Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 94048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
I feel like my feet are dunked in Arctic waters. I’m frozen, numb, unable to move. I try to map out what he just told me, try to make the connections between words and phrases, but my brain isn’t working.
“Santoro has scam call centers?” I manage to ask. I barely recognize my own voice. I’m drifting on an ocean, blowing away on a kite string.
“He’s been at it for years. It’s one of his main income streams. When you told me about what happened to your dad, it pissed me off so fucking much, because there are dozens of people like him every day getting ripped off and ruined, and I just snapped. I put together a team and we raided one of his offices, and I pulled the trigger on that manager. I’m the one that made the choice. If I hadn’t, I don’t think Santoro would’ve attacked Cucina.”
It washes over me in a wave. Simon struck first. But he only went out there because of the story I told him. It’s so easy for me to find a way to blame myself, to bend the world straight back to me. I can drown myself in responsibility.
Simon did that for me.
I try to pull away. This time, I wrench my hand free and stand, pacing away. “Then it’s still my fault,” I say, finding all the cracks and flaws in his story and digging my nails into them. If I could rip my own skin off my body, I would. I’d flay myself to the muscle, just to bleed some of this guilt away. “I made you go. It was me from the start.”
“No, baby, you’re wrong.” He sounds like I’m breaking his heart. “This fight with Santoro was going to happen no matter what. It was ramping up long before you came into my life. I’m trying to make you understand that if it wasn’t the call center, it would’ve been something else, and it always would’ve been my fault. What happened to Rachel is on me. I couldn’t protect her.”
I put my face in my hands and take deep breaths. “It’s like you want me to hate you. Do you want me to hate you?”
“Not even a little bit.” He gets up and comes toward me. I back away. “But I want to make sure you don’t hate yourself, either. If that means redirecting all your anger toward me, then fine. I can suffer through it. But you’ve done so much for the people around you already, and I don’t want you to take what happened to Rachel onto yourself. You did nothing wrong.”
“Then you’re right. I should hate you instead.” I rub my eyes and try to summon the energy to feel anything but this bottomless pit of grieving, except there’s nothing left in me. I don’t hate him, even if I should. I know he would’ve given anything to keep Rachel alive. I know he never imagined Santoro would attack Cucina. I still can’t stop myself from wondering if I could’ve done something more to save her.
“Go ahead, baby,” he says, advancing on me. “Put your blame on me. Don’t suffer for what I did. Hate me. I can handle it.”
“Simon,” I whisper, backing away from him, staring as he keeps coming, big and sleek, prowling like a beast, like a hungry panther in his expensive suit. He’s a monster, a well-groomed animal.
“Just don’t blame yourself. That’s all I’m asking. Rachel didn’t deserve what happened to her, and I’m so fucking sorry that it happened. I swear to you, I’m going to hunt down every single Santoro bastard—”
I shake my head as I bump up against the wall. He’s there, his right palm on the side of my face, and my hands push into his chest to hold him back from crushing me.
“I don’t want that,” I whisper, trying not to cry again. “Please don’t escalate because of me.”
“I’m going to escalate because he killed an innocent civilian. I took out one of his managers, but that guy was in Santoro’s organization. He retaliated by murdering a fucking waitress. It went too far.”
I pull in a breath through my nose. “That’s all that ever matters, isn’t it? You two are going to burn down this city because of your pride? You hit, he hits back, on and on forever because nobody can step back from the brink.”
He looks almost sad as his hand slips across my face and back into my hair. I tilt my chin up, trying to summon defiance, and all I feel is tired.
I can already see how this war is going to go. Simon won’t ever stop. He’ll kill and kill until either Santoro is finished or he’s dead too. The only way to escape this terminal plummet is to hit the ground in a fiery, cataclysmic explosion. But I want to save him, and I want to save everyone, but I don’t see how that can possibly happen.