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)
I know where he’s holding her. The Bamcorda have a warehouse down at the docks. I recognize the familiar brickwork that is common in the area because we have warehouses that look the same.
It’s a trap. I didn’t get this far as don by not recognizing an ambush coming a mile away.
Luca Bamcorda wants me to show up and save Bella.
He’s trying to distract me with my own emotions. He wants me wild and half-cocked with emotion so I might fuck up.
Not the calm, calculated man he knows I am because he knows that version of me is capable of anything.
What he didn’t count on was me being in love with my forced bride.
That she is the air that I fucking breathe.
That needing her more than I need my own heartbeat has made me even more ruthless, even more capable of raining down fire and brimstone and all that hell can bring, more so than usual.
“What do you want?” I growl.
“I want you to know what happens to people who disrespect me and my family.”
“You need to tread very carefully, Luca. If you hurt Bella, you cannot imagine the things I will do to you and every single asshole bearing the Bamcorda name.”
He chuckles. “Come find your bride, stronzo, and we’ll talk.”
40
Bella
This time when I wake up, my arms are stretched above my head and my wrists are tied to a bolt in the ceiling. I can stand, but my legs are weak, and my body aches with exhaustion.
It takes me a second to realize I’m being slapped on the face to wake up.
When I open my eyes, they land on Luca Bamcorda’s smug smile. “Ah, the princess is finally awake.”
Blood trickles down my temple and through my eyebrow, dripping onto my cheek and lips. I taste the metallic tang of it as I look at the man who has me bound as his prisoner.
“My husband is going to kill you for this… slowly.”
My voice is hoarse, my throat swollen and sore, and I wonder exactly what they did to me while I was unconscious. My clothes are still intact, and I don’t feel any pain that might suggest sexual assault, so I don’t think I’ve been violated in that way. Besides, Luca Bamcorda is such an evil narcissist I’m pretty sure he would want me awake for anything like that.
Going by the stinging pain in my scalp and the tightness in my neck, I think they dragged me by the hair and held me up by the throat as they bound my wrists and secured me to the ceiling.
A new smile spreads across Luca’s spongy lips. “You think I care about Domenico De Kysa? I just care about being the one to cut up his bride.”
His words send a sharp shiver through me, like a blade of a knife running down my spine.
“You see, your husband has a lot of enemies. It’s nothing personal. It simply comes with the role.” He steps closer, his forehead beaded with sweat and gleaming in the dull light. “But with me, it is very, very personal. He disrespected me, and he disrespected my daughter. And now, the only way he can pay for this scourge is with your life.”
When I see the knife, I whimper, and my pulse pounds against my throat.
I’m going to die, but I won’t go down without a fight. I lash out at him with my legs.
It catches him off guard, and he stumbles but quickly rights himself, and all I’ve done is made him mad.
He punches me so hard in the cheek I see stars, leaving me docile and nauseous as I watch my fate unfold before me.
He leans closer, and I’m engulfed in the stench of tobacco and garlicky sweat as he brings his mouth to my ear. “If it wasn’t me, Bella Isle Ciccula, it would be someone else.”
I squeeze my eyes close and wait for the pain.
But it doesn’t come.
Instead, gunfire and men yelling in the distance breaks into the silence and tells me things are about to change.
Nico.
But Luca doesn’t appear worried. In fact, he smiles and says, “Showtime.”
More gunfire rings out. More yelling as Bamcorda soldiers try to stop the moving war machine that is my husband.
The noise comes closer until the door bursts open, and Nico appears like a dark demon in the doorway. Black suit. A gun in each hand. A face wild with determination to make Luca pay.
Behind him lay the bodies of the men who tried to stop him from getting to me.
Luca moves behind me and brings the blade to my throat.
Nico’s dead eyes burn holes into Luca’s face. “You don’t want her. You want me. Let her go, and you can take me.”
Luca’s words have a smile in them. “Think I’m fine where I am.”
The wrath radiating off Nico is like a raging inferno.