Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 102394 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102394 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Bullets and Bloodlines: Mob Boss Returns to New York after Daughter Narrowly Escapes Hit.
Acid rose in my throat. I tried to turn the page and ignore it, but my eyes kept going back to the headline and reading the same part over and over again.
Daughter narrowly escapes hit.
Daughter narrowly escapes hit.
I remembered Vince saying when he’d visited me in the hospital that he’d seen a video online of the shooting. But everything about those moments was still a blur to me. Setting the newspaper aside, I grabbed my phone and typed Vince Ginocassi’s daughter shooting into the search bar and took a slow breath before hitting enter. A flood of results filled the screen. At the top was a YouTube link. My finger hovered for a long time before I finally got up the courage to press play.
The video opened with shaky footage of a kid carrying a skateboard. He walked to a table stacked with jars of pickles and talked to the woman behind it. When another customer came to the table and distracted her, he crouched down, pretending to tie his shoe, but instead he looped a rope around the leg of the table. A second later, there was a loud pop pop. Then the camera jerked, catching flashes of chaos—people panicking and ducking for cover. It steadied long enough to catch Juliette and me, just as I took her to the ground and covered her with my body.
My stomach twisted. Seeing it from the outside, how close the danger had come, was worse than remembering it. There were only inches between my back—where I took the bullet—and Juliette’s head. I’d almost lost her. Inches. Literally inches, and that shot could’ve been in her skull, could’ve…
I swallowed, refusing to finish the thought, and hit the backspace to clear the video from my screen. But before I could close the app completely, a link to another YouTube video caught my eye. The still was of a crime scene, yellow tape sealing off the area in front of a bar, and cops standing around a body covered with a white sheet. I’d never seen the footage before, and I couldn’t resist clicking. The caption below the video read:
The Don with the Short Fuse. Vince Ginocassi Allegedly Teaches His Own a Lesson for Not Following Orders.
The article went on to say that the victim had been one of Vince’s runners, a kid in his twenties. His mistake? He’d fallen for a woman who was the cousin of a rival family.
I stared at the screen. Maybe that kid hadn’t been the only one Vince felt the need to teach a lesson. Maybe Vince had found out that things between me and Juliette were more than just friendly. Maybe…maybe the bullet at the farmer’s market hadn’t been meant for Juliette after all.
Maybe it was meant for me.
CHAPTER 26
* * *
Juliette
Beep beep.
I looked around the bedroom to see where the muffled sound was coming from, but nothing obvious stood out. The shower was running in the bathroom, so I chalked it up to Wes’s phone buzzing from his jeans or something. For a second, I thought about stripping out of my clothes and joining him. It felt like forever since we’d been together. But then I pictured the bandage across his back. He needed to heal, not be tempted into doing something more strenuous than he should. Instead, I took off my clothes and opened the drawer to get something more comfortable to wear. The meeting with my agent hadn’t gone well, and all I wanted was a pair of comfy sweatpants and a tall glass of wine. I tossed my dirty clothes into the hamper and was about to head to the kitchen for just that until…
Beep beep.
There it was again. I turned in a slow circle. It sounded more like it was coming from the bed than the bathroom now. I lifted the pillow and checked under the blanket. Nothing. Bending down, I picked up the bed skirt. The only thing underneath was Wes’s duffel bag, the one he’d brought when he showed up at my door that first day.
But it was empty. Wasn’t it?
My heart started to race. My eyes flicked to the bathroom door, then back to under the bed. Holding my breath, I listened for proof the shower was still running. Once I confirmed that I still heard water, my pulse kicked up another notch and I reached for the bag and unzipped it. Inside, tucked into a folded sweatshirt, was a phone. Not Wes’s regular iPhone, but one I’d never seen before—a flip phone. And the small LED screen glowed with 1 New Message.
My heart thudded. What the hell? Why did Wes have a second phone? All the doubts I’d managed to bury about him having an affair came roaring back to life. I didn’t think twice before flipping open the cell and pressing the button to play the message.