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)
He and I need to talk. Now.
No one tries to stop me when I walk out the front door. There isn't anyone here to stop me. When Rafe left, he took everyone with him. That worries me. I don't know if he sent them to safety or if he sent them to war. I send up a prayer that it's the former, and that I'm able to get to Diego in time to find a way out of this for everyone. He can help me find a solution. He has to help me.
Like the house, the guard shack is abandoned.
"This is bad," I whisper, my worry growing.
Did Rafe go after Genovese? After Diego?
I duck inside, praying there's a phone. There isn't one in the house. Rafe won't use a landline. Probably because they're so easy to tap. I nearly sob in relief when I find a phone on the wall in the guard shack.
I dial Diego's number with shaking hands.
His voicemail picks up on the second ring.
"Diego, it's me," I sob. "I t-told Rafe e-everything. I destroyed the e-evidence. I'm s-sorry. Meet me. I'm going to Alvise's. Please meet me there. P-please."
Chapter Eleven
Rafe
"Rafe, you should go," Mattia says, eyeing me from the doorway.
I ignore his suggestion and reach for the brandy decanter, refilling my glass. I'm not sure why he followed me back here in the first place. He shouldn't have. Everyone else is gone, sent to one of the safehouses. Hell, I'm not sure why I came back. Part of me—all of me—hoped Amalia would be here waiting for me to return. She wasn't.
My heart fucking bleeds at the reminder.
I gave her a choice…and her choice wasn't me. She took everything I handed her, and she left. The fucked up thing about it? I don't even blame her. She did what she had to do to save her brother and herself. If anyone can understand that I can. I made the same decision myself once, didn't I? I risked everything to save Nico.
But goddamn. This one hurts. I can't even seem to drink the pain way.
"Rafe."
"I'm not leaving," I mutter, lifting bleary eyes to Mattia. "Until you find Genovese, or the feds come to arrest me, I'm sitting right here in this fucking chair and drinking. Either get a glass or get out." I turn the light off for good measure, casting the house into complete darkness.
"Mafankulo," Mattia snarls, giving up. He stomps out.
"Leave the door open," I call after him, not planning on moving from this chair to open it when the FBI comes knocking.
Mattia grunts what I assume is his opinion of my order. He means well, but he's been pissing me off all day. No wonder Amalia was so crabby this morning. Christ, was it only this morning she was giving me hell about following her around? It feels like another lifetime now.
How did everything go so fucking wrong?
Genovese.
I tore his territory apart looking for him today and left a trail of bodies in my wake. I don't know where he's hiding, but I intend to find him. If the FBI doesn't arrest me before I do, I'm taking out his entire motherfucking family before I go down. He never should have come for my family. He damn sure shouldn't have threatened Amalia.
If he wants a war, he just got one. My face will be the last fucking thing he sees before I send him to hell. He can rot next to my father. And then I'm done. With this empire. With this city. With the Mafia. With the whole goddamn thing. It's all pointless anyway.
Without Amalia, it's all fucking pointless.
"Christ," I rasp, draining my glass. My hand shakes as I fumble in the dark for the decanter to pour another. I barely have it to my lips when a soft sound outside reaches me.
"Hello?" a voice calls, followed by a racket in the foyer.
I glance that way to see a single shadow slip into the house. It's too dark to make out much, but I know instantly that this isn't the FBI. They wouldn't send one tiny slip of a girl to take me down. They'd send the fucking cavalry. No. This the same girl who watched me kill Carmine, the student Nico is in love with, the one he came here to discuss today.
I wasn't surprised to see him. I was surprised to realize he's in love with her. She's a student. In a thousand years, I never would have expected the honorable Nico Valentino to fall in love with one of his students. Amalia would be ashamed if she knew what I did today, the way I forced Nico back into the family by holding this girl's safety over his head. As if she were ever in danger.
My own brother believes me capable of killing an innocent girl…and I let him believe it to get him back into my life. I could have told him what really happened back then and absolved myself of his judgement, but to what end? So he could live with twenty years of guilt and regret? Sometimes, the truth is too goddamn painful to tell, the consequences too goddamn real to risk.