Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83776 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83776 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
“Let me.” He hesitates and looks at my burn scars. Everyone in the Famiglia knows how that happened, even if nobody talks about it anymore, and I don’t like the implication in his hesitation. “Give me the match.”
He hands it over and backs up to the door. I stare at the tip, thinking about the skin-melting heat as it roared against the bars of my cage, then light the match on the sole of my boot. It flares to life, and the office rug catches ablaze the second I toss it onto the floor.
The heat’s intense as the air catches and a whoosh of displaced air and smoke rushes past us. Emilio backs away, coughing into his mask, but I stay where I am and watch as the fire begins to consume everything in its path. I hold out my hand, reaching for the metal of my cage, trying to grab it and yank at it, because if I don’t get out then I’m going to burn to a crisp, but everything’s so hot and I can barely breathe, and I hear screaming and yelling from nearby but I don’t know what any of that means, and I don’t know where Uncle Luciano went or what’s going to happen to me, but I’m fucking scared, I’m goddamn terrified, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to die.
“DAVIDE!” Someone drags me backward, yanking me from the sudden onrush of a horrible memory. “You have to get out!” It’s Simon pulling me toward the door, and soon I’m aware of how much smoke there is and how the heat’s lapping at my clothes like a hungry dog.
We stagger out of the office park, coughing hard. I hack something dark onto the pavement and gasp for breath, my head spinning as I get myself under control. The call center employees are staring in horror as the flames lick out the door and smoke pours from the roof.
“Bruno,” I bark and summon my soldier. “Which one was the manager?”
“This guy.” He drags over an older, balding man in a business casual outfit. The man trembles and tries to say that this is all some misunderstanding, but I don’t hesitate.
I press my gun to his head and pull the trigger.
His body collapses and the employees start screaming. Some of them are crying, and I wish they’d shut the fuck up. If I were a worse person, I’d kill all of them too, but this is enough for now.
We heave the dead manager’s corpse back in through the front door before running back to the trucks. The employees remain where we left them in a loose circle, kneeling with their hands on their heads and their faces pressed into the blacktop. I drive away as the scream of sirens blares in the distance.
Santoro will understand this message; if we can find his most secret scam call center, we can find any of his businesses, and none of them are safe from my wrath.
Chapter 25
Stefania
There’s someone trying to break into the house.
I hear banging, rhythmic and constant, and I stumble out of bed in full-on panic mode. Suddenly, all the phone numbers Davide made me memorize when I first came to live here—the guards, his parents, his brother, his sister—they’re all gone and I can’t think of anything at all. I stagger into the bathroom and grab a hairdryer from under the sink, but I have no clue what I’m going to do with it, blast some warm air in the intruder’s face? I throw it aside and end up hefting this old statue of a dalmatian Davide has in the corner of his room and hold it up like a club by the head.
Slowly, I creep down to the first floor. The lights are on, which is weird, and the rhythmic banging sound isn’t coming from outside, which is weirder. If this is actually a break-in attempt, it has to be the worst possible burglar imaginable. I reach the bottom of the steps and nearly have a heart attack when I spot Davide holding weights on either side of him and doing squats right in the middle of the living room. Each time he comes up and goes back down, there’s a loud thump.
He’s wearing only a pair of small gym shorts and his skin glistens with sweat. I creep closer, still clutching the dalmatian, trying to decide if I’m going to brain him with it or not. But he notices me coming and puts the weights down and wipes his forehead, giving me a nice view of one muscular bicep and one incredibly gorgeous forearm, and I decide that killing him with a dog statue would be a waste of a perfectly sculpted body.
“What the hell are you doing?” I ask him and gesture like a crazy person at the digital clock on the end table. “It’s three in the freaking morning.”