Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 56508 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56508 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
I’m being blackmailed. When I see the tall, handsome, older Luca Marino at the gym, I take a chance. I sneak him my cellphone number, praying he’ll call or text so I can beg for help. He agrees, but it comes with a steamy price.
I’m not used to this sort of intensity. He’s possessive and jealous and, he affirms in his texts, hungry for me. I’m a virgin, ten times less experienced than him. And he expects so, so much.
Making life more complicated, secrets lurk around every corner—secrets that consume my family and his. When the secrets clash with my desire and our budding, text-fueled relationship, I’m forced to make an impossible choice.
Can ever I ever go back to being the shy, withdrawn woman I was before he lit up my mind and body? Or will the darkness of his mafia life tear us apart?
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
PROLOGUE
Luca
I sit outside the house, rage burning deep in my gut. My cell phone sits on the dashboard, Elio’s voice just about piercing this haze in my head. I have this urge to do some serious damage.
“Luca, just wait. Just think.”
I grind my teeth. The pressure of my pistol in the holster against my chest feels weirdly strong, like metal making an imprint on my skin.
“What if it was Scarlet?” I snarl.
I used to be the joking one, the lighthearted one, the drinker, the womanizer, the waster. I used to be the prick without any direction. But now, all I care about is making this right.
“I can’t let him get away with it,” I go on. “What if it was your woman?”
Elio takes a moment, always so measured. “I’m not saying you do nothing, but this will destroy the Family.”
“Don’t make me choose between her and the Family,” I snap, taking the gun from the holster when a light flicks on in an upstairs window.
“I’m not asking you to choose long-term. Just… for now.”
“Don’t ask me to choose at all,” I tell him. “In that game, the Family will lose. Don’t even think about telling me it hasn’t been long enough for me to know a thing like that. Just look at you and Scarlet. Look at how quickly that happened. I’m going to tear this bastard to pieces.”
“At least wait for backup.”
The window opens. A man calls across the street. It’s the middle of the night, quiet except for the arrogance in his voice. “You got a problem, buddy?”
I push the door open, gun in my hand. As I walk toward the house, I can hear Elio on speaker. “Luca? Luca?”
I keep walking. I need to do this… for my woman.
CHAPTER 1
TWO WEEKS EARLIER
Ruby
“You got it, sis,” Lexi says, staring at me in the mirror with a stubborn look in her mismatched eyes. I do my best to finish the squat, and she helps me put it on the rack. At the same time, I do my best not to look at myself in the mirror.
“Good job.” Lexi claps me on the shoulder. “That was great work.”
When I returned from college for the break, Lexi was shocked when I told her I wanted to hit the gym. Lexi has always been diligent about the gym. She owns her curves, whereas I sort of retreat into my clothes, into history. But something happened at college that made me want to feel stronger.
“My turn,” she says.
I help her rack some weights, then spot her as she does her set. She’s got the same long, wavy brown hair as me. We’re about the same height, too. She has complete heterochromia, meaning that her eyes are different colors. One is sky blue, and the other is green. This, combined with her sideways smile, gives her a confident, almost cocky look.
“You good?” she asks as we wait for a weight machine to be free.
“Yeah, why?”
She shrugs. “You’re just quiet.”
“I’m always quiet.”
She grins, nudging me. She’s only two years older; I’m twenty, and she’s twenty-two. Yet it’s always felt like there’s more of a gap, stemming from the fact she’s always watched over me, like during Mom and Dad’s arguments. Ugh, I don’t even want to think about that.
“You’re being quieter,” she says. “Is it Mom and Dad?”
After years of arguing and fights and stress and bull crap, Mom and Dad have finally started divorce proceedings. “I always thought they might find a way,” I mutter.
“You’re too optimistic,” Lexi replies. “I knew it was going to fail. I knew from their first argument, the first broken dish, but you’re doing well, kid. You’re going to make something of yourself.”
When she calls me kid, despite the small age gap, it’s like she’s wrapping a warm blanket around me. It helps distract me from what happened and from what’s still happening. I should tell somebody, but I don’t keep up with any of my high school friends anymore. It’s not like I had many, anyway. With the divorce, unloading on Dad, Mom, or Lexi feels cruel.
“Machine’s free,” Lexi says, nodding across the gym.
I follow her, doing my best to give my all during the exercises. She’s halfway through a set when her eyes widen.
“What?” I say, turning.
She’s staring at a man in his early to mid-thirties, his hair dark, a crazily intense look on his face as he walks across the gym. He’s huge, with broad shoulders, staring stubbornly ahead. A strange tingle dances through me. “Uh, who’s that?” I whisper.
“Luca Marino,” Lexi says quietly.
“Who?”
“Luca Marino. Come on, you’ve heard of the Marinos.”
I try not to watch him too obviously. He’s several feet taller than the tallest person in here. Weirdly, I think about what it would be like if he wrapped his arms around me and held me close.