Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 84446 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84446 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
But, slowly, I watched as he worked to tamp down the rage, fight it back because it was useless in this situation.
Then, my heart aching at the sight, I saw the concern etch his handsome features, softening his eyes, making his head cock to the side, his hands unfurling.
“Oh, mouse,” he said, his voice a soft caress as he moved closer, dropping down to his knees in front of me.
I hated myself for it, for being so weak, for having such shaky walls when it came to him, but all was suddenly forgiven in that moment as his hand reached upward, touching my cheek with a gentleness that a man who was all hard wouldn’t be able to pull off.
Cinna was wrong.
He wasn’t just hard.
It was that he saved whatever soft he had for me.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Renzo
“Fucking what?” I barked as Rico stepped into the room.
I had someone by the front of his shirt, lifting him up off of the ground like a fucking rag doll.
He’d dropped himself down there the second I entered, his face twisting up, his eyes watering, as he begged for forgiveness for trying to fuck me over on a deal that had just been finished the day before.
I’d been afraid the pathetic sack was about to kiss my fucking shoes, wrenching him up the ground to face me.
But that was when the door flew open, and Rico rushed in, his phone to his ear.
“Boss?”
If I wasn’t so pissed about a missing ten grand that this asshole with the tears streaming down his face thought he could hide from me, I might have heard the clipped note in Rico’s voice and immediately listened.
“Renzo!” he barked.
And this time, I noted something close to panic in his voice.
Panic?
In Rico?
A man who once casually walked into a building with no fewer than six loaded guns pointed at him with a cigarette dangling from his lips, and a swagger in his step?
Who’d walked out of that same building a few minutes later, blood covering his shirt and shoes from the bodies he’d just sent to their maker.
That Rico was panicked?
I dropped the fucker’s shirt so hard that he crashed to the ground, letting out a sniveling whimper as I turned to face Rico.
“What is it?” I asked, voice more serious.
“Lore.”
“What do you mean it’s Lore?” I asked, stepping toward him.
Then he said three words that had my fucking heart seizing in my chest.
“Lore was attacked.”
“What?” I hissed, walking through the room with him.
“Elian said she ran out of the elevator, bloody and crying. That’s all he knows.”
I wasn’t walking then.
Neither was Rico.
We both ran toward the SUV, him in the driver’s seat. Which was good. Because as the panic and rage mingled in my system, there was no way I could be trusted behind the wheel.
“How bad?” I asked as Rico peeled off into traffic to a chorus of car horns and screeching tires.
“He said there was a decent amount of blood.”
“Where?”
“Her face.”
Her face?
A growl moved through me, my mind flashing with images of sweet, small, defenseless Lore out on the street and some fuck putting his hands on her.
In my fucking neighborhood.
Someone put a hand on what was mine in my neighborhood.
Rico weaved in and out of traffic before it hit a complete standstill.
“Fuck it,” I hissed, throwing open my door, flying out, and running down the street instead.
I’d never really known panic before.
I’d been born and raised in this life.
I’d been fighting and walking into dangerous fucking situations since I was in grade school.
But that was me.
This was Lore.
A woman who’d been forced into marrying me. Who hadn’t fucking asked for this. Who probably never had a hand laid on her before in her life.
Crying and bleeding.
Because I’d dragged her into my world.
It felt like a lifetime before my apartment building came into view, and I was nearly coming out of my skin waiting for the fucking elevator car to reach the top level.
Elian was already standing there, concern etched on his face.
“Why aren’t you with her?” I snarled as I pounded my fingers into the keypad on the door, fucking it up in my haste, and having to wait for it to stop blinking before I tried again.
“She doesn’t want me,” he said, maybe a bit pointedly, but I didn’t have time to dissect that shit as I threw open the door and rushed inside, eyes scanning the common space, calling out her name.
When no response came, my heart was fucking twisting in my chest as I tore up the stairs, then threw open the bedroom door.
And there she was.
Perched on the edge of the bed, still in her jacket, though it was pulled open, the zipper snagged in the material.
Like it had been yanked down.
My hands curled into fists, thinking of someone pulling at her clothes, filling her with fear and dread of something no woman should have to endure.