Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 125962 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125962 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
“You can have her! My fiancée!” he cried, eyes wide, spittle flying from his mouth.
I stopped my approach, staring at him. His anxious gaze darted from me to Felix, who was watching this all with a raised brow.
I knew that my Capo was amused. He liked to fuck with people. He enjoyed their suffering. He played mind games with those we suspected of being rats, he reveled in watching people unravel.
The man was younger than me by over a decade. He’d been a risk, on my part. Not connected to the family in any way. No blood loyalties. No appreciation for what the family was. In fact, he’d been hired to kill me. Many men and women had been hired to kill me over the years. No one had gotten as close as Felix.
He had the ability to shrink away from himself, hide how dangerous he really was. It had almost been fatal to me, and it had impressed the fuck out of me.
Felix had been in the business since he was fifteen, so when I realized what he was doing, he’d figured he was dead. He had not tried to plea, had not crumbled with fear or soiled himself. Instead, he’d jutted his chin up and locked his eyes with mine. There was no fear there. No, there was respect. He’d known when he’d been bested, he’d appreciated that, and he’d accepted his fate.
It was only a fool who let such an asset disappear.
And Felix had been a loyal captain for years.
He was dangerous. It was etched in his fucking bones. In his eyes. The rest of the organization wore bespoke suits, as they had for generations. It was a uniform that wasn’t enforced, yet everyone knew you wouldn’t go far without looking the part.
Felix did not give a fuck about generational rules or looking the part. No matter the weather, he was in a black hoodie, jeans and converse. I knew it pissed off the rest of the men, they thought of it as disrespect. But even my most ruthless of Capos were too afraid to say anything to his face.
My attention moved back to Peter. “Your fiancée?” I repeated.
He nodded rapidly. “She’s gorgeous. Smart. Young. You can have her.”
My fists clenched at my sides, but I schooled my features. “Have her?”
More rapid nodding. “As payment. She’s more than worth my debt and the interest.”
I waited for more. For the fucking punchline. But he didn’t say anything, sweat beading on his forehead, licking his lips.
Holy fuck, this asshole was actually offering up his fiancée as payment for his debt. How many fucking movies had he watched?
Sure, we were in the business of murder, torture, violence. But we did not traffic women. We did not accept human beings as payment for fucking debt. Sometimes, when we had to, we used people’s families against them. But the Don had tried to limit such collateral damage. It was much too messy and far too pedestrian a device to use to instill fear. We didn’t need that. People were plenty afraid of us.
Of me.
I’d misjudged this asshole, though. I thought he was a spoiled coward with no spine. But he was offering up his fucking fiancée to save his own ass.
His death would be slow.
“Sienna, she’s stunning,” he continued, thinking my silence was approval. “Her hair, blonde, natural too. And her body—”
I held up my hand, my entire body freezing at the name. It was a coincidence. It had to fucking be. But the hair. The body. The fact that she had been wearing a large, tacky diamond that a preppy asshole like Pete would give to a woman.
No. No one, not even this piece of shit, would give up that if he had her.
Or if he thought he had her.
But I had to be sure.
“Show me a photo of her,” I demanded.
Something in his eyes flashed, relaxing ever so slightly, and I had to resist the urge to slam his head against the granite fireplace to hear the sound of his skull crack.
Felix was watching, rapt.
The fuck scrambled with the phone, movements still jerky, but there was something different about him now. He had been certain he was going to die before, but now he had the smugness of someone who had cheated death.
By offering up his fucking woman.
I may not have many morals, but something remained of who I once was.
“Here. And the photo doesn’t even do her justice.”
He thrust the screen in my face, hand shaking. But I still saw the picture.
Sienna.
Fucking Sienna.
Grinning on a beach somewhere, wearing a white bikini. Her skin was tanned, her body absolute perfection. Her tits poured out of the top, her pussy barely covered by the small triangle between her legs.
Her hand was up against her hair, pushing it out of her face, against the wind, her blue eyes glowing. She looked happy, to any observer.