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)
"Why didn't you?" I whisper.
"Because I didn't want you to spend the rest of your life living with his death on your conscience." He swallows, his throat working visibly. "I wanted peace for you more than I wanted revenge. I let go of my vendetta against him that night, angioletta. For you. Because you mattered more."
His words are so raw they rip straight through to my heart. "Coda—"
He doesn't let me finish. "That doesn't make me innocent, Karina. I've spent the last two weeks systemically unraveling every thread of his life. Had he not decided to back out of the gun deal, photos of his meeting would have been plastered all over Chicago come tomorrow. I intended to destroy him for hurting you."
"And you forgave him instead," I whisper, taking a step toward him.
"No." His gaze tangles with mine, hot and wild—fierce. "I don't think I'll ever forgive what he's done. I'm not that kind of man, cara. There isn't forgiveness in my heart. Until you, there was just murder and revenge. I simply love you more than I hate him."
His confession, raw and sincere, reverberates through me. His honesty is painful and brutal, but it's him—all of him. The man I've come to love. His past, his vendettas, his darkness…it's all part of Coda.
"I made a deal with him," he says. "We worked together to get you back and make the guns disappear. In exchange, so does he, cara."
"What?"
"He's leaving Chicago. I won't allow him and his crimes to continue painting a target on your back."
I process this, not sure where to fit it. My whole life, I've felt like his prisoner. Coda says he loves me, and maybe that's true. Maybe somewhere under all that self-serving greed, my father has a heart. But the damage between us is done. I'll never look at him the same. I can't. He destroyed so much. I can forgive him, but I won't ever forget. And I don't want to know him. Not now, maybe not ever again.
But he's not important right now. What matters is the man standing in front of me, confessing his sins. He's all that matters.
"I know you're not innocent, Coda," I say finally, my voice trembling with the weight of my emotions. "You carry your sins like a shadow, always at your heels. But you're not just your sins or your past. You aren't irredeemable, no matter how much you think you are."
Tears pool in my eyes as I reach for him, letting my hand rest against his chest where I know his heart beats strong and steady beneath the layer of muscle. "You are also the man who saved me. You're the man who loves ferociously and protects me like no one else could."
"Karina."
"You're loyal and strong, and you've survived so much that you never should have had to survive," I whisper, my heart aching at the thought of everything he's survived. "You're more than the blood on your hands or the things you've done." I pause, licking my lips. "You're everything. To me, you're everything."
A tormented sound tears from his lips as his arms lash around me, yanking me up against his chest. "Don't say it if you don't mean it," he warns, darkness roiling in his eyes again, my favorite predator slipping his chains. "Don't give a dying man false hope."
I could tell him that I love him. Maybe he'd even hear me. But that's not what he needs right now. He needs me to prove it, to show him that he's worthy and always has been.
I wrench myself from his arms and take a step back.
Pain—infinite and all-encompassing—courses through his eyes for a moment.
And then I sink to my knees, reaching for him.
Pain flickers to hope and then blazes to unholy reverence. He groans, a broken, desperate sound.
My fingers close around the hard ridge of cock. Even now, he's hard for me. Even now, he's desperate.
His breath hitches as I undo his pants, freeing him from their confines. The veins of his cock pulse under my touch, a throbbing echo of the powerful beat of his heart. He watches me with dark eyes, a predator trapped by desire, frozen in the face of an emotion he doesn't dare to name. Hope.
"Karina," he growls, my name an agonizing plea. He buries his hands in my hair, fingers curling around the strands as if they're the only thing keeping him tethered to reality.
I look up at him through my lashes. His gaze is heavy on me, dark, heated…filled with a hunger that makes my heart flutter wildly.
"I love you," I say. But this time, it isn't a whisper for him to hear. It's a conviction for me to uphold. I love him, even in his darkest moments. Even in his worst decisions. Even when fear claws at my heart. I love him.