Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77054 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77054 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
I’m sick. I shouldn’t even be thinking about this, yet I am, and I can’t stop.
I’ve tried to put my mind at ease by doing something else. Sleuthing is the only thing I can do to make me feel less guilty about it all, and I tried looking around the house, but everything was locked tight. Marcello just disappeared. He wasn’t in the garden nor in his study. I even knocked on the doors, but it was no use. No one opened up. And when I looked in Mario’s room, he wasn’t in there either.
It was like they both just vanished into thin air.
The only ones left were his personal guards. Two men stationed outside the doors to his house. Two men only there to keep me locked inside.
And I couldn’t do anything except wait. Wait until he came back … wait until he came to claim me.
But he didn’t.
No matter how long I waited, how long I paced around looking for answers in my mind, he didn’t come.
And then there was sudden shouting all around.
I peeked through my door and watched old but powerful-looking men barge into the home, all of them marching to a single door leading to the basement with Marcello following suit.
I didn’t dare to go look. Whatever it was that was going on down there wasn’t good. All I could hear were the screams of a man and Marcello’s loud, commanding voice. It sounded like a shakedown. A do-or-die moment. Sweat beaded on my back just from watching the door, waiting until he finally came out.
But when he did, I couldn’t even look.
The moment he stepped outside, I immediately shut my door and planted my back against the wood, panting heavily. I knew he’d most likely seen me, knew he’d probably get angry with me for trying to sneak a peek.
As I lay on the bed, pondering, waiting for him to come and tell me what had happened, why he and Mario had disappeared, only to come back with a dozen or so men, I knew I was in deep shit.
Because I cared too much about what he was doing.
It went beyond normal sleuthing. Watching him had become an actual obsession.
And now I’ll pay the price.
I sigh as I roll out of bed and slap myself against the face. Get your fucking act together, Harper. You can’t be that fucking smitten already. Not with a fucking mafia lord.
If, after all this time, he still won’t come to me, I guess I’ll have to go to him. Not to talk about that kiss or the way he keeps fucking with my head, but about the fact that he disappeared, and I want to know why and what he was doing. But more importantly, I want to know if it has anything to do with my parents. Because I know damn well he and Mario are hiding something. I’m so close to finally finding answers.
So I walk out the door and sneak through the hallways, trying to be as quiet as possible so I can at least look around the rooms a little, in case they’re unlocked. Unfortunately, most aren’t, with the exception of the library. I spend hours searching it top to bottom, to no avail.
The clock chimes with midnight, one, two, three in the morning. The house is silent and still.
Suddenly, some new commotion downstairs piques my interest. I slip to the stairs to listen in. To my surprise, the locked steel door to that one room that I was forbidden from entering is open. Mario slowly shuffles out.
My eyes narrow. I’ve always wanted to know what was so important that they had to hide it behind closed doors, and now’s my only chance to find out.
So I wait until Mario is gone and sneak closer to the door in question, looking around to make sure none of Marcello’s staff is present before I take a peek. Marcello is inside the room, which is filled with medical carts and machines, stacks and stacks of pill bottles, and a bed in the middle of the room.
Marcello is seated next to the bed, slouched over the skeletal body lying under the sheets. It’s a woman with beautiful dark hair and the complexion of a ghost, and there are wires attached to her body and inside her nose. Her labored breaths make me hold mine as I struggle to watch the gentleness with which Marcello grabs her hand and holds on tight. A glimmer of what looks like a tear forms in his eyes, and he brushes it away.
“I’m sorry, Mama, for all the pain I’ve caused. I wish I could turn back time. That I never would’ve taken you to that restaurant. That there was no ambush, no gunfire. I wish I could erase it all.” His body falters as he leans over, clutching her hand close to his forehead, almost as if he’s begging her to come alive again.