Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 65112 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65112 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Here.
I pull up the doorbell camera. She’s on the porch, her hair is in a messy knot, and she looks pissed off enough to take on a full security team with one hand and a travel mug in the other.
I zoom in, checking behind her. The porch is clear. The driveway is clear. There’s nothing by the hedges and nothing near the side gate. I unlock the door.
Gia starts talking before I even get it fully open.
“Before you say anything, I’m leading with love, but you are out of your damn mind.”
Then she stops.
Her eyes shift past me, widening.
For half a second, I don’t understand what she sees. Something moves behind her.
“Gia!”
The word barely leaves my mouth before a man steps out from the side of the porch and hits her. The sound is ugly and dull, and she drops so fast my brain refuses to process it. One second she’s there, annoyed and alive and ready to yell at me. The next she’s on the ground.
I lunge for her.
A hand closes around my arm and yanks me outside hard enough to send pain shooting through my shoulder. I twist, trying to reach Gia, but the grip tightens, and the smell hits me before I see his face.
Expensive cologne that makes my stomach turn.
“No,” I gasp.
Adrian pulls me back against him, his mouth near my ear. “Hello, sweetheart.”
I don’t freeze. I will at least give myself that. I slam my heel down on his foot and scream as loud as I can. He curses, and his grip loosens just enough for me to rip one arm free. I swing back and catch his face with my nails, hard enough to feel skin give.
“You little bitch.”
“Get off me!”
I try to throw myself toward Gia, but he grabs me around the waist and hauls me back. She still isn’t moving. I can’t tell if she’s breathing, and the panic that tears through me is worse than anything he could do to my arm.
“Gia!” I scream again.
Adrian clamps a hand over my mouth. “Enough.”
I bite him.
He snarls and jerks his hand back. For one second I get a good look at him under the porch light. He still has the same handsome face that fooled so many people, but the polish is cracked. His collar sits wrong. There’s sweat near his hairline. The scratches I left on his cheek are already turning red, and his eyes are too bright, like he hasn’t slept and doesn’t care.
This is not the controlled Adrian from New York. This is what’s left when all his charm stops working.
“Sebastian is going to kill you,” I say.
His face changes.
Then the cloth comes up.
I see it too late. White, folded, already wet with something sharp and chemical. I turn my head, but he presses it hard over my mouth and nose, one arm locked around me.
I fight like hell. I claw at his wrist, kick at his legs, and twist hard enough that pain shoots through my side. I try not to breathe, but my lungs burn and my body betrays me. The porch light blurs. The open doorway tilts. Gia’s hand is visible on the floor, still and pale against the dark wood.
I try to say her name, but nothing comes out right.
Adrian’s voice follows me down.
“Finally,” he says. “Let’s go home.”
26
SEBASTIAN
The police and ambulance are already outside Val’s house when I get there. I park crooked at the curb and get out without killing the engine. One of my men pulls in behind me, but I don’t wait. I’m already moving up the driveway, eyes locked on the open ambulance doors and the woman sitting on the back bumper with a blanket around her shoulders.
Gia.
Her hair is falling out of its knot. One side of her face is swollen and there’s dried blood crusted at the corner of her mouth. A paramedic crouches in front of her with a penlight, trying to check her pupils, but she keeps looking toward the house like she expects Val to walk out of it.
She sees me, and her face crumples. That tells me enough before she says a word.
“Where is she?” I ask.
The paramedic turns his head sharply. “Sir, you need to give us some room.”
Gia grabs my sleeve before I can answer him. Her hand is shaking badly.
“I don’t know.” Her voice cracks on the last word. “I don’t know where she is.”
I crouch in front of her, ignoring the paramedic’s annoyed look. “Tell me what happened.”
“She called me.” Gia swallows hard, presses the blanket tighter around herself. “She said she was at her house. She was upset and didn’t want to be alone, so I came over. She checked the camera before she opened the door. I know she did because I told her to.”
“Gia,” the paramedic says, “you should sit back.”