Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 136915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 685(@200wpm)___ 548(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 685(@200wpm)___ 548(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
Greta hadn’t moved yet. She looked lost and small. Something haunted lay in her eyes.
I realized that everything I’d sworn myself, everything I’d done this last year didn’t matter when I looked into her eyes.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” she murmured. Her voice was raw.
I smiled bitterly. “I shouldn’t have come. This could be a trap.”
“We’re alone.”
I shook my head and moved even closer until I towered over her. “You know many might think it’s a bad idea to be alone with your enemy.”
“Are you my enemy?”
“You are a Falcone and I’m a Vitiello. Our families are at war.”
She blinked up at me. “Then why are you here?”
I shrugged, my voice low when I spoke, “I could be here to kidnap you, to hurt you in different ways, to kill you.”
“And? Are you here to hurt me?”
My heart clenched. I cupped her head with one hand, bringing our faces closer. “Us being here is a bad idea. You being so trusting in me is the worst idea.”
She shivered, even though I found it almost unbearably hot in here. “I needed you.” Her lashes fluttered, and she closed her eyes against a horror only she could see. “I know it was wrong to call you. I don’t know why I did it but I couldn’t think of what else to do. I just knew I needed to see you. I’ve never felt so lost before, so little like myself.”
“What happened?” I asked quietly.
Greta wrapped her arms around her middle, looking down and slowly she sank down, slipping away from my touch. She peered up at me expectantly and I sank down next to her and put my gun down on the ground beside my leg. She stared into the light beam and slowly sunk into herself, her cheeks hollowing as she gnawed on her lower lip, then she turned those eyes on me, and as I had a year ago, I fell hard. With one look, she sucked me in and I was unable to stop it. “You won’t see me the same way once I tell you.”
I doubted anything could change how I saw Greta. I had tried to hate her. I hated her brother effortlessly, and with such force and immediate passion that I’d hoped I could find a flicker of hatred for her as well. When that hadn’t worked, I’d tried to forget her. And today I was here.
“It’s really bad. Really really bad.”
The anguish in her voice made me reach out to her and brush my thumb across her cheek. My wedding ring caught the light and I lowered my hand. What were we doing here?
“I killed a man, two days ago.”
That wasn’t what I’d expected. She was a Falcone so these words wouldn’t have made a major impact a year ago, before I’d met Greta, talked to her, seen the abundance of kindness in her eyes, and even now she exuded kindness. I couldn’t imagine Greta becoming violent without a very good reason. She certainly didn’t do it for the fun of it like her brother, and even I did on occasion.
She leaned her head back until she stared up at the ceiling that the beam of the flashlight couldn’t reach anymore, and without thinking I scooted over so I was right beside her.
“He burned alive, then Nevio killed him.”
“So you didn’t kill him.”
“Nevio ended what I’d started. The man would have died either way. He was aflame.” Her eyes were wide and alarmed when she turned to me, her chest rising and falling, drawing my attention to the low neckline of her leotard. I forced my thoughts away from this path and focused on Greta’s obvious distress.
“Tell me what happened, in detail, all right?”
She swallowed then nodded slowly before she began to speak in a hushed voice. When she was done, she looked at me anxiously, awaiting my judgment. I was fairly sure I wasn’t the right person to discuss the justification for killing someone with her, but neither were the people in her family. And I liked that she sought me to talk to. She had no reason to trust me with this, or at all, our families were caught up in a war and she and I hadn’t had any contact in a year, and yet she’d called me in her worst hour.
“You acted out of a place of kindness, Greta. You were probably in shock too. Despite your upbringing you aren’t hardened to cruelty and violence, so seeing it has unsettled you enough to lash out without thinking. And as far as I’m concerned, the guy deserved death.”
“But who am I to decide who deserves to die or not?”
I chuckled darkly. “My father and I are judges over life and death all the time, and so are your father and brother. And we kill people without a hint of a kind motive.”