Total pages in book: 206
Estimated words: 192184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 961(@200wpm)___ 769(@250wpm)___ 641(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 192184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 961(@200wpm)___ 769(@250wpm)___ 641(@300wpm)
“No,” he said softly. “I did not. She won the game the only way she knew how. I refused let her go so she took herself from me.”
I covered my face with my hands and pushed away my emotions. The look of pain on his face when he’d said those words made me think it could distract him.
“I loved her like no other woman, would’ve forgiven her for anything. I forgave her for leaving me, for your father, for the abortion. She was it for me. Everything. But she didn’t feel the same. She couldn’t take me as I was.”
A chill slithered up my spine. The silence in the room was near deafening.
“I love your son unconditionally,” I whispered, taking my hands off my face, tears burning in my eyes, my chest, my throat.
Tom looked at me and shook his head, with pain, with skepticism, jealousy; I didn’t know. I couldn’t read his expression.
“Let us go. Don’t take it from him. You said you wanted to give him what you didn’t have. If you meant that, really meant it… he has it. He has it. Let us go. Maybe in time you and your family can heal from this.”
“Tia, don’t,” Tommy answered behind me but his voice was hoarse.
Tom looked at me with tears glistening in his eyes and after a moment, he said, “Go.”
He shrugged. The hand with his gun in his hand dropped to his side but as I got to my feet a sneer spread across his face and he raised the gun in my direction.
“Tia; fuck!” Tommy’s voice was urgent behind me and suddenly he hauled me behind himself and at the same time produced a gun from somewhere on his body and he fired in his father’s direction.
A split second after I fired my gun and hit my father in the forehead with a bullet, Tia went almost limp in my arms. I knew my speed and my aim was better than his. He always had others do his dirty work, so he was out of practice. I also had two guns on my body, not just the one in my hand when I walked in.
She was staring at my father’s body there on the floor in a pool of blood.
I jerked her out of the daze by pulling her hand. “C’mon.”
We left the building. She looked numb, looked like she was in a trance. I led her outside toward the Jeep where Nino, Dario, and Dex sat. The guards were all dead on the front porch.
I got into the back seat with her; my brother was back there, too.
“Call JC for cleanup,” I told Nino, who was in the passenger seat. Dex drove away. Dario and I exchanged looks. My brother’s expression softened for the first time in weeks and then he looked out the window.
She didn’t completely lose it until we were back at the farm. I had the guys drop us off there, knowing it’s where we’d need to be.
When we got up the stairs, she walked ahead of me to the sofa and sat down on it stiffly, staring off into space.
I went to the fridge and pulled out two bottles of water and then sat down beside her, putting the bottles on the floor in front of us.
“Baby?” I whispered and her eyes traveled up my body to my face. The fog seemed to lift and when she fell against me, I crumbled.
18
2 Weeks Later…
I woke up and my head was on his chest, on his right peck and in my line of vision was ink on his left peck. I lifted up on an elbow and looked closer. It was surrounded by skin that was reddish, a tiny bit swollen-looking due to being new. It was shiny, probably with some sort of ointment, and it was beautiful.
He’d gotten in last night late, after I’d been asleep. Over his heart was a tattoo that very much looked like the tribal art on his shoulder trailing down his arm, but this was a small owl on an olive branch, the Greek mythological Athena symbol I’d seen a million times in my life.
Below the olive branch, it said my name, but instead of my given Goddess name, it said Tia and it looked like my own handwriting, like I’d drawn my name on myself. A lump formed in my throat and tears filled my eyes. His eyes opened and he saw what my focus was on. He looked at me lovingly and caressed my cheek.
“The forgiveness you’ve shown me for all I’ve done to you, baby? It means everything.” His voice was sleepy, sweet. “You’ve written your name on my heart, so I wanted it visible. I saw the artist who did my other ink. I think he integrated it all really well.”