Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 79991 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79991 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
“It means my daughter is dead. She died years ago, my Elena. We never told anyone because it was no one’s business. This little bitch?” He waves a dismissive hand, scoffing. “She’s not mine. Not my blood. I didn’t even adopt her.”
“That’s not true,” I grunt.
“Isn’t it?” he sneers. “I don’t know why she used my daughter’s name, but she’s no daughter of mine. In fact, when I met up with her upstairs? That was the first time I ever set eyes on her.”
It’s the strangest thing. I heard what he said, every word spoken loud and clear. Yet it doesn’t make sense, almost like he lapsed into a different language, one I don’t understand. Because there is no way I heard what I think I heard. I must have mistaken him.
“You’re lying,” I scoff.
He tips his head to the side. “You don’t really think I’m lying, do you? No, you look like a scared little boy who finally figured out how badly he fucked himself over.” His smile is triumphant as he goes about re-buttoning his jacket, then using both hands to slick down his hair. “She’s not mine. She never was. You assumed she was. Didn’t anybody tell you what happens when you assume things? Or are you so young that you haven’t had time to learn that lesson yet?”
He offers an amused little shrug. “Now you know. I like to think I helped school you a little.”
“You’re a lying bastard.”
“I admit, I have lied in my life, and I have been called a bastard. Maybe I am,” he admits with a laugh. “But I’m completely serious now.” All semblance of good humor drops from his face when he scowls. “She’s not mine. But you know what is mine? Everything your grandfather signed over to me today. I don’t know who killed him—that’s the truth—but before they did, he made me a very happy man.”
Then because this entire situation could not be more bizarre, he begins backing away. “I don’t care what happens to her,” he says with a shrug. “She’s nothing to me. But congratulations on the wedding.” He is most of the way inside the house, where his wife waits by the door, before he gestures for his men to follow him. They smirk and sneer but follow his instructions, though they keep their guns trained on me for as long as he and his wife are visible.
I don’t know what to do. What comes next? My entire life and everything I thought was true just came crashing down around me. My grandfather is dead, and my family is now in shambles. Josef Alvarez has made a fool of us all, thanks in no small part to an assumption I made that he was more than willing to allow me to continue believing. He must have seen all of this from the beginning. The moment he learned what happened in the warehouse. Who told him? I don’t know. I only know that men like him have no trouble piecing together how a situation will benefit them. Right away, he saw what needed to be done. If she wasn’t going to tell me the truth, if only to save her own hide, he would continue to bluff until the very end. Until his family was bound to mine, thanks to a contract I was never even given the privilege of seeing.
And now I’m holding a woman in front of me like a shield, but she’s not the woman I thought she was. The woman I talked myself into believing she was. No matter how long I live, I will never find a way to stop hating myself for what I let her do to me. The fool I let her make of me. The fool I’ve made of myself.
“Well, Enzo, please—”
I clamp my hand over her mouth, cutting her off. There’s one thing I know for sure. “I don’t want to hear a word from your lying lips again. Whoever you are, you are nothing to me, and I’ll see to it you pay for everything you’ve done.”
Her tears roll over the back of my hand, but I ignore them because they’re probably all for show. Just as they always were.
“I should have killed you,” I whisper in her ear, relishing the way she shudders, the muffled sounds of her sobs. “You are going to pay for this. If it takes years, I’m going to see to it that you pay.”
And then, because I can’t stand being this close to her, I shove her in the direction of the nearest guard. “Get her upstairs. Lock her in the bedroom. I’ll deal with her later.”
“No, please!” she screams as he takes hold of her. She trips over her dress, and I hear it ripping, and the sound pleases me. She doesn’t deserve to wear it. “Enzo, please, you know this isn’t right!”