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)
"Did you ever care at all, Coda?" The question is out before I can stop it, the hurt bubbling up like acid.
His gaze whips to mine—the predator snapping its attention onto prey again. I almost believe the horrified look in his eyes. Almost.
"Cara," he chokes out, dropping to his knees before me. "Every word I've ever spoken to you has been true. My heart belongs to you." He says it to manipulate, to keep me complacent, but all he does is make me realize the truth: his heart was never mine to begin with. He doesn't have one.
He wanted to destroy my dad. But he chose to destroy me instead. I was collateral damage, an acceptable loss. That's how he viewed me. An acceptable casualty in his fucking war with my father.
"Right." I swipe at my cheeks, dashing away tears I didn't even know had fallen. "You honestly expect me to believe you weren't using me to get to him?"
His jaw clenches. The muscles in his throat work as if he's swallowing the truth. "I wasn't using you, Karina. I swear it on everything I am. But can I say that your connection didn't play a role in the beginning? No, I can't. When I met you at the party, I was there to kill him."
"What changed your mind, Coda?"
"You," he whispers.
The raw honesty in his voice cuts deeper than any lie, confirming the dark suspicion my father planted. Every doubt and fear that I tried to push away erupts into a full-fledged betrayal, crushing me with its weight. One of the best nights of my life was a lie, orchestrated by a man who saw an opportunity to take something from my father and grabbed it—grabbed me.
"I was wrong, Coda," I whisper, my words choked with pain. "You're nothing like the man I thought you were. At least my father only pretended to love me in public. You let me believe the lie in private, too."
"Karina, please." He reaches out as if to bridge the chasm that's opened between us, but I step away. If I feel his skin on mine, I'll crack. "Don't let this be what tears us apart. I love you. That's the purest truth I know."
"Don't you dare try to make this right," I spit at him, my voice trembling with emotion. "I loved you with everything I had, but it was just a game to you." Despite my anger and pain, his words still hold some power over me—the purest truth I know is that I still love him. But in this moment, it feels like a curse instead of a blessing.
"Is love supposed to taste like betrayal, Coda? Is it supposed to feel like a curse?" I ask. "If that's what you wanted me to feel, you win. If that's what you needed to know you finally got revenge, then congratulations. You broke me."
"I never wanted to beak you. I wanted to shield you from all of this."
"Shield me or control me?" I counter, the strength I felt earlier now wavering. I need to get out of here. He doesn't get to see me cry. Not any longer.
"Karina," he breathes, my name a prayer and a plea. "Please."
But there's nothing left to plead for. The man on his knees before me—the one who claimed to be my sanctuary—was the architect of my anguish all along. I always wondered where our story ended, and now I know. Not with a bang, but with the silent shattering of my heart.
I was wrong. We weren't unbreakable. We were always headed for destruction. I was just too stupid to see it.
I turn away, pieces of myself breaking off and splintering in a mosaic of pain and grief.
It hurts. God, it hurts.
And this time, there's nothing and no one left to help pick up the pieces. He's taken everything. Exactly like he planned all along.
Chapter Ten
Coda
I don't know how long I kneel in front of the chair, not moving as moonlight casts long shadows across the room. The clock in the kitchen ticks away seconds that stretch into an eternity, each one a reminder of how thoroughly I've destroyed everything.
Two weeks of meticulously unraveling every thread of Miles Alessepo's life…and somehow, mine is the one in pieces at my feet. I'm the one bleeding out from a wound that won't ever heal.
The emptiness where she sat just moments before taunts me, aching like a gunshot wound. She doesn't know it, but every move I've made, every thread pulled, wasn't out of revenge—it was to protect her.
My thirst for vengeance died weeks ago—the night I stood in Alessepo's bedroom with my gun pressed to his fucking temple and realized I wanted something more.
I wanted peace for her.
And I fucking broke her anyway.
"Karina." Her name is a whisper, a prayer, the gasp of a dying man.