Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56680 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56680 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
We’re going to ransom you to the Family and pretend it’s coming from another group, he tells me. That way, nobody will be able to trace it to me. If I publicly make a move on Leonardo Marino’s brother, I won’t be around to help my ma.
Dad always finds a way to squirm through life, using his brother’s connections to play the big shot. A prickle of sick fear touches me just texting about Dad. It makes me sick how it’s still there, teasing, taunting.
What happens after?
What, when you’re home?
Yeah.
I don’t know, he texts. Life will go on like before.
Life will go on with Dad still here. I wonder if he’ll find another dashing, handsome man for me to marry.
You’re your own woman, Mia.
I’m a Family chess piece, I tell him. Let’s say the Irish became powerful, and Elio wanted to make some alliances. He might offer me to one of their lieutenants.
There’s no way. Not here. I’ve never seen it, and I’d never let it happen to you.
Another smile tugs at my lips, bigger this time. A small, crazy voice whispers inside that I shouldn’t have let him go before. On the couch, I should’ve grabbed him, kissed him even harder, moaned, and ground against him. I should’ve given into all the heat making me so wet and warm and tingly.
Instead, there was that, the past, the pain. I’m so sick of it.
You’d just kidnap me again, huh?
As many times as it took, my pinup princess.
Ugh, princess, really?
I said MY pinup princess, he texts. The MY is important, and so is the pinup part.
Even now, with my cheeks still stinging from the crying, tempting tingling sensations course over my body.
What does it mean to be yours, Dante?
It means I’ll protect you. It means you don’t touch another man. You don’t kiss him, and when the time comes to open those thick legs and give a man your tight virgin pussy, I’M that man.
But what if Dad finds another man for me?
I’ll protect you, he tells me. I won’t let anybody hurt you. I won’t let him marry you off. I’ll find a way to make this work.
I shiver, more tingles dancing through my body. Could you come in here and just hold me, Dante? But no steamy stuff? Just for a little while.
I’m not a complete animal.
Is that a yes or a no?
Half a minute later, the door opens. Dante walks across the room, his muscles heaving, his eyes heavy with emotion. He sits on the bed beside me and then wraps his arm around me. I collapse against his warmth. It was never supposed to feel like this with anybody. I was never meant to experience this warmth, this fusing feeling.
He groans and pulls me closer to him. It’s more like a sound of pure emotion, not sex. I wrap my arms around him and dig my fingers into his muscular body. We share the warmth, the closeness. I almost feel like crying again, but unlike before, with a different emotion this time.
“When will we do the ransom?”
“Tomorrow,” Dante says. “Or the day after…”
“Maybe the day after,” I mutter.
“You want to stay here another day?” he says, shock in his voice. “I thought you were desperate to get out.”
That was when I was in panic mode, right after seeing the blood spill across the concrete. That was before I thought through what going home meant. Dad is still out there—Dad and his schemes and his bullying voice.
“Maybe I need a break from the world, from life, just a day. I think you owe me a favor.”
“Go on…”
“I’ll write a list of art supplies. You can get them for me, and then I’ll paint you, Dante. It’ll be a secret painting, just for me. A way to remember this experience.”
“You want to remember it?”
I press my face against his chest. “Don’t you?”
“I’ll never forget this, Mia,” he says passionately. “Being here with you has made me feel more alive than I ever have in all my long, long, long life.”
I grab his chest, laughing, leaning back to look up at him. “I like your age, Dante.”
“You do?”
“It makes me feel… protected. Is that weird?”
“In our world…” Dante laughs softly.
I smile, thinking of Elio and Scarlet, Colt and Lexi. There’s also an age gap between Ruby and Luca, but not as much. My smile fades a moment later. We’re not like them. They threw themselves into Family life instantly, eagerly, but I could never be like that. Dante’s smile fades, too. I think he senses the same thing and the same implication.
We could never be what they are or have what they have. We’re too scarred. We’re too broken. If our life were a story, there would be no happy epilogues, but we do have this moment. So I squeeze against him again, bury my face in his warmth, breathe in his scent, and am thankful for the simple fact that I’m here with him now.