Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 23833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 119(@200wpm)___ 95(@250wpm)___ 79(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 23833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 119(@200wpm)___ 95(@250wpm)___ 79(@300wpm)
I don't understand, God.
"And I was wrong."
Please just help me understand.
Thirteen
FRANCISCO: She's gone.
The other man's text had arrived in his inbox hours ago, and Ezio had been reading it over and over.
She's gone.
It should have pleased him to know this. But the words only made him feel even empty. Death used to be the only verdict his famiglia handed to traitors. But even now, he knew...
He would rather kill himself than hurt a single strand of her head.
And so he had sought to destroy her instead.
Because it was just as Drake said.
A snake that no longer felt safe in its den would never waste time slithering out to escape, and that was exactly what she had done.
The moment she had seen photos of Ezio with another woman, all of which had been staged to make him look as if he were being unfaithful, she had realized that she held no influence over him, and that was it.
Game over.
And just like what any self-respecting traitor would do, she had been wise enough not to risk confrontation with his famiglia.
She had moved on, and he knew he should, too.
But how?
Thoughts of her shadowed his every thought, and he didn't even have to close his eyes to see her. No matter where he looked, she was there.
Smiling.
Laughing.
A picture of tenderness and betrayal.
And it made him feel like he was about to lose his mind.
Was this how it would be for the rest of his life?
Was this how it felt, to have loved a woman who had no soul?
Ezio wearily came to his feet. He had been in the airport for hours now, having flown back to Boston to say his goodbyes to the rest of his famiglia. Or at least that was the plan. But he realized now it was just too fucking soon.
The memories of their time together were still too fresh, and if he were to come back to his grandmother's estate, those memories would be everywhere.
It didn't even make sense, why she would want to betray them like that.
He had already married her, for fuck's sake.
Or was it because she blamed them for her parents' death, and this was her twisted way of avenging them?
I'm fucking over trying to make sense of this, Ezi thought.
He wasn't sure where he wanted to go from here, but wherever he ended up, he would simply call his grandmother and apologize over the phone. He would leave Giancarlo to tell her the rest, and because they were famiglia, he knew they would understand.
But for now—-
Ezio's phone rang just as he was about to enter the boarding area, and he reluctantly answered the call when he saw Drake's name on his screen.
"You're at the airport, correct?"
The only way the FBI agent would know this was if Drake had managed to put a tracker on him. But even this thought wasn't enough to make him angry.
"You already know the answer—-"
Drake cut him off, saying abruptly, "She's there, Ezio. She fell for one of our traps, and she's there. She's all yours to do whatever you want."
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Some people had a thing for closure, but he had never been one of them. This was the exact reason why he hadn't even wanted to see her go. He just wanted to forget her, dammit. But fate clearly had other plans.
"Where is she?"
Drake gave him her location.
What's this about, God?
Ezio couldn't remember the last time he had spoken to God.
Didn't even know why he was doing it.
Or maybe it was because he had often seen her praying, and even now, he couldn't make himself think she had been faking it.
So how, God?
How could someone who spent so much time talking to You be a fucking snake at the same time?
It was a question that he didn't even bother hoping for an answer.
"Ezio?"
But God actually gave him one.
"What are you doing here?"
Because the answer was standing right in front of Ezio.
Since it was his estranged mother, and not his wife, who was the snake.
Fourteen
GIANCARLO AND HIS GRANDMOTHER arrived at the airport just in time to see Ezio's estranged mother taken away in handcuffs.
And standing behind her, rigid and pale-faced, was Ezio himself.
"I'm so sorry, bambino." Potenziana placed a trembling hand against his cheek. "It is not right that you experience this."
Ezio knew his grandmother thought him brokenhearted over his mother's betrayal.
But he wasn't.
Because a part of him had always sensed she was capable of doing this.
And so if anything, it just made him feel he had been so fucking blind, not to have guessed that she could be the snake they had been doing their best to hunt down.
He had spent all of his holidays in New York because of her. How could he have not made the fucking connection?
"There's something else you have to know," Giancarlo said quietly. "Your wife—-"