Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 89232 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89232 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
What I’m really interested in is, “Did you kiss him?”
She stares at me, her expression baffled. “What?”
My nostrils flare when she makes me repeat those blasphemous words. “Did you fucking kiss him?”
Catching on, she blinks. “No.” She speaks fast. “No. It’s not like that.”
I apply pressure, feeling the resistance of her breastbone against the gun, feeling the cruel smile that manipulates the stiff muscles of my mouth, curving my lips as if they belong to a puppet and not to me. My words are measured, spoken softly like a dirty caress. “Did you fuck him?”
“No,” she exclaims, fear bleeding into those expressive eyes. “Colin and I never…” She licks her lips. “I swear it.”
Colin.
I grind my molars together at the sound of his name.
The man himself—fucking Colin—steps to the side, putting himself in my view. His manner is calm, devoid of bullshit. “She didn’t.”
She throws a panicked glance at him, no doubt willing him to go back to hiding behind her. “We’re friends. Best friends.”
I keep my gaze fixed on her before I’m tempted to shoot his head off and splatter her white dress with his blood. “Is that why you wanted to marry him? Because he’s your best friend?” My mouth twists with a sneer around the term of endearment. On second thought, maybe I should blow his brains out all over her. It’ll be a good lesson.
“Please,” she says again, bravely standing her ground.
“But us, we’re not friends, cara, are we?”
She pales, knowing exactly what I mean.
“Tell him,” I command. “Tell him why we’re not friends.”
Her slender throat bobs as she swallows. “Angelo, please.”
“Tell them why we’re so much more than friends,” I say, caressing that spot between her breasts with the barrel.
Her red, plump lips part, but no sound escapes.
“You want me to tell him?” The question is rhetorical. She’s shaking her head, begging me quietly even as I continue, “I already consummated our engagement when I fucked her on her eighteenth birthday.”
A gasp rises from the pew. Her mother.
“That’s right.” My words are as callous as my smile, but there’s no stopping them, no denying the claim I have on her or the need to prove it to all the witnesses present. “I already fucked her more than once. Isn’t that so, bella?”
A mixture of horror and shame transforms her features, but she doesn’t look at her family or her best friend. She doesn’t look away from me.
A deathly quiet stretches in the space. Our dirty secret is laid out in the open. It takes time to process, I suppose.
“I’ll marry you.” She’s no longer throwing bait, tempting me like earlier. Her voice is raw. She sounds defeated. Humiliated. “Right now. Just let them go.”
Bargaining with a vow that’s rightfully mine is like trying to pay me with my own money. She needs to give me more. “Beg.”
She gapes. “What?”
“Get down on your knees and beg me.”
A pained look flashes across her face. “Angelo.”
“You heard me. If you want to marry me so badly, show me how much you want it.”
“Sabella,” Ryan says from the side.
My command is harsh. “Quiet.”
The kid starts crying.
“Get him and his mother out of here,” I tell one of the guards.
There’s a shuffle and a protest.
“Go,” Ryan says, his order both authoritative and gentle.
I can relate to that. I’m not a father, but I know my father would’ve done the same. He would’ve laid his life down for me.
More shuffling and sniffling follow. The doors open and close. Silence again.
“I’m waiting,” I say, addressing my bride. I raise a mocking brow. “Unless you changed your mind?”
Holding my gaze, she kneels in front of me. “Please, Angelo.”
I follow her down with the gun, the barrel now aimed at her head. “Please what?”
Her voice comes out hoarse. “Please, marry me.”
I click my tongue. “You can put a little more effort into it. Convince me.”
A flame of defiance licks in the depth of her eyes, but she purses her lips and goes on all fours before bending down low and pressing her lips first on my right shoe and then on my left.
A single tear runs down her cheek when she sits back on her heels. “I beg you, Angelo. Marry me.”
Her groveling doesn’t leave me unaffected. Gripping her arm, I help her to her feet. She stares up at me with loathing and fear yet also with a glimmer of hope.
I nod at the guard flanking me. He grabs Colin and flings him into the front pew on the right.
“You heard her,” I say to the vicar. “She wants to say yes. Speak the magic words so that she can give me her answer.”
He glances at the pistol in my hand and says with a nervous twitch of his left eye, “Can you put the weapon away?”
I tuck the gun into the back of my waistband under my jacket and lock my hand around Sabella’s a little too tightly, making sure she’s not going anywhere even though I know she won’t run while I’m keeping her family hostage. She cares too much about them.