Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 54092 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 270(@200wpm)___ 216(@250wpm)___ 180(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54092 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 270(@200wpm)___ 216(@250wpm)___ 180(@300wpm)
A long shadow stretches across the floor, sinister in the darkness.
Bile crawls up my throat.
Stay calm, Amalia, I tell myself. You can panic later.
Yes, later. When I'm not dead or worse on my own bedroom floor. God, I hate this city. If it weren't for Diego, I would have packed up my stuff and left it in the rearview a long time ago. Between the gangs, the mobsters, and the run-of-the-mill criminals, street life is the only life left in entire sections of Chicago. At least it is in the sections I call home.
The shadow steps into the bedroom, the unmistakable form of a man becoming apparent. He's tall and broad through the shoulders. It might be my imagination, but he looks like he's hunched over. Is he hiding something? I can't tell with the door partially blocking my view.
It's probably his murder kit, Amalia. Gloves, rope, weapons. He came to hurt you. Kill you.
He takes another step into the room.
I hold my breath, waiting for him to notice that I'm not in my bed.
Another step.
"Shit," he whispers, pausing.
Crap, he knows.
I act on instinct.
"¡Vete al demonio!" I yell, leaping out of my hiding spot and swinging the bat as hard as I can.
It slams into the side of the door with enough force to send a recoil up my arms. Wood splinters, pieces of the Masonite door caving in. The bat falls from my numb hands, landing on the carpet at my feet.
The man grabs me around the waist before I can dart out of the way.
Fight or flight kicks in, my heart pounding as adrenaline courses through me. I elbow him in the ribs. Hard. And then kick him in the shin.
"Jesus Christ, Lia," he grunts in pain. "What the fuck?"
"Diego?" My entire body goes lax as an overwhelming sense of relief courses through me, permeating every cell. I nearly crumple to the floor. And then indignation sets in. I rip myself out of his arms, mad as hell. "Are you insane? I thought you were a murderer!"
I stomp toward the door.
"I could have killed you!" I yell, slapping the switch so light floods into the room.
"You'd actually have to know how to aim your swing to do that," he says from behind me, pain and amusement mingling in his voice. And then I hear a thud.
I spin around, blinking twice to adjust to the light. When I do, it takes my mind a minute to catch up. My older brother is on his hands and knees on the floor, his dark head bent as if it's too heavy to hold up. He lists side to side, swaying like a toy boat on the lake.
"I didn't hit you that…" I trail off with a strangled cry when I catch sight of him. Anger retreats as cold fear sweeps in to take its place. Dried blood mats his dark hair, plastering it to his forehead on the right side. His right eye is swollen shut, his cheek one big bruise. More dried blood dots his lip.
The last time he looked this bad, I was in the seventh grade. Jorge Gutierrez called me an ugly cow. When I finally told Diego what he said, he stormed out of the house. He came home two hours later looking like death warmed over. Jorge and his friends looked even worse at school the next day. They never bothered me again either.
"Diego, what happened?" I whisper, dropping to my knees beside him.
"I'm in trouble, Lia," he says. "Big trouble this time." Diego isn't afraid of anything…but he's afraid now. For the first time ever, his voice shakes with it. So does his hand when he lifts it from the floor, reaching for mine.
"What do you mean? What did you do?" I ask, gripping his hand tightly in mine.
He lifts his head, one eye swollen shut. The other focuses on me through a haze of pain. The grim acceptance burning there sets my teeth on edge. "He knows what I’ve been doing. He's coming for me, Lia."
I don't have to ask who. I already know.
My blood runs cold.
Chapter One
Rafe
"You're sure this is where he's hiding?" I ask my younger brother, Luca, flicking my gaze up and down the ancient apartment complex through the bulletproof window of the Bentayga. The rust-stained building looks more like a death trap than a habitable dwelling. Windows are boarded up in places, with graffiti declaring it gang territory. I assume the walls were tan at one point, though it wasn't any time in recent memory.
The parking lot is pitted and cracked, with entire sections of cement buckling. Brown patches of dead grass are scattered at random intervals throughout the yard. The swing-set off to the side of the building is broken, the chains long since rusted. The only piece of equipment on the small playground still in working order is the metal slide. Even that has large dents in it and a missing rung on the ladder. The picnic tables are broken.