Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 125243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“Hattie was Antonio’s first wife?”
I realize I vocalized my confusion out loud when Azra nods.
“Azra… she committed suicide.” The thought of defending that prick makes me sick to my stomach, but footage doesn’t lie. Antonio’s wife walked off the top floor of a multiple-story mansion like she had wings. There was no one else on the roof. Not a single soul.
Azra violently shakes her head. “No. He killed her. I know he did.”
I believe her without pause for deliberation, but it doesn’t make my confusion any less notable. I went so hard on my quest to cancel Azra’s wedding to Antonio because footage of her suicide wasn’t the only footage Elio plucked from Adami’s servers on the commute to the hotel hosting the wedding.
“I will get you answers. But I need you to be honest with me. I can’t help you if you don’t let me in.”
She gauges the authenticity of my pledge before her high shoulders finally lose their tautness. “Okay.”
“Yeah?” My smirk is far too playful for the circumstances, but that’s how stoked I am that she’s finally accepting my help.
Azra’s smile matches mine. “Yeah.”
I stand, taking her with me. Her squeal when I twirl her in a circle announces to our remaining guests that the festivities are over. They pile out with brief chin dips and wiggling fingers. The only ones who move in for a more formal goodbye are my brothers.
They welcome Azra into the family in true Caruso style, by making me furious with jealousy, before they tell me they’re only a phone call away if we need them.
“I’ve got it for now,” I assure them.
I’m still piecing the puzzle together, hence my eagerness to see out the last of our guests, but Azra is holding all the pieces, and I’m salivating to help her solve it.
Chapter 38
Azra
Even though we’ve left them behind, the heat of the ballroom lights blisters on my skin. The echo of applause and murmured congratulations clings to me like static. My head spins, and my hands sweat so badly that I’m surprised Matteo hasn’t commented on it yet.
I’m married.
To Matteo Caruso.
What the—
My anger folded so fast it’s humiliating, but seriously, how could it not? He kneeled in front of the who’s who of the mafia world.
My mother could hold a gun to my father’s head, and he still wouldn’t kneel.
But Matteo did for me.
He dropped to his knees as if pride doesn’t count and his reputation is worthless. He made it seem as if the world could collapse around him and he’d still crawl to me.
It was a declaration of love so massive that it cracked through my worry that I was selfishly sacrificing my morals for a flame that could snuff out faster than it ignited.
That’s why I’m so nervous. My thighs haven’t quit shaking for sixty floors, and I’ve dragged my teeth over my lip so often I am confident I’m one rake away from drawing blood.
I thought walking down the aisle as the bride of a man I despise would be the most terrifying thing I would face.
This could be worse.
Two dozen guests didn’t get the hint. Even with Vivienne closing the bar service, they lingered in the hotel foyer and ballroom, ready to party the night away. I could barely hear Matteo over the ruckus, so I suggested we take our conversation somewhere else.
The honeymoon suite made sense. I can’t go back to my room. Another guest received my room, and we require the privacy that only a honeymoon suite provides.
The further we walk down the corridor hand in hand, the more my palms slick with sweat.
Matteo notices immediately. “We’re going to the room to talk. That’s it. We don’t have to do anything until you’re ready. If that’s not for a year,” he says, “we’ll wait a year.”
“What if I’m not ready for five years?”
He doesn’t even flinch. “Then we’ll wait five years.”
My nerves vanish like smoke.
We reach the suite, and when Matteo unlocks the door, everything inside me freezes. We don’t walk into an empty room. Four men stand in each corner. Silent, still, yet gawking in a way that makes my skin crawl.
Matteo instantly reacts. Protectively, he pulls me behind him, his body tense and ready to fight, even without his gun on his hip. The priest only had one rule when my father changed grooms. Matteo and his family couldn’t enter the chapel armed. Their weapons had to be checked in with the hotel’s security personnel.
Before Matteo can throw a single punch, a fifth man joins the fight.
I don’t scream, move, or breathe. As my father steps out of the shadows, I just stare.
I should have known this was him.
He only ever appears when the knife is already at my throat, and although the coldness of the gun pressed against my temple seconds later is just as chilling as a knife, the sharp smell of gunpowder can’t be mistaken.