Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 55263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 276(@200wpm)___ 221(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 276(@200wpm)___ 221(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
“This is your plan?” I asked in disbelief. “Threaten his son and kidnap his nanny?”
“Nanny?” He threw his head back and laughed. “Hardly.”
He stopped in front of me, leaning down so his face was inches from mine. “You are the perfect leverage to get me everything I want.”
I sucked in a sharp breath at the unfocused look in his eyes. “What do you want, David?”
His eyes went hard. “I want what should’ve been mine.” Then he smiled. “And you’re going to help me get it.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “You’re overestimating my importance. I’m just a woman he used to date. Now I’m an employee. Nothing more.”
“Bullshit,” he snarled. The word cracked like a whip, echoing all around me.
“He married Sofia,” David went on, his voice rising with each syllable. “He had a baby with her, but he never loved her—not the way he loved you, if he loved her at all. He lost his spark when it was clear he couldn’t go back and be with you.” His eyes gleamed. “Everyone thought it was because of Giovanni’s death, but it wasn’t. It was because he lost you.”
My heart ached inside my chest at his words, but I put that aside and focused on the delight he took in his cousin’s torment. I never wanted Enzo to pine after me the way I had, half-living because I was too scared to try again. Stop it, right now. “Perhaps,” I said evenly, “you don’t know Enzo as well as you think.”
He stared at me, his chest heaving, then reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun. He aimed it at me, and my breath hitched as fear gripped me. “I guess we’re going to find out,” he said, his tone filled with malice.
Before I could respond, hands clamped around my arm and yanked me to my feet.
I stumbled, pain shooting up my shoulder.
“Let’s go,” a woman said, her grip tight enough to bruise.
I glanced over my shoulder, shocked to hear a female voice, but only for a second. It was the same voice from the parking lot. But more than that, I had seen her face before too. “The hiker,” I grunted.
She grinned, but it looked more like a grimace. “That’s right.” She dragged me across the room, rough and angry.
I twisted free of her hold. “Get your damn hands off me!”
“Shut up,” she snarled and shoved me across the room.
Something inside me snapped. I was tired and I was scared, sure, but I was also really tired of being handled. I spun around and slammed my shoulder into her, using my weight and my momentum to make up for her larger size.
She staggered back, shock coloring her eyes. “Bitch,” she grunted and lunged forward.
Instinct kicked in, and my foot shot out, hitting her in the stomach.
The woman fell backward, her head cracking against the sharp, metal edge of one of the light stands. The sound was loud and sickening. The woman crumpled to the floor, and she didn’t move.
Suddenly, the room was quiet. Very, very quiet.
I looked at her lifeless eyes, my chest heaving, my breaths short and sharp. “Oh God,” I whispered to myself, unable to look away from her suddenly pale skin, the fire that was no longer behind her eyes.
I hadn’t meant to kill her; I just wanted her to keep her hands off me.
“Fuck,” David shouted and rushed forward, brushing past me to check on the woman. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Fuck!”
“She attacked me,” I answered in a shaking but firm voice. “She pushed me.”
He laughed, the sound high-pitched and a little unhinged. “You’ve done it now.”
I didn’t know what he meant, but suddenly I wanted this to all be over.
Quickly.
David stood and stared at me, stepping in a little too close. “I guess it’s time to get on with getting me what I want.”
I didn’t like the look in his eyes. Not one bit.
Chapter 26
Enzo
“We found Ella,” Luca said, his voice grim and his jaw clenched tight.
“Found?”
He gave one short nod and held his phone between us, showing me the screen. “Puerto Rico,” he explained. The image showed my niece stretched out on a lounge chair beside a pool with oversized sunglasses covering her face. A colorful drink sat beside her phone. She looked relaxed. Oblivious. “She thinks she’s just on midterm break, has no fucking clue what’s going on.”
“Let me guess, Daddy gifted her an out-of-the-blue trip?”
He nodded again. “I dispatched two guys we can trust to keep an eye on her. That dumb fuck left her completely unguarded.” With an angry grunt, he shoved the phone back into his pocket.
“Keep eyes on her until this is over,” I ordered, even though we both knew it would all be over tonight.
The rental house felt too quiet. Despite the earlier chaos of moving from the cabin to the new place, it was too still. Matteo was upstairs, finally asleep after refusing to go down without Ren. It had taken my solemn promise to bring Ren back, safe and sound, before he finally closed his eyes and let sleep claim him.