Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 103124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
“Two hundred—” I sit back in my chair, winded. Who even has that kind of money? “What about the deal you invested in? Will the returns be able to pay it back?”
My father shakes his head. “It collapsed. It was a fraud.”
I frown. My father is a clever businessman, but somehow, he was duped out of two hundred million. My breath catches on the figure again, wondering how the hell he could ever pay that amount back.
“How does Nico figure into the scenario?”
“He owns the financial institution, and he’s foreclosing on the loan.” My father’s face is grim. “He can take everything, Bella, but he won’t if you agree to marry him.”
My head spins, and the heartache and anger I already feel for the boy who broke my heart all those years ago have just morphed into a dark hatred in a matter of minutes.
He is going to take everything from my father—from my family—unless I marry him.
I should’ve known the moment I saw him that he would unleash havoc on my life.
Hatred rattles my bones. “The investment… did he create that to back you into a corner?”
When my father nods, the hatred I feel toward Nico morphs into a giant monster in my chest. Every muscle in my body tenses with tight, unchecked anger.
“He set you up,” I whisper, shocked.
“Yes.”
I don’t know why I am surprised.
It seems Domenico De Kysa is a man who gets what he wants, when he wants it.
Including me, that resentful little voice whispers.
My heart stops and dies and turns black.
“Why?” Tears prick at my eyes, but I refuse them entry. It will be a cold day in hell before I shed one more tear over the Heartless King from the North.
“He wants control of the entire eastern border. Marrying you will give him New York.”
I stare at my father and then at Alberto. “What do you mean?”
My father is a businessman. How will marrying me help Nico gain control over the East Coast?
A second bomb goes off, and I sink back in my chair.
Well, fuck.
“It’s all been a lie, hasn’t it?” I say, feeling the onset of betrayal crawl through me. “You never severed ties with your old life. You just got good at lying to me.”
“Bella—”
It’s all so suddenly clear that I feel foolish for not seeing it sooner.
“You never gave up the Mafia life when we moved to America,” I say. “You’re still involved with all of it.”
Boy, he hid it well.
“You don’t leave the business, Bella,” my father says. “Unless it’s in a body bag.”
“Even Domenico De Kysa couldn’t leave it if he wanted to,” Alberto adds. “The choice leaves us the moment we commit to the life.”
“So all this time, you’ve still been involved in organized crime—”
“Bella.” My father’s voice is laced with warning.
It’s the number one rule. You never talk about organized crime when you’re neck-deep in it.
I just stare at him.
Feeling blindsided.
Feeling betrayed.
My family is still at war with the De Kysa, and apparently, now I am the key to ending the rivalry in the world I didn’t even know I still lived in.
The world that took my mother and brother from me.
I’m also the only thing standing between my father and bankruptcy.
No pressure here. None at all.
“He’s really going to take everything?” I ask.
He’s destroying my life and ruining my father for control of the eastern shipping border into America. There is so much to unpack, I don’t even know where to start.
My father nods reluctantly. “Yes.”
“Surely, there are other ways for him to gain control of the border,” I say. “Forcing me to marry him seems a little over the top.” Not to mention psychopathic.
Which is another thing I’ll need to unpack later.
“Cara mia, he’s not doing this just for control. He’s doing this for revenge.”
My eyes fly to my father. “Revenge? For what?”
He’s the one who broke his vow to find me.
He’s the one who left an eighteen-year-old heartbroken and confused.
“There is much you don’t know,” my father says.
“Then best you inform me,” I reply in a harsh tone. “If I’m expected to marry this… monster. What happened that made him so vengeful?”
My father’s jaw is set, his thickly lashed eyes hard. “He’s a De Kysa, Bella. They’re hot-headed sons of bitches. They’re also prepared to do whatever it takes to get what they want, and Nico wants to control everything coming in and out of Boston and New York.”
“And marrying me will give him that.”
Somewhere buried very deep inside me, it hurts to know I’m nothing more than a pawn in his game of power. When once upon a time, I was his everything.
Alberto leans forward. “The Irish and Russians are making a play for the border. With the De Kysa and Isle Ciccula in an alliance, they won’t try. They’ll die.”
Nausea crawls into my stomach.