Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80303 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80303 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
She smiled at me briefly before returning her focus to Maisie. I wondered how this all worked for her and how she got tied up with a man like Zacharias. She was, after all, the wife of a ridiculously wealthy crime boss.
I guess there was the slight chance she had absolutely no idea what her husband, son, and the rest of their family did for a living but I highly doubted that. Judas was, killing, dismembering, and making people disappear during his senior year of high school.
Your head would have to be pretty far in the sand not to pick up on any of that. Their notorious family crest was engraved in the center of the dining table, stretching about as wide as my ass. I think it was safe to assume she knew exactly what went down around here.
Despite my curiosity, I wasn’t going to come right out and question her inability to hear.
That was a quick way to bring my ignorance on the matter centerfold. It would also be incredibly rude and stupid.
Throughout the entire day, Judas' father doted on her non-stop. Offending him by disrespecting his wife in any way, even though it would be completely unintentional, was not at the top of my to-do list. Plus, the woman was growing on me faster than a Chia pet.
From my peripheral, I saw Otto enter the dining room with something clutched in his hand.
Considering I’d hardly seen the man since this morning I was immediately put on guard. He circled around the table until he was right behind Judas’ chair. No one else seemed too concerned about this or paid him much attention.
This entire family had mastered the art of minding their business. I couldn’t relate.
“How do you like the pasta?” Maisie asked just as Otto leaned down and whispered something I couldn’t hear in Judas’ ear.
I was going to ignore her but now nearly the whole table was staring at me. Goddamnit. She wasn’t even slick about it.
“It’s good,” I replied, watching Otto pass off the object he’d carried in here before wandering off again. Judas didn’t bother concealing what he’d been given—a black velvet box.
I reached for my ice water instead of the wine. I was determined to play off the panic that was building at a pulse-pounding tempo. There was no way in hell that’s what I thought it was. When Judas looked over at me with a glint in his eye, I knew it was exactly that.
“Don’t you dare,” I mouthed at him.
His devious grin said I might as well have challenged him to a duel. He cleared his throat to garner the attention that was anywhere but on us and theatrically rose from his chair. If I bolted from this room right now, what’s the worst that could happen?
“You may not have realized it yet, but I have a very large famiglia,” Judas began.
I’d figured that out a long time ago, but now wasn’t the time to announce I’d cyberstalked him before.
“The people in this room are some of the most important to me, including you. I have something more celebratory planned than this, but they wanted to be there when I placed this ring on your finger.”
“Judas,” I started and then paused at a total loss. This wasn’t a proposal like I’d feared, it was somehow worse. Wasn’t that always the case with this man?
He blew my every expectation to bum-fuck Egypt again and again. Why would our engagement be any different?
He skipped right over asking me to marry him and simply decided I would. My answer didn’t actually matter. One way or another he was going to make me his wife.
My brain couldn’t recall any of the vocabularies it’d mastered except for three simple words.
“What the fuck?”
“Good response,” Judas quipped.
He flipped the velvet box open and before I could pull my hand out of reach, he had it in a death grip.
I fought off a grimace as bone felt like it would smash together. A giant rock slid onto my ring finger, glinting as it caught some of the light from the above chandelier.
His thumb smoothed across the back of my hand and then he was leaning down to give me a quick kiss.
When he was seated again, still holding my throbbing hand, all I could do was stare at him in semi-shock.
A sharp bark of amused laughter came from his father across the table. “These are always fun.”
“They certainly take me back to the days when we were young,” Rico agreed.
What the hell? I looked around the room and saw similar expressions of acceptance and pride.
“Consider this a family tradition,” Maisie explained flippantly.
“Yeah, they’re truly unforgettable,” Nova deadpanned, earning her an endearing smile from Rhys.
She was one of the only two people here who had the decency to look sympathetic. Surprisingly, Gemma was the other. It wasn’t enough for her to reprimand or side against her son, though.