course, how many grand babies she might get out of us.
I’d never even given kids a passing thought before. To be honest, I’d never even held a baby, let alone considered what it might be like for one to literally depend on me for survival.
But if I wanted to be with Anthony, that was something I would need to think on since, well, I didn’t imagine that a man coming from a massive Italian family wouldn’t want his own litter of children.
“Getting ahead of yourself here,” I mumbled to myself as I sat at yet another red light that had barely moved for three separate light changes.
Still, I couldn’t seem to stop my mind from running away with me once the idea planted and started to take root.
Suddenly, we were adding five more branches to the Costa family tree, and I was having to learn to cook, so none of us starved.
Some part of me expected those thoughts to create panic or disgust. I never saw myself as someone who would want to be in the kitchen with a baby on her hip, stirring homemade sauce as a couple of other kids pressed slime into the living room carpet.
Those weren’t the dominant feelings, though.
No. If anything, it was curiosity and interest. Something I wanted to give more thought to.
Weird.
Especially for someone who never really had the urge to be a mother. Hell, I’d never even been a pet-parent until, what, a few days ago. And Fury didn’t even live with me full-time yet.