Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 72340 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72340 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
“I…my…” I’m stumbling over my words. I’m actually, for the first time in my fucking life, left speechless.
“My mom was killed,” I state in such an obvious manner. I sigh, taking a step back to sit on the oversized chair. I am actually going to tell her the story. Memories assault me—the crying, the screams of my mom, the fear I felt in her words.
“She was killed when I was a kid. I don’t know why, and I don’t know who did it. Luccio said the FBI, but I don’t know if I can believe that. Why would they? She was a good woman and was never involved with anything that my father had dealt with.”
I watch Amara approach the side of the couch slowly before deciding it is safe enough to take a seat next to me.
“I swore from that moment on that I would do whatever I could to find her killers, I would hunt them down and destroy them. Every member of their family would suffer for her loss. They owed me their lives, and I promised to collect.”
My eyes stay trained on the floor. I can’t look at her.
“So, you planned on avenging your mother’s death?” she asks, her voice so soft.
“I didn’t just plan on avenging her death. I planned on ripping those people from their loved ones as they took my mother from me. She was the last thing I had when it came to a family. I was left with no one when she died. I’m the heir to the king of money and mafia crown.”
A moment of silence passes, and I look up to see if she is still with me.
“Killing people never brought her back, though, and it just ate at you, at your insides. I know it did because looking at who you are now and the person you were when I first met you, it seems like I have met two different people.”
I close my eyes. This is the problem. I exhale a deep breath.
“People get used to this side of me without knowing that I can change in a moment. I protect myself, and that’s it. Until you. I was so keen on getting my revenge through my family’s mafia that it never occurred to me what I was doing. I have killed hundreds of people, Amara. There is so much blood on my hands, sometimes it takes me to the darkest places in my mind if I think about it too long.”
Setting her glass down on the table, she moves closer to me. Her hands find mine. “Killing people won’t bring her back. Doing what you do won’t bring her back. Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
My eyes pop open as I stare at her face. She feels sorry for me. She sees me as that young boy who lost his mom, who lost everything, and that’s not what I want. I don’t want pity for what I have done or gone through.
“I don’t want your pity, Amara. I don’t want you to tell me what I can and can’t do, what will work and won’t work. We all have our own ways of working through things, and I get by just fine with what I do…” My voice is so full of anger that I have to clench my hands from lashing out at her.
Why does what she says bother me so fucking much? Because she’s right, my mind whispers to me, which just makes me angrier, of course.
Her mouth parts, and it looks as if she is going to say something. Then she closes it, only to open it again. “I don’t feel sorry for you. That’s the last fucking thing I feel for you. The blood on your hands is because of you, and there isn’t any type of pity or saying sorry that can make that shit go away. I just know what it’s like to lose a fucking parent, so I feel your pain.”
Her words just make me angrier. She knows what pain feels like. Yes, she lost a parent, but she still has one, or at least something similar to one. I have nothing. I have me, myself, and I. Relying on anyone else would just lead to death.
“Pain. You have no fucking clue what pain is…” I sneer. My muscles are clenching with the need to pound on something, and I know the moment Amara notices. She takes a step back, she is smart, too. I am a ticking time bomb…and she is right in the way of getting hit.
“I do!” she shoots back. She may have backed up away from me, but her face says she couldn’t give a fuck about how angry I am. Either way, I have had enough of her defiance.
Standing, I corner her. She thinks I’m evil and dark, she thinks I won’t hurt her. She thinks wrong.