Total pages in book: 35
Estimated words: 32295 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 161(@200wpm)___ 129(@250wpm)___ 108(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32295 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 161(@200wpm)___ 129(@250wpm)___ 108(@300wpm)
They can't defeat us. We're unbreakable.
Chapter Nine
Karina
The sharp chill of the wind blowing in from the water cuts through me as I stride across campus toward my last class of the day, my phone pressed to my ear. "How late this time?"
"I don't know, cara," Coda says, his voice an apologetic rumble that does nothing to soothe the disappointment coursing through me. "Something important came up. It may be a while before I'm finished handling it."
"Something important," I repeat. It's the same excuse he's been giving me for the last two weeks. I barely see him anymore. He's always gone, always doing…I don't know. He won't tell me. When I ask, he kisses me until I forget I had questions, or fucks me until I forget anything but him exists.
He's up to something, and doesn't want me to know what. The few times we've ventured beyond the walls of his condo, he's vigilant to the point of paranoia…checking every shadow, constantly looking over his shoulder.
It's driving me crazy. We both know whatever he's doing involves my father and that shipment of guns. But he adamantly refuses to broach the subject, skillfully evading my every attempt to learn more about what he's found out…and what he's doing about it.
He doesn't want me involved—he thinks this level of dark shouldn't ever touch me. I love him for wanting to protect me. But his world is my world now. His dark is my dark. And if my father is the reason he's out at all hours, I should know that.
There's nothing he could tell me about what he's doing that would change my mind about him. I'm his in every way. That won't change because of my father. I made my choice. It's him.
But I'd like to know, if for no other reason than because I want to know every piece of him. It's the only way he'll ever realize that he's worthy of me exactly as he is.
One day soon, I'm going to tie him to the bed and force him to tell me all of his secrets.
"Do you trust me, angioletta?" he asks, and that's just the thing. I do trust him—more than anything. Even with all the secrets, I don't doubt him at all.
"Of course I trust you," I whisper. "I just miss you."
"I miss you too, cara." He sighs, and I know he means it. This hasn't been any easier for him. "I'll be home as soon as possible."
"Okay," I say, though we both know as soon as possible may not be until the wee hours. With him, it's hard to tell.
"Ti amo."
"I love you," I whisper before ending the call. I slip the phone into my bag, groaning. Yes, I'm definitely tying him to bed to torture his secrets from him soon.
I keep my head down against the chill as I scurry toward class, ready to get it over with.
"Karina," my father's familiar voice cuts through the cold. I'm practically on top of him before I see him standing in front of the doors, his jaw set in a way that tells me he isn't here to apologize.
My father is here. Lovely.
I haven't heard from him since I ran out of his house three weeks ago. Not a single word. I know that he knows about the accident. The officer who responded probably called him before I was even loaded into the ambulance.
He didn't show up. He hasn't called.
That's how little he cares.
It stings even though it shouldn't.
It takes everything in me not to turn on my heel and walk away when he steps forward to meet me.
"What are you doing here?" I ask, my voice steady despite the emotions coursing through me. He looks different than he did three weeks ago. His nose is crooked, and there are fading bruises all around it. It's been broken since I saw him last. I'm not surprised. If I ask, he'll say it happened at work. In reality, he probably fell in a drunken stupor. It wouldn't be the first time. He doesn't always drink, but he always gets hammered when he does.
He steps closer, and I resist the instinctive urge to step back. This has always been my world, the one place in the city where I didn't feel like I was suffocating under the weight of his rule. I'll be damned if I let him encroach on it without a fight.
"I needed to see you," he says smoothly.
"You should have called. I have class." The words are ice cold, but I don't care. That's all he gets from me.
"Let's talk." He says it as if it's a suggestion, but we both know it's not. It's a command artfully spoken by someone who has spent his life manipulating situations to his advantage.
"About?" I ask, wishing I knew how to decode the secrets swirling in his steely eyes. Secrets that might hold the key to understanding what Coda has been up to recently.