Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84901 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84901 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
“Here we go, the Italian lover.” Rain rolled her eyes.
I sited perfectly, muzzle aimed. Right. Between. Rainita Howard’s eyes. “Come again?” I asked, voice as smooth as the fine caresses I’d offered this beauty.
Through the scope, I readjusted the dial, narrowing my eyes onto Rain. From a creamy tan blur to live, vivid, and fearful … I caught her in my crosshairs. Her pulse quickened. The visual so sharp, I counted her inhales. Shallow, shaky, fast. Those much too-small breasts—not Natasha’s size—heaved faster.
“I can’t”—I reached above the grip and clicked off the safety—“hear you. Got any suggestions for my Italian accent?”
“It-it sounds genuine.”
“I know. Perfected it myself. Now, you said something about leaving a call from Vassili available on Natasha’s phone.” A lethal threat laced my tone. “Make me understand.”
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was more breathy than audible. “I’m sorry, Enzo. For authentication reasons, I didn’t wipe all Vassili’s voicemails from Natasha’s phone. By now, she’s aware of her father’s concerns. He’d call her. She knows that.”
“So true.” With a twist of the dial, I blurred her face against the scope’s glass, reducing her to obscurity. “This is such a lovely mind game. My father used to do that, Mama said. Disappear behind a charming grin, until his fist snaked out.”
“I th-thought you said he only hit her once? She went into labor?”
Ugh. Mama. Her story constantly changed. But I preferred the beauty of him only hitting her the one time. To. Meet. Me. “Why are you asking me questions and not answering mine?”
Rain picked at her fingers. “Va-Vassili … can’t reach her. She can’t dial him on her phone or Lachlan’s. Anytime they call, fake rings precede the usual voicemail prompt.”
“What about the cousin?” I asked.
“What’s her name?”
“I told you her name, Corporal Rain Howard.”
Her voice became a soft stutter. “I-I’m sorry. I forgot. Please tell me again.”
“First, you ask me a question. Now, you want me to repeat myself.” Chuckling, I pulled the trigger.
“Ahhhhh!” Rain’s eyes snapped shut.
“You are so silly. There’s no magazine in the stock, cara. You practiced with these guns, right? Before going to cyber ops?”
“I-I …”
At this point, I doubted her ability to think coherently, let alone speak. My father used to tell Mama she wasn’t allowed to forget things either. And when she did … well, she showed me pictures of her in long sleeves during summer. After her death, a therapist mentioned how she suffered from some … diagnosis. Something where her mind got confused during stress. Utter crap! Nothing was wrong with Mama! I’d walked out when the therapist muttered something about genetics.
My thoughts went haywire. Italian curses. I cleared my throat. “Mirror Simona’s voice,” I began. “Call Natasha. Let her know—as Simona—that she’ll handle Natasha’s father. I don’t want Natasha worrying.”
Rain caught my eye, a sign of defiance. “Okay.”
“Good. Let’s make her feel better?”
“Okay. This will work if Simona has a personalized voicemail. Can’t process a deepfake without a sample of her voice.”
Let’s hope so. I rolled my eyes.
As Rain made the call, she attached her phone to the laptop’s USB port. She better not disappoint me. Or … herself for that matter.
“She has a short callback message.” Rain sighed. “Not many word choices. My program is analyzing Simona’s voice, and with such a short voicemail prompt, it’s creating probable inflections based on her tone.”
“Use speaker when you call. I need to hear Natasha’s voice.” I glared at the cursive in my journal on the couch. She will be mine.
I didn’t need her in my life. I wanted her … for a day or two. A little while later, Rain made the call.
“Sima? Hey, you haven’t answered me.” Natasha’s voice rang through the speaker, hopeful, sweet. Like Mama’s apology and hope that I’d make something of myself before her breaths became shallower because of the pills.
Rain typed a message that would transcribe Simona’s voice. I waited, pulse matching Natasha’s cadence through the static.
And I smiled, because Father left Mama. But me?
I’d never let Natasha go.
Even if it killed her.
42
NATASHA
“When I carried ye …” Lachlan’s voice cracked “… outta your da’s nightclub, I knew I wasn’t gonna let you go. Can’t let you go, Natasha. You belong to me.”
This wasn’t the right time to lose myself in the magnificent summer pools of Lachlan’s eyes or the pure distraught look that tore his beautiful face apart on the plane ride.
While Lachlan slept on the plane and later on that bed, I hadn’t gotten hold of Pop or Momma. My entire family seemed to have vanished off my radar. But as I peered up at Lachlan, the answer that zinged from the top of my head to the soles of my feet and sang through my body was yes.
Breathless, that word barely brushed past my lips. “Yes.”
“Aye?” Lachlan took another step forward. A formidable force.