Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71348 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71348 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
“That’s the fucking Mafia. Not us,” Tex said. “I’m sure they’d like you to think that we are part of that world though.”
I stayed silent. He didn’t sound like he was lying, but then what did I know? I had trusted Gina. Apparently, I had no idea when I was being lied to.
“What is it that you do then? Since you aren’t scared that you just took the future boss’s woman away from a powerful Mafia family?” I asked.
“Clubs. We have clubs,” Brick answered instead.
“What kind of clubs?” I asked him, knowing he wanted Tex to stop telling me things.
“The kind that make money,” he clipped. “That’s all you are getting from us. You can ask Liam whatever you want.”
I sighed and bent my head to rub my chin on my arm. It itched, and I was still without use of my hands.
“How much longer?” I asked then.
“Almost there,” Tex replied.
I remained silent until the vehicle came to a stop and I heard the guys opening their doors. When my door opened, I expected the blindfold to come off, but my hands were the first to be freed. I sighed in relief.
“Sorry about that,” Tex said.
I felt his hand rub my free wrists to soothe them. I jerked my hands away from him, not wanting his touch. He chuckled, then unbuckled me. I reached up to take the blindfold off, but his hand grabbed mine.
“Not yet.”
“Why?” I snapped at him.
“We need to get inside first, sugar,” Brick said from somewhere nearby.
Of course I couldn’t see the building we were going into. That might help me when I found a way to get in touch with Blaise. However, I had every intention of convincing Liam to let me talk to Blaise. I at least needed him to know I was alive and okay.
I stumbled in the heeled sandals I was wearing, and hands grabbed my waist to steady me.
“Easy,” Tex said near my ear.
“If I had known Gina was taking me to my abduction instead of lunch and shopping, I would have dressed more appropriately,” I replied.
I heard another male chuckle from a distance.
“God, you sound like Etta,” Liam said.
I paused then. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this. He had loved my mother. Or he had claimed to love her. Why did I want to believe he had so badly? I was a girl with daddy issues. That was clear.
“Let’s go. Almost inside,” Tex said to me.
I continued on, and a hand closed over mine and pulled me inside an air-conditioned building. Then, the blindfold was taken away, and my eyes met a pair of hazel eyes. He smiled, and something about that smile was familiar. As if I had seen it before, but I hadn’t since I’d never seen the man in my life.
He looked similar to Brick and Tex. Long hair pulled back in a ponytail, tattoos, leather vest.
“Jesus, you look just like her,” he said as he looked at me.
“I’ve heard that,” I replied, not wanting to care that this was my real father.
He grinned. “You’ve got her spunk.”
I felt guilty. I felt like I was betraying Blaise by suddenly wanting to be here. I wanted to ask this man questions about my mother. About him. About their time together. Things that I’d never thought I’d get a chance to know. I missed Blaise, and I wanted to go back to him. But I wanted to know about my parents. Their history.
My stomach growled loudly. I hadn’t eaten all day. I didn’t know what time it was now, but I was hungry.
Liam’s brows snapped together. “Did you fucking starve my daughter?” he barked.
“She fell asleep,” Brick replied.
“Have Goldie fix her something. Not taking her in the kitchen or near the others tonight. She’s had enough for today,” Liam said to someone behind me. He shifted his gaze back to me. “Come with me,” he said. “I’ll show you your room.”
My room?
I looked around. This was not a house. It didn’t look like one anyway. The walls were black as we walked down a hallway and then up a flight of stairs. Once we came to the top, things weren’t as dark, but they weren’t bright and welcoming either. There was a wide, long hallway going left to right. I counted four doors on each side. The walls were a navy blue, and the floor was a dark, almost-black wood. The lighting was on the walls instead of the ceiling. It reminded me of a castle in a storybook, but instead of lanterns, there were actual sconces on the walls.
“This way,” Liam told me, and we turned left at the top of the stairs.
Two doors down, he stopped and opened the door. Inside was a large room with a queen-size bed with a tall white wooden headboard. The quilt on the bed was white with flowers on it in different patterns. The walls were lilac instead of the dark colors I’d seen everywhere else. There was a dresser with a television hanging on the wall above it and a door that I assumed led to a closet. On the other side of the room was an open door that led into a bathroom.