Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 75107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
“Okay. Alright,” he agreed, glancing out the alley again before focusing on me. “You inherited this,” he said.
“Inherited. From the old director?”
“Yes. He’d been a willing… partner.”
“In what?” I bit the words off.
“Importing.”
“Drugs? Are you moving drugs through my charity?”
“No, babe. No,” he added more firmly as I crossed my arms. “It’s goods. Everything from jewelry to electronics.”
“Things that ‘fell off the back of a truck’ then?”
“Something like that.”
My heart sank as it suddenly made sense.
Why someone like him, who didn’t seem charity-minded, suddenly showed up at my door. Why he’d been so eager to do the most boring of tasks: unloading and sorting the toys from the trucks.
Betrayal was swift. It cut me off at the knees. If I’d been standing, I would have crumpled.
It was one thing to use my charity. I mean, it was screwed up. But that was one thing. It was a complete other matter to charm me, to go to parties with me, to put his hands on me, to fuck me.
My heart ached.
My stomach churned.
But I couldn’t process my personal feelings right then. Not with a guy chasing us. And definitely not with Venezio watching me so closely.
I’d be damned if he saw how deep his betrayal cut.
“How was the other director involved?”
“He was paid to look the other way.”
“He took money from the mob.”
“He did.”
“What did he do with it?”
“Funded his life, I imagine.”
I didn’t want to believe that. I wanted to be able to keep the man on a pedestal. The thing was, when I’d inherited the charity, I knew how little had been done for the actual children. Sure, some presents were given out. But not nearly enough for a man who used the charity as his “full-time job.”
I think I’d made a lot of excuses since taking over because it was hard. It was so much harder than I’d anticipated. But I had a job outside of this. I figured it was so difficult for me because I was new and because it wasn’t my sole focus.
“When you showed up,” I said, glancing up at him.
“I was trying to feel out if you’d be open to a bribe too.”
“And you decided I wasn’t.”
“No. You’re in this for the kids.”
“So you took the job to work behind my back.”
“Yes.”
“And you befriended me because… why? So I didn’t look twice at you? Didn’t suspect you?”
“That wasn’t supposed to be part of it, no.”
I wanted to believe him. I didn’t want to think there was a personal aspect to this, that genuine feelings had grown for him.
What better way to get me to not look into anything suspicious if he was charming me, if he was sleeping with me?
Bile slid up my throat.
“Steph, look—” Venezio started, his head tipped to the side. But just then, there was a loud yell from out on the street, followed by more cries of outrage.
I shot to my feet.
Venezio lifted his gun.
“Stay here,” he demanded, turning and making his way toward the mouth of the alley.
Honestly, I didn’t give it any thought.
I just turned to look out the other end of the alley.
Then I ran.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Venezio
“Just a purse-snatch—” I started as I turned back toward the middle of the alley where I’d left Stephanie.
The plastic crates she’d been sitting on, though, were empty.
My stomach dropped out as my mind raced, thinking the bastard had rushed in, slapped a hand over her mouth, and carried her off.
But no.
No.
My mind flashed back to her face as I’d confessed to working behind her back. I could see the hurt in her eyes that she didn’t believe me about not getting involved with her for the job. Of course she didn’t.
“Steph!” I called, tucking my gun away as I fucking darted down the alley, knowing she couldn’t have gotten far.
Not in those heels.
But betrayal could really fuel a person.
I knew a thing or two about that in my past, even if I knew my lifestyle was primed for it. I knew how deep that shit cut. And I’d never been screwed over by someone I’d slept with.
I burst out of the mouth of the alley, where my jacket was now tossed to the ground.
“Fuck,” I hissed, my head on a swivel.
She wasn’t hard to find in her wine-red dress.
But even as I spotted her, she was sliding into the back of a cab.
Then she was off.
And the traffic was light, so there was no catching up with her.
But it didn’t matter.
I knew where she was going.
I just—
A flash at my side had my head whipping over.
Then there he was again.
Like a fucking scent hound.
If we were on my home turf, I would know where to lead him that would allow me to put an end to this once and for all.
But we were far from my stomping ground.
And this wasn’t the Golden Age of the mob, where you could get away with a shooting on a busy street.