Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 73398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
He snorted. “He loves you back. Trust me on this.”
I found myself smiling.
“Did you…”
Luca got a text, and I went back to my work.
It was only when Luca stayed silent too long that I turned to frown at him.
If there was one thing about Luca, it was that he was never quiet. He always had something to say, and it wasn’t like him to keep quiet for longer than five minutes—at least if he knew you. He’d been like that since he was a baby.
“Luca?” I asked, turning back around to survey him.
He looked up at me and something terrible crossed his face.
“We need to go somewhere.” He stood up.
He looked spooked.
“Luca, what’s wrong?” I asked.
Just as I was about to demand he tell me what was wrong, a knock sounded at my door.
“Hold on, let me answer that,” I said.
But before I could even get two steps toward the door of my office, he had me by the wrist. “Let me answer it.”
I never once expected the person at the other side to be Frankie—who had a black eye, a swollen lip, bruises on her neck and a ripped shirt.
What I also didn’t expect was the way my brother freaked the fuck out.
Chapter 25
That moment when you say something really fucked up and everyone thinks you’re kidding…
-Text from Coke to Cora
Coke
“Your daughter’s all right, but she’s been roughed up.”
Cora’s earlier words hit me like blows from a battering ram.
I’d driven away from my shop—the bomb-making materials that’d been in the back of Cora’s car now safely moved out of not only Cora’s car but also my yard.
Now, I was standing in my driveway, staring at my house while Luca gave me a quick rundown of everything that had happened since we’d left.
“Overall, I think she’s okay,” Luca continued. “She has a split lip, a black eye, and bruises on her throat. Her shirt was ripped. It looked like she was in a struggle, but I have only been able to assure that she didn’t need an ambulance ride.”
Had tried to take her.
I swallowed and choked down all the fear and anger that threatened to consume me.
“Okay,” I cleared my throat.
I walked into my house, Gabe at my heels and Luca at Gabe’s back, and came to a halt in the kitchen just inside the door when I saw Cora.
She was wearing cutoff jean shorts, a tank top, and had her little poofy-headed chick in her hands, smiling down at it.
My daughter was at her side, rubbing the chicken’s head with one finger.
I surveyed my two girls, noting that both of them looked shaken.
What I did not notice was my daughter’s eyes being filled with fear. They were filled with awe.
“Daddy, did you see these chickens?” Frankie asked, holding up another chick.
Out of the eighteen that she’d put into an incubator, only two had hatched. Both of them were quite cute, in an ugly chicken sort of way.
Cora loved them, though, and I suppose that was all that mattered.
I hadn’t realized that I’d ever get chickens again—when I was younger, that used to be my least favorite thing in the world to do—cleaning up after the chickens.
However, I found that I’d do just about anything to see a smile on Cora’s face.
“Yeah,” I said, trying to control my anger. “I see them every day when I have to feed them. A certain someone only remembers to pick them up and cuddle them, not actually feed and water them.”
Cora’s lips twitched. “I don’t think it’s me forgetting to do that as much as you doing it before I can.”
I shrugged, then calmly walked to my daughter, turning her so I could survey her face.
“You okay?” I questioned.
I didn’t care about the mess of antiseptic wipes on the counter, the fifteen Band-Aid wrappers, or the mess that the two women had left in their wake as they’d cleaned Frankie up. Something that would’ve bothered the hell out of me not so long ago didn’t so much as break the surface of my panic.
“I think she needs stitches,” Cora admitted. “Her lip is pretty split, and I don’t think the steri-strips I have on it is going to cut it.”
I studied the cut on her lip and winced.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “It’s not.”
Frankie’s shoulders slumped. “Dangit.”
“You’ll have a nice scar,” Luca said, eyeing Frankie from his position at the kitchen table.
Outwardly, he looked fairly calm.
Inwardly, I knew that he was feeling just as unsettled as the rest of us.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
Frankie winced. “It was an accident.”
“It was an accident?” I repeated. “How does something like this” —I gestured at her body with one hand— “happen on accident?”
She fisted one side of her shirt and grimaced as best as she could due to her split lip.
“I literally fell down the stairs.”
Luca snorted.
I didn’t bother to roll my eyes this time.