Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 35213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 176(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 176(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
"I need to borrow Mattia for a while." I scrub a hand through my hair, blowing out a breath instead of getting into all of that with him now. We've gotten good at the silence part of the vow. "Not sure how long. May need another man or two as well. Whoever you trust most."
"What the fuck, Gabe? What's going on?"
"It's personal."
"Last time I suggested assigning men to you and the company, we almost came to blows," he reminds me, his tone flat. "Now you're voluntarily requesting them? Make it my business."
"I've got someone staying with me. Genesis. She may be in some sort of trouble."
"Ah," Rafe says as if that explains everything, even though I left out every goddamn detail I could have possibly given him. "Of course it's a girl."
"It's not like that." I fire a curse up at the ceiling in my office. "It is like that. Whatever. Just send Mattia to me."
"What sort of trouble is she in?"
"If I knew that, I wouldn't need Mattia."
"What do you know?"
"That playing twenty goddamn questions with you is irritating the hell out of me."
Rafe chuckles. "Play them anyway, little brother. I'm curious."
"About what?"
"You. Your life. This Genesis." He sighs heavily. "I can count on one hand the number of times you've called me for help in the last decade. Hell, I can count on one hand the number of times you've called me at all in the last year."
"You don't pick up the phone either, Rafe."
"Would you answer if I did?"
I hesitate, not honestly sure how to answer that question.
"Aren't you tired of carrying it, Gabe? I'm fucking tired of carrying it." Rafe exhales another deep, weary sigh.
"Fifteen years."
"What?"
"Fifteen years," I repeat. "That's how long Ruben Shores has left on his sentence for causing the accident we both know I caused. I killed a girl, and he's the one rotting in prison for it. So maybe he's the one you should be asking that question, Rafe."
He doesn't say anything. What can he say? What we carry is small fries compared to what Ruben Shores carries because of us. He's been in prison for five years. He'll be lucky if he's out in five more. By then, his daughter will be grown. She'll have spent half of her life without her dad.
And Rafe signed off on it while I lay in a coma. He made the choice for both of us because he couldn't afford to let me go. No, I don't hate him. But I don't know how the fuck to forgive him, either.
"Just send Mattia, Rafe."
Chapter Five
Genesis
"What is this?" Gabriel asks, eyeing the pot of spaghetti as if it might bite him. If I knew how to make food bite, his just might. Unfortunately for me, I haven't mastered alchemy.
I'm pretty good at torture, though.
"Spaghetti," I say cheerfully, slopping a giant helping onto his plate. The thin, runny sauce splatters over the edge, splashing his jacket and shirt. "Oops!"
"You did that on purpose."
"Cooked you spaghetti?" I play dumb, scrunching my face up like I don't know what he's talking about. "Of course I did. You're Italian. You didn't tell me what you wanted to eat. I thought I'd stick to something in your wheelhouse."
He glances from me to the pasta and then back to me, using a napkin to carefully dab at the sauce splattered all over his shirt. "This has never been in my wheelhouse, piccola fiamma. I don't believe this is in anyone's wheelhouse. Why is it like soup?"
"I added water. The sauce was chunky and weird."
His left eye twitches and then his nostrils flare. "What the fuck is that smell?"
"Oh!" I drop the pot of spaghetti in front of him on the table and scurry back into the kitchen, arriving in front of the toaster just as the toast pops from it. It's basically four charred bricks dripping with garlic butter. Perfect.
As weapons.
I can't wait to see him try to choke this down. If he lasts that long. Maybe his head will explode as soon as he sees it. A girl can hope, right?
I'm being a brat. I know I am…and yet I can't seem to stop myself. I don't want to stop myself. He's been bossy, rude, and arrogant since I met him. He practically forced me into his employ, threatened to fire Ms. Lydia, and then kissed me senseless. When his lips were on mine, I didn't want him to stop.
God help me, I wanted him to consume me.
If his brother is the devil, he's whatever comes next in the hierarchy of Very Bad Things. I can't soften toward him. I can't bend. If I do…No. My problems are my own.
"What the fuck is that?" he growls, glaring at the bread on the platter in my hands as if it's personally offended him.
"Garlic bread." I paste a patently false smile on my face as I drop two pieces onto his place. One lands directly on top of his spaghetti, splattering more of the running, watery sauce. "Eat up, Mr. Valentino."