Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 80507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“Is that a yes then?”
“Eden, don’t—”
“Mind your business, Romeo. This is between my husband and me.”
I stayed silent, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
He was going to lose his shit; there would be no coming back from this if she told him the truth. Our lives would be forever changed, our paths forever altered.
This would be the moment he’d lose himself, and there’d be no hope for him.
She stepped toward him, once again getting close to his face. “Tristian, I love you. You know that I love you. Why does it matter to you? I married you. We’re a family. I’m here. I’m right here. Standing in front of you, begging you to let this go and just let us be happy. You’re punishing me when I chose you.”
“Chose me, Eden? Or settled for me?”
Eden
I couldn’t do this anymore.
I was exhausted from trying to save my marriage. Trying to pretend like I hadn’t already lost him.
I think he was gone before we even said, “I do.”
This wasn’t the man I had grown up with. The one I was supposed to live happily ever after with. Spend the rest of my life by his side. This person was someone I didn’t know, recognize, or want any part of. This wasn’t the home I wanted to raise Naz in. It was unhealthy, and he was too young to see it for what it was, but soon we wouldn’t have that leisure.
The last thing I wanted was for him to think this was what love was supposed to be.
It wasn’t.
Not even close.
“What more can I do to have the old Tristian back? Huh?” I basically pleaded. I wasn’t on my knees, although it felt like I was. “Please…” I reached for him. “Come back to me.”
“You didn’t answer my question, Eden. Did. You. Fuck. My. Brother?”
I inhaled a deep, solid breath.
This was my chance to set us free, in hopes that it would be the end of his drinking.
His anger.
This downright uncertainty we were both living in.
I gave him what he wanted, explaining, “It was before we were married.”
I could feel Romeo burning a hole in my back.
If Tristian was shocked, he didn’t show it in the least.
He didn’t show me anything.
“When?” he simply asked.
“I just told you. It was before we were married. You got what you wanted, what you’ve been adamant about knowing. Now, can you please let it go?”
He stepped back, away from me. Making his way toward the door.
“Careful, Eden… words can be sharper than knives, and truths can slice you open.”
He took one last look at me, shifting his eyes toward Romeo.
Surprising us both, he spoke with execution…
“The night of our dinner rehearsal, you left your jacket in her suite. May want to ask her what she did with it. It was a nice fucking jacket.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“I’m not a monster, I’m just ahead of the curve.” —The Joker
Romeo
Now
“Can someone please explain why nobody fucking took care of this?” I threw the box onto Andrei’s desk and waited. His eyes narrowed in on the associates that were scattered around the office. “Oh, I apologize. Am I interrupting?”
“Well, we were planning world domination, but sure, go ahead, get pissed about a box.” Phoenix Nicolasi stepped out of the shadows. Hell, things must be bad if he hopped on a plane out of Chicago to get here. He was their boss and basically the only man in the Cosa Nostra who dealt in secrets.
He knew everything.
About everyone.
He had folders on every associate, every boss, every captain. It wouldn’t even shock me if he had a fucking folder on every world leader. It was his currency, so the very fact that he was there at that meeting meant he was either having a friendly visit with Andrei, or he was revealing more secrets that would get someone in that room killed.
“Ah, Phoenix.” I held out my hand, and he shook it. “Business or pleasure?”
He licked his lips and grinned, then ran a hand through his wavy brown hair. “I’m a married man. It’s always business.”
“Are you saying I’m not pleasing?” Andrei scoffed.
Phoenix just rolled his eyes. “Course not, it pleases me greatly to see you pissed like you are right now. See? Pleasure it is!”
Andrei clenched his jaw and turned his icy blue stare toward me. “What’s this?”
“This is everything we’ve been trying to protect Eden from. There were bank documents. She saw more than just what we allowed her to see.”
Andrei slammed his hands onto the desk. “The hell, Marco? You were supposed to deal with this! Burn anything that leads back to Eden! Were those not my exact words?”
The guy who stepped up was in a full black suit, looked to be around mid-twenties, and if my calculations were correct, about five seconds away from shitting his pants. “I don’t know how I missed it; we swept his computer, the rest of the files and—”