Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 35213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 176(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 176(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
The driver locks eyes with me, his widening in genuine terror as realization dawns that we're on a collision course with one another.
Fuck.
I try to navigate around the car, but the panicked driver scrambles in the same direction I do, trying to avoid me. I veer to the right at the last second, cursing through gritted teeth.
The Prius clips the back of my bike, twisting the back tire all to hell. The bike lifts from the ground, flying in one direction and sending me in another.
For a moment, I'm airborne, weightless. But I'm damn sure not free. I see everything. Every goddamn second as the bike flips wildly before slamming into the blonde still standing at the corner, her mouth parted in shock.
It hits her so hard she goes flying into the brick wall behind her.
I hear the sickening thud as her head smashes into the brick.
And then gravity drags me back down to earth. I slam into the cement with the force of a meteor landing. Flesh rips free of bone. Bone shatters. I flip and roll across the ground, tossed like a ragdoll by my own goddamn choices.
It hurts like hell. Christ, it hurts.
And yet, some part of me screams that it should hurt more.
I just spun the wheel and tempted fate. But I'm not the one dying.
"Gabriel." Mattia clamps a hand down on my shoulder, applying pressure.
"Fuck." I yank away from him, breathing hard. My throat threatens to close up the same way it always does when I remember that fucking night…the night I killed an innocent woman. The night Mattia helped cover it up. The night everything changed.
I should have died that night. Instead, someone died in my place. And while I was on the operating table, Mattia Agostino made sure I never paid for what I did. He did his job…and I've never been able to forgive him for it. I've never been able to forgive myself, either.
Life looks different when you know for goddamn certain you were the one who should have died but didn't. The shit we do…there is no excusing it. There is no justifying it. Back then, I could convince myself there was a purpose to it. That it meant something. That keeping us together was worth the trade-off.
That was then.
"Easy," Mattia murmurs, backing up a step. "Easy, Gabriel."
"You should have let me go to prison that night," I rasp, trying to shove it all back down into the box where I keep it. "You should have let me rot."
He eyes me silently, his goddamn gray eyes scouring my face, seeing too much. "I took the same vows you did," he finally says. "La Cosa Nostra above everything."
"It had nothing to do with Omertà."
"No?" Mattia cocks a brow at me. "If you believe that, you understand far less than you think you do. We both know why you were out there that night, Gabriel. We both know what you were running from. It had everything to do with La Cosa Nostra. It had everything to do with Rafe."
I grit my teeth, refusing to acknowledge his point.
"You and Luca held Rafe to the light when nothing else did. Had you been in prison these last few years, there wouldn't have been anything left for Amalia to save."
I snort. "Rafe does what Rafe wants to do, Mattia. Always has."
"Rafe does what he must, same as you."
"Well, it's a moot point now, isn't it?" I rake a hand through my hair. It's too long again. "He's got Amalia, and shit is finally settling."
This time, Mattia snorts. "Life never settles long, Gabe. One storm may have passed, but there will be others. We need your head on straight when they get here."
"My head is on straight."
"Is it?" He cocks his to the side. "You're avoiding the family more than usual."
"Been busy." I motion to my desk to emphasize the point. A neat stack of folders rests on the edge, still awaiting my attention. When you run a multi-billion-dollar company tied to the mafia, the work is never finished. "In case you forgot, our lawyer was feeding information to the FBI."
"They haven't come knocking, have they?"
"They won't," I state bluntly. "Not without evidence."
A few months ago, our lawyer, Diego Butera started working with Tommaso Genovese to bring Rafe down. He was pissed that Rafe killed his father. Genovese was pissed that Rafe was in charge. Long story short, all hell broke loose.
Diego flipped back to our side. Rafe killed Genovese and married Diego's adopted sister…who is the long-lost daughter of the man who murdered our mother. Luca kidnapped and married Genovese's granddaughter.
It's been a long, exhausting fucking year.
While Rafe and Luca have been dealing with the fallout from the Genovese family. I've been keeping a close eye on the legal bullshit.
"Diego never turned over anything on us," I remind Mattia. "He wanted the pleasure of destroying Rafe personally. Since Amalia burned what they needed and Diego was on his revenge quest, the feds are up a creek at the moment. I'm trying to ensure it stays that way."