Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
She hesitated.
“Four,” she replied quietly.
Four.
Fucking four.
Four times his wife had been assaulted.
Twice for his child.
He knew the statistics—one in four women. The thing was, nobody ever thinks they’re going to line the women up in their lives, and find out one of them is one in fucking four.
“I’m sorry,” he said, tone strained.
It didn’t seem good enough.
It just didn’t seem like it was enough.
Catrina’s hand left his hair to lift higher so that she could wipe away the wetness that slipped down her cheek, and just like that, her tears were gone. But only on the outside, he knew. Because he didn’t think that pain like that ever really left.
It didn’t matter her status.
Her wealth.
This life they had.
Pain was still pain.
And she got to relive hers through the trauma of her child.
His silence had come from a place of ignorance.
Hers had come from a place of knowing.
It wasn’t the same.
He wished it didn’t have to be at all.
“I’m sorry.”
The Secret
Dante POV
Dante smirked down at the screen of his phone with a glee even he couldn’t contain at the sight of his brother’s text.
Just arrived, it read.
“Why does your face look like that?”
Dante attempted to fix his face when he glanced up to find that his wife had come to stand on the other side of their kitchen island, but even the sight of her cocked eyebrow wasn’t enough to shake the smugness he felt.
“Well?” she asked when he didn’t answer right away.
“Gio’s here. The bookie called a half hour ago with the final numbers on the run we went in on. I won. Which means I get to tell him he was wrong, I was right, and—”
“Stop gloating.”
Dante grinned. “I’m not.”
Yet.
But he would.
As soon as Gio came inside.
Catrina shook her head. “That’s a level of petty even I can’t manage to reach, Dante.”
“Listen,” he said, pointing a finger at his wife even though he knew that came with its own set of risks, quite frankly, “you can’t just come in here with your better than me attitude and tell me not to have my moment, Catrina.”
“I didn’t tell you not to have it. I said it was petty.”
“And?”
Because he didn’t see the problem.
Now that Gio, Lucian and Dante were all grown men, had kids and grandkids of their own, their life phased out of the mafia and its suffocating rules that had completely surrounded their entire lives ... well, the three of them had a chance to act like real brothers in a way they hadn’t since their younger teen years.
Before they’d chosen to follow their father, and everything that came along with that. Sometimes, it felt like they were making up for lost time with their late Friday nights, and closer to lunch breakfasts on Saturdays. All the running jokes between them couldn’t be contained, even if it had every single one of their wives rolling their eyes on a regular basis. None of the brothers cared, honestly.
They were having fun.
Dante had only now realized how long it’d been since they were really able to sit back, and have fun with each other without some sort of undercurrent running between them because of the family and the goddamn mafia.
“Keep your pettiness,” Catrina told him with a small smile as though she could read his mind, “but you know he’ll get you back for it the first chance he could.”
“Likely,” Dante returned, “but shit, that’s half the fun, Cat.”
“Right.”
“What’s fun, now?”
Dante found Gio had finally come inside, and was now standing in the entryway of the kitchen. He grinned his brother’s way, ignoring how he could see his wife rolling her eyes out of the corner of his eye. “How I just soaked you for twenty-k on the last game—”
“Fuck sakes,” Gio groaned, tipping his head back and letting out a sour laugh. “Did you seriously make me drive all the way over here for that? You made it seem like something was fucking wrong, Dante.”
“Yes, the fact you owe me twenty-k is very wrong because it’s not in my bank account.”
“Twenty-k?”
Gio grinned.
Dante made a face. “Cat, now—”
“You’re betting tens of thousands of dollars with your brothers through a bookie, Dante? Really?”
“I’m bored,” he said defensively.
“Bored?”
“Maybe it’s a mid-life crisis, I don’t know!”
Catrina dead-stared him from the other side of the island. “Dante, you are well past mid-life.”
“Oh, shit,” Gio crowed.
“Shut your face and transfer me the money, Gio.” And then to his wife, Dante said, “Just had to twist that knife in deeper, huh?”
“Dante, most people don’t even have twenty-k in savings, and you’re just throwing it around—”
“How much did that limited edition Louis Vuitton bag cost, Cat?”
That quieted his wife really fast.
“You know,” he added, “the one that came hand-delivered by the company last week in a fucking armored truck? Only what, two made in the world? More than twenty-k, I bet.”