Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
The rules of the night.
Of the moon.
Gravity itself.
Just because you’re large doesn’t mean you’re in charge, it’s a lesson I had to learn at an early age—everything is a smokescreen, it’s about concentrating hard enough to look past what’s right in front of you to what’s toying with you behind the scenes. He didn’t ask me to meet him here because it’s a full moon. He asked me to meet him here because it’s a powerful play, a friendly little reminder of all our times spent at this lake and what we both know is buried beneath its dark, unforgiving surface.
Clever.
On point for a man like him.
I can only imagine that what he wants now has everything to do with the woman I just married and the secrets he wants the answers to. He could always send his men in, or women for that matter, but it’s easy to see that play a fucking mile away in this business. But sending in someone with power?
Sending someone in big?
Now that’s a calculated move, because the minute you send someone in whom you can’t control is the minute you’ve admitted to everyone around you that you don’t exactly have it and what a fucking thrilling thing to witness when all you want is power and you see someone with a potential injury—you jump at the chance so fast you nearly injure yourself in the process.
I never wanted to be born into this life, and I hate that I’m as good at it as I am, almost like anything else would have either bored me to tears or made me feel too frayed at the edges, constantly scratching, touching, looking—rather than staring at a burial ground that I, along with countless other families, helped build.
The city lights danced across the water like ghosts trying to forget they ever existed. The wind came in off the lake, sharp and slicing, the kind of cold that got in your bones and stayed there. I kept walking until I made it to our spot. It was a nice bench that almost always had a homeless person occupying it or some elderly man with a cane staring out at the water—I sometimes wondered if he had the same regrets until one day he stopped showing up.
“Ah, dickhead,” Cassian said without turning. “It’s been a while since you crawled out of that gutter in New York.”
He was standing in front of the bench where the man used to sit. When I asked him about it one day he merely shrugged and said we all had our time and that the man was intelligent enough to know he’d already out lived his and mentioned he didn’t know how to swim. That was the end of the conversation. I didn’t need to read into any specific details to know what happened next only to rest assured it was fast, Cassian despised prolonged suffering—one of his finer traits.
I stepped up beside him, hands shoved in the pockets of my black coat. “Nice to see you too, sunshine.”
Cassian smirked, lips twisted in that casual menace he wore like cologne. “What’d you major in again? History?”
I chuckled under my breath. Hilarious. “Guess I always liked knowing where people buried the bodies. I don’t like surprises.”
Cassian nodded, slow and deliberate. “Heard you lost the girl you loved to her bodyguard.” There it was. “And your evil villainous brother got himself killed.” Good riddance. He glanced sideways. “Your bullets, though—nice. Well done. He was an asshole anyway. But hey… congrats on the nephew that could’ve easily been your son.”
Low blow.
My jaw twitched, while I fought to keep my hands at my sides. He was never careful with words. Then again, I was never careful with my punches—kind of how we met originally. He wouldn’t shut up, and I wouldn’t stop hitting “You always did know how to keep it classy.”
We stared out over the lake. It roared quietly beneath the wind, the same way grief did when you stopped pretending to ignore it.
After a moment, I finally broke the silence, muttering, “Has it always been this cold?”
Cassian’s reply was quiet. Honest. “Yeah. But never this lonely.”
For the first time in years, I honestly felt something close to guilt, like somehow this was all my fault and no amount of repentance was going to fix it. “Any news, then? Any leads at all?” What I was really asking was, was there any way out of this except the path I was taking, one where I kept everyone in the dark by playing along. Was there another way to find out other than gaining people’s trust and gaining access, playing their game while they unknowingly stepped right onto my board.
Cassian shook his head. “No. But I know someone who might be the key to all of it, Tempest Alfero, Mafia Boss Dante Alfero’s daughter. You know, the one you didn’t fall in love with.” He leaned forward, elbows resting on the rusted railing. “And she just so happens to be single and looking to marry a pawn.”