Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76539 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76539 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
But I’m powerless. I’ve always been powerless in all this, and seeing him in pain and angry and exhausted sends a jolt of anger and fear deep through my core.
“Just let me sit here for a while,” Angelo says and each breath is labored. “I’ll call Carmine. He’ll send someone. But not yet.”
“What are you waiting for?” I dab at his face gently, cleaning the blood away. His shirt’s ruined, his trousers are drenched in filth and gravel. He looks at me with hard eyes and touches my face. “Angelo. Don’t.”
“What did your parents say to you?”
“Seriously? You almost got killed tonight, and you’re asking about my parents?”
“When they left, you looked at me like I was a monster. Like I crawled out from under your fucking bed and tried to eat your soul.”
“It’s not like that.” I glance down at my hands, unable to meet his gaze, because I know he’s right. It’s always been that way: Mom and Dad have that effect on me. Whatever they say, I want to believe they’re right even when I know they’re wrong. “Things are just complicated, okay?”
“I’m not sure they are.”
“My dad warned me away from this case. He heard bad things about it at the Oak Club and—he told me to drop it and walk away.” My words hang in the air between us. Angelo leans his head back against the bed and lets out a soft groan and a curse. “I know, I should’ve told you sooner. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, you should’ve told me, but it wouldn’t have made a difference. I shouldn’t have gone to that fucking bar alone. They wouldn’t have dragged me out to those fields if you were around.”
“You sure about that?”
He shrugs. “Pretty sure. I’m willing to bet your apartment was our first warning. Now my broken rib is our second. Think we’ll get a third?”
“Dad told me this is really bad news. He said I needed to drop it, stop dealing with Carmine, stop working with you.”
“He’s probably right. Look at me right now. You really want to be involved with this?”
“Stop it, Angelo. I don’t need to hear it from you.”
“Then what are you gonna do about it, huh?”
I pull back from him, anger sparking. I pace across the room and feel like my head’s spinning as his eyes track me. He looks like a glorious boxer, sitting there bloodied and battered, shirtless in only his ripped jeans, a wreck of a human and still beautiful. A monster, a beast, a killer, and still lovely beyond words.
I don’t know how that’s possible. I grew up thinking only good people were worthy of my love and respect, but maybe I never understood what the word good really meant.
I hate my father. I hate the dirty fucking cops that did this to Angelo. I hate this twisted, stupid world for being so absurd and evil and wrong. I want to yank Nicolas from jail and scream the truth at the top of my lungs, but there’s nothing I can do. I’m impotent, powerless. Even Angelo with all his strength and skills couldn’t keep himself safe.
If I were smart, I’d listen to my dad. I’d listen to those cops.
I’d drop all this and move on.
But seeing Angelo like that makes me so angry I could cry. It breaks something in me, like something’s broken in him. I’m seething, burning, ready to run out into the night and fight the first stupid cop I come across, dirty or not. I have all this pent-up anger and energy, and I don’t know what to do with it, but I’m sure about one thing.
I’m not backing down.
Not now, not ever.
Because fuck them if they think they can intimidate me.
“Tell me who they were.” I turn to him, hands on my hips. “The guys that did this. Tell me.”
His smile is bitter and tight. “Vance’s partner, the one we saw the other night. And I don’t know the other one, but he had a mustache and a cowboy hat, and I could pick him out of a lineup if I had to.”
“We’ll find a directory of cop headshots and you’ll show me which one it was. But call Carmine first.”
“Come here.”
“Angelo. Call him.”
“Come here and I will.”
I hesitate, but I walk to the bed. He gestures me closer and I crawl in next to him. Some of my anger seeps away, but I’m still on edge as I sit next to him, our shoulders touching, our thighs pressed side to side.
“You know how bad this is going to be, right?” He’s whispering, not looking at me. “This is the last time I’ll say it. You can walk.”
“Not going to happen. Not now.” My hand drifts toward my stomach and the baby, but I stop.
Can I really do all this while carrying a child? Angelo’s child?