Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 78438 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78438 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
I turned on my side and purposely looked away from her.
I wasn’t tired and neither was she, but neither one of us would speak. Practically oceans apart, we pretended the other didn’t exist.
13
Carmen
I was low.
I turned down Bosco’s feelings and pretended he didn’t mean anything to me. I told him I was leaving when this relationship finished its contract, but I failed to mention how much it would hurt when that moment came. I could see the future, the pain I would put my parents through. I could see the drama, the fights, the guns that would be pointed at each other. It took six months for Crow to accept Griffin—and it almost didn’t happen.
Bosco wouldn’t be any different.
They would never approve. He would be a wedge in my relationship with my family. He would never be a father or a husband. He would always be the king of the underworld, the man of mass destruction.
I had to leave. I had no other choice.
It didn’t matter how I felt. It didn’t matter how many tears I shed. It didn’t matter that he was the only man I’d ever allowed to come inside me. All the feelings that existed between us, the connection, the intimacy…they didn’t matter.
It wouldn’t work.
So I stayed strong and didn’t utter the words he wanted to hear. I let the distance between us linger. I let him fuck me like I meant nothing to him—and I still came anyway.
He purposely came home late every single night, forcing me to lose sleep because I was wide awake until he walked through the door. He knew it—and that was exactly why he did it. He just wanted to prove his point.
And he did.
The days passed, and there were no signs of improvement. I was afraid this was how we would spend the last three weeks together, having meaningless sex and no conversations. He would avoid me by staying at work all night, and I would continually be sleep deprived every single day.
He was too stubborn to let it go. I knew his behavior wouldn’t change until I told him what he wanted to hear.
That I was madly in love with him.
I worked at the shop all day, and when closing time arrived, I piled all my cash into a leather pouch and locked the doors. I walked to the bank down the road, the place where I had my business accounts. Since I was the only employee, I didn’t even consider myself to be a small business. I was simply a one-woman show.
There was a long line at the bank, so I stepped inside and pulled out my phone. Griffin hadn’t contacted me since our last conversation, and since Vanessa hadn’t called me either, I wondered if she knew anything about it. It didn’t seem like something Griffin would keep from her, but maybe he didn’t want to scare her.
I heard the doors behind me slam closed.
Then the gunshots went off.
I dropped my phone on the ground as the four armed men stormed across the floor of the bank. They pulled men and women from their booths and dragged them onto the floor, pointing guns at their faces and ordering them to stay down.
Jesus Christ, I was in the middle of a robbery.
I dropped to the floor like everyone else and kept my head down.
The men secured the doors with thick cables so no one could get inside. The windows seemed to be bulletproof because the gunshots didn’t make the glass shatter.
That meant Bosco’s men couldn’t get to me.
Shit.
Two men went down the line and started ordering people to hand over their belongings while the other two hit the tellers and demanded them to open the drawers.
When one woman refused to hand over her wedding ring, they shot her.
Now I was scared. Truly scared. I could keep calm in intense situations and find a way out, but this time, there was no escape route. All the doors were secured with cables, and I couldn’t jump out of a window.
I was stuck.
The man kept going down the line, taking people’s phones, wallets, and anything else valuable, from jewelry to expensive shoes.
I didn’t care about any of my possessions—except my necklace. My father gave this to me, and there was no way I was letting them have it. I tucked my necklace inside my sweater then covered my shoulders with my hair.
The man’s face was covered with a black mask, and he held a pistol. He pointed the gun right between my eyes.
It was the second time that had happened to me—and I was getting tired of it.
I dropped the leather pouch in his bag along with my phone and wallet. I was wearing cheap rings that weren’t sentimental, so I threw those in there too, just so he would understand I was cooperating.