Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
The hell that Gwen grew up in. The abuse. The neglect.
Gwen’s kidnapping, and Robert Hawk’s refusal to pay the ransom.
The control that her father held over her life, the staggering accountability he held them both to.
“When I met Gwen, she was close to breaking. The night we met, she tried to commit suicide, was steps away from jumping off the roof of my Biloxi hotel. Security footage caught her in the stairwell and alerted me. I got there just in time.”
He remembered the cool Mississippi night, the way the wind had whipped the dress against her body, the way Gwen had clung to the railing, her eyes darting between him and the edge. She’d been terrified of him, and that fear had broken his heart. He’d warred between stepping back and rushing forward. He’d ended up using the talent that had got him out of the swamp and into the casinos—his words.
He’d told her about his upbringing, his own mistakes. He’d promised her that whatever had brought her to this rooftop, he would handle. He’d sworn on his dead mother that he would protect her, rescue her, and fix everything.
And she’d believed him. She’d trusted him. When she’d stepped away from the edge and fallen into his arms, he’d had no idea of the enormous responsibility of what he’d just taken on.
But he’d never regretted it. Not as he’d grown to love the woman he was rescuing, and not as they’d built an empire together, one independent from her father. For a decade, they’d paid a heavy interest rate to Robert Hawk, both in money and morals, half of their activities as illegal as they were profitable. But finally, ten years after he’d married Gwen, they were legitimate. Their loan from Robert Hawk was a month from payoff, and they were thirty days from owning The Majestic outright, along with the other six casinos under its flag.
In a month, he and Gwen would be—at least on paper—free.
But never, as long as his blood was in Gwen’s veins, would Robert Hawk let them go.
“What do you mean, let you go?” Bell leaned forward and touched his hand, pulling him back to the present.
Dario shook his head at the waiter, sending him away, and tried to find the best way to describe Robert Hawk’s God complex. “He sees Gwen and me as assets and wants proper credit for our success. He doesn’t think the way a normal person does. He’s like a child who doesn’t share, one that throws temper tantrums and pouts, and doesn’t let others play with his toys. Only, his temper tantrums ruin lives. His pouts bankrupt companies. Gwen and I are his toys—Gwen, more than me. Hawk has zero accountability for his actions and half the police force is in his pocket.”
Bell’s face paled, and he could see in the quick way she reached for and sipped her wine, that she understood. He thought of his last statement and knew that she—more than anyone—understood what it was like to be at the mercy of a police force that turned a blind eye.
If she was smart, she’d leave him behind and never answer his calls again. Break his heart and save her skin.
He watched her swallow the wine, and her eyes met his.
Twenty-Nine
BELL
I already knew about Robert Hawk, but I hadn’t understood the depth of his reach until that moment, until Dario laid it all out across that candlelit table. He sat back, and my hair blew across my lips. I tucked it behind my ear and thought through everything he had said.
My thoughts didn’t work logically. I wanted to break them down, to address each problem one by one. Gwen. Her father. His marriage. What he saw for our future. But all I could hear, in the thoughts that crowded my head, were Dario’s words. I love you. He loved me. A man who controlled so much, a man pulled in so many directions by so many, a man so fiercely attractive I could barely breathe in his presence, who had broken through all of my walls … he loved me.
He was waiting, and I reached for my drink, taking a sip of the sweet wine and giving myself another moment to think, to remember everything that he said. Leaving Gwen is complicated.
“I think you should talk to Gwen. Get her opinion on this.”
He looked out on the water. “I didn’t want to talk to her without working through it with you first. If you want to walk away, then there’s no need to involve her.”
I choked out a laugh.
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s just…” I tried to find a way to explain the cowardice in that, if that was even the right word. “It sounds like you’re hedging your bets. If I walk away, you’ll just go back to her. Life goes on, everyone is happy.” I raised one eyebrow at him. “Right?”