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)
“No,” I said, climbing in, curling up.
Nico drew the covers over me, tucking them up to my chin.
“Okay. I’m not going anywhere, though,” he said. “So if you need anything, just come and find me.”
“Thanks, Nico,” I said, voice small.
“Nothing to thank me for,” he said, going toward the door and turning the light off.
“Nico?” I asked as he started to close the door.
“Yeah?”
“Can you not… can this just be between us?” I asked, hearing the plea in my voice. “For now?” I added, knowing he couldn’t agree to keep my secret forever. Not when the alliance involved the entire family. Not when this could start an all-out war if it went on for too long.
“Yeah, honey. I won’t tell anyone,” he assured me, and I knew that I could trust him.
There was a moment of silence.
Then, “Lore?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you. You are very fucking loved.”
With that, he pulled the door mostly closed, so he’d hear me if I called, and I heard his footsteps move away.
There was quiet for a second.
Before I heard him start to pace.
I knew he wanted to go track down Renzo, lash into him for making me cry, for hurting me. But that he couldn’t do it.
That unspent energy likely had him frazzled and frustrated.
I rolled onto my back, staring at the ceiling, feeling another rush of useless tears escape my eyes, slipping down my temples and catching in my hair.
You are very fucking loved.
I needed to hear that.
The problem was, I was still aching to hear those words from someone else entirely.
Alone, hand pressed to my mouth to stay quiet, I let more grief pour out of me until, finally, what felt like hours later, I felt… dried out.
My heart was a pressed flower as I rolled over in bed, curling into a ball, and finally letting the relief of sleep tug at me.
But even as I started to drift off, all I thought of was him.
How long would it be until he realized I was gone?
Hours?
Days?
How long after that would it take him to give a damn? To try to find where I went? Would he even try to coax me back if he figured it out?
Even if he did, a bitter part of my brain thought, he would likely only want me back to save face in front of his family.
It wasn’t about me.
It was never about me.
I was just a willing participant in his scheme.
A woman eager to say I do.
A body in his bed that happily responded to his touch when he needed a release.
Even a mouth willing to relieve his stress.
Not an actual wife.
Not, really, even a person.
And no amount of hopeless devotion on my part was going to change the reality of the situation.
No amount of loving him could make him love me back.
As much as I wanted to deny it, though, I still did.
Love him.
I loved him like water, like air, like something necessary for survival. A part of myself that couldn’t be extracted.
Pressing my hands to my aching, swollen eyes, I willed myself to stop thinking of it, of him, of the pain that seemed sharper with each passing moment.
To just… drift away.
Into the nothingness of sleep.
Away from this reality I wanted so badly to escape.
Only to wake up to his voice.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Renzo
We finally had a fucking lead.
Dav had just so happened to be in one of our local stores, picking up a drink, when someone came in saying they were there to pick up for the Lombardis.
Thankfully, I’d already spoken to him about how I was going to be the only bagman for a while, so it would be easier for us to find out who was trying to fuck me, and all of us, over.
He’d dragged the guy into the bathroom, then called me.
I grabbed Rico, then we were off, ready to finally get some goddamn answers.
Despite running this area, dragging an unwilling man out of a building, into a car, and then out onto the street again wasn’t exactly easy.
This area was full of tourists or non-locals who might not know who I was, who didn’t know enough to mind their own goddamn business.
It was risky as fuck to pull the zip-tied and duct taped man out of the backseat right there in the broad daylight.
And this particular fuck had a lot of fight in him, wrenching back and forth between Dav and Rico as I followed behind, all of us heading into the same room I’d used to beat the shit out off the guy who’d put his hands on Lore.
As if thinking her name manifested her, there she was.
As Dav and Rico wrestled the fuckhead in through the door of the building.
Had she seen them?
I couldn’t explain the sudden desire for her not to see this shit, this ugly part of my work, of my life.