Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 113056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
I sipped my water.
“You okay, Chiquita?” Sarah asked.
I shrugged. “I’m worried. He’s out there angry and with a gun. He’s upset. I’m upset, too, I mean… I love Tess, she’s awesome. I’m disgusted.”
Dex came in.
“Sorry girls. Tommy wants one of us in here with you all.”
“That’s okay,” I said, “Want something to drink?”
“I can get it.” He gave me a smile.
He always teased me about treating him like a guest instead of a guard. I always tried to treat the guards like friends. They were keeping us safe. And Dex was someone Tommy obviously trusted, judging by how often Dex was around.
Sarah then ranted for a good while and it did not one good thing for my peace of mind. Dex let her rant, saying nothing, just sitting with us. When she’d finally burned it out, she said goodnight, hugged me, and went to one of the half a dozen bedrooms in our massive, lavish hotel suite.
I said goodnight and headed to my and Tommy’s room at the opposite end of the suite (ours was the only room on that side) and curled up in bed. But, I couldn’t find sleep.
I hated Las Vegas last time. It nearly destroyed me. Us. And I didn’t feel any better about it this time so far. The only good thing was that Tessa was back with us, safe; her kids had their mom.
I tossed and turned and spent way too much time in my head thinking about our baby, about our life, thinking about the tangled web of a mess Tom Ferrano Sr. had left for his kids.
My husband and I’d had a tough, tangled up road towards love and it was a bumpy path we were both still traveling on. We’d only been together six months and had faced so many obstacles so far.
I tried to stop my head from backtracking to when we’d met, when he’d forced himself on me, when we were here in Sin City, what he’d done to me after I ran from him because of his stupid tests and games.
But, I couldn’t stop it, all of it, from drifting through my mind as I thought about his reaction to someone kidnapping and presumably raping his sister. In any normal situation, that would be a normal reaction for a badass like Tommy.
But with all he’d done to me? I couldn’t help but dissect it. Being here, in Vegas, maybe it just brought it all back. The hypocrisy.
Heat and anger bubbled up in me. I tried to tell myself it was different, he and I were married, I knew what was in his heart, how hard he fights his demons. I love him.
But it nagged at me, all of it. He was changing, right? Was he? Or, had I just changed to accommodate him?
The bad kept seeping through, despite trying to push it away.
I heard noise outside the bedroom door at about 3:00 in the morning. I was about to go investigate, since I was awake anyway, in case it was Tessa and she wanted to talk, but the door to our room opened. I bolted up. It was Tommy.
“Baby girl,” he said, sounding tired and frustrated.
“Hi. You okay?” I asked.
“Couldn’t find the little fuck.” He dropped to a squat and twisted the dial on the wall safe and put his gun back inside and then shut it.
“I’d sleep with that if there weren’t kids around,” he mumbled.
I shuddered.
He undid the buttons on his shirt.
“Tess went to sleep early,” I said quietly.
He took his shirt off and dropped it on an armchair by the safe and went for his belt. I could see by his body language that he was fuming. As he undid it, I had a flashback to him snapping his halved belt to frighten me last time we were in Vegas. I’d seen him undo his belt a thousand times without remembering that awful moment but right now? It was as if I were back in that moment, about to face his wrath.
I tried to redirect my brain.
“What’s gonna happen, Tommy? Tomorrow? This party?” If I couldn’t distract myself, I’d blurt every awful thing I was thinking.
“Tomorrow night, we go to the Fete opening. You and my sister get dressed to the nines and we act like life is good. Drink, smile, live it up. We snuck Tess in so he doesn’t know yet we got her back. That little slimy fuck is either gonna hear about it or he’s gonna show. I’ve arranged for him to get an invite. And then I’ll put you two with Dex and Nino and then I get him to hold his dick while I get it sawed off with a dull knife before I put a fucking bullet in his goddamn smarmy fuckin’ face.”
My stomach flip-flopped.
“He carved his initials into her fucking arm, Tia. He raped her, sold her to a slave auction house. She would never have gotten back to her boys, to us if that goof had his way. If Romero hadn’t stepped in? Fuck. And that’s a whole other fuckin’ story because Romero is a human trafficker who has Angel’s 17-year-old sister that he used as a bargaining chip. We get Tess but Holly stays with him.”