Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 73663 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73663 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
“I don’t want to hear you talk like that again.” I stare at my brother. I don’t want to be harsh with him, but he needs to understand how things are now. “Papa is gone.”
He nods slowly. “I know that. You’re right. But, Ren, I’ve got more news for you. I really didn’t want to tell you right now, but it’s important.”
“What can possibly be so important that you’d bring it up now, of all times? With the Famiglia on the verge of a slaughter?”
“Your fiancée’s gone missing.”
That stops me in my tracks.
The cold fury that’s been building in my chest leaches away as I stare into my brother’s ashen face.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know the details. Gian’s handling that shit right now. But from what he told me, it seems the girl bought a dozen plane tickets this morning, shook her guards, and disappeared. She could be on a flight to Australia, or she could be on a bus to New York. Nobody knows.”
I sit back, stunned into silence. The Spire deal is bad, but this? I can’t even begin to process.
I don’t care about losing the girl. I met her once, only briefly, and she struck me as just another mafia princess, spoiled rotten. I figured I’d have to break her of some bad habits if she was going to be a suitable wife. All I really wanted was the alliance with her family and a warm body in my bed capable of giving me babies.
But if the girl is gone, I don’t see how that can move forward. Not until we negotiate a new deal, and it took us months to come to this agreement. There are other sisters, cousins, other appropriate women—
None that I can have right now when I need a whiff of legitimacy the most.
I stand and turn my back on Saul. An enormous bookshelf climbs to the wall covered with rare volumes—my father’s old hobby. I haven’t been able to clear the stuff out yet. Photographs of my old man when he was younger smiling with his original Capos stare at me. Accusing me of failure.
The Spire deal gone to the Aslanov.
The Rinaldo girl missing.
All my carefully laid plans are crumbling at my feet.
Chapter 5
Maddie
Nicole rubs my back as I sit and stew in misery, surrounded by nothing.
Blank walls, empty shelves. The sick bastard even took all my old DVDs.
“Can I admit something?” she asks, running her nails down between my shoulder blades. The girl’s always got the best manicure in the city.
“Sure, go ahead.”
“I always hated him.” She stops rubbing and looks at me, legs crossed. Nicole’s tall and lean, blonde hair, amazing body. We work out together, but she’s the real fitness freak. I’m pretty sure there’s not a single speck of excess fat anywhere on her—except in her tits and ass. “I’m not surprised this happened at all.”
“You’re not surprised he ran off to join the Cult of Hiss?” I did a bit of Googling since my work conversation last week and found out way too much about my ex’s current whereabouts. “You’re not surprised he decided to dedicate his life and all his worldly belongings to an intergalactic snake deity?”
“First of all, he dedicated all your worldly belongings. And second, no, obviously not, but I always thought he was a freak. It was either this or he was going to end up getting arrested for touching himself on the subway.”
“You really thought that about Mark? Dependable, accountant Mark?”
“The guy was a weirdo. You stuck around with him because you’re so afraid of change, but there were signs.”
“Like what?”
“Uh, he collected bird skulls, for one.”
“That was an art project,” I protest, but deflate the moment the words leave my lips. “Okay, I’ll give you that.”
“He spent hours online, remember? You’d wake up and find him on like 4-chan posting weird memes?”
“That’s true. He did have a disturbing meme folder on his phone.”
“There were the diets too, remember those? He drank nothing but protein shakes for like a month? And when he was doing the intense fasting? Mark’s always had some bizarre new thing going on. It was only a matter of time before he fell in with a cult.”
I lean my head back on the couch, eyes squeezed shut. “There were good times,” I say softly. “Weren’t there?”
“Probably.” Nicole leans back next to me. “But can you remember any?”
I try to think back. The early days were fun, back when we were first getting to know each other. But after that, it was mostly just okay. Never good enough to make me happy, never bad enough to make me leave.
“I thought we were going to get married.” I feel miserable and pathetic. It’s been over a week since Mark decided he was a snake-worshipping asshole, and I should be over him by now.