Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 74220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
She looked away again, the frustration bubbling in her eyes. “Fine.”
I sat in the back seat parked at the curb, raindrops breaking their contact with the window and streaking down. The phone was to my ear, and I listened to it ring a few times before my brother answered. “Yes?”
“It’s Bastien.”
There was a pause—but that pause said so much.
“I’m sure you heard what happened the other day.”
He said nothing, either confirming that fact or pretending otherwise.
“You said people wanted me dead. Looks like you were right.”
“What do you want from me, Bastien?”
“Tell me who—because you obviously know who it is.”
He was quiet for a long time, probably sitting at home in one of his many apartments. He owned a vast portfolio of real estate in Paris, so it was hard to know where he was at any given time. “I warned you to walk away.”
“You know I don’t walk away from anything.”
“Then there’s nothing else to discuss.”
I hadn’t expected to get much out of him, but I’d expected more substance than this. “You’d have to be pretty heartless to look the other way while someone tries to kill your only brother.”
He gave a quiet chuckle. “Not as heartless as killing my own father.”
The insult rushed right past me, and I felt no remorse.
Godric said nothing else.
A thought had been at the back of my mind for a long time, for years, but I’d never had the opportunity to ask for answers. “Why haven’t you told Mom?” I had no doubt she didn’t have any idea, because if she knew, she’d never speak to me again.
He didn’t say anything.
“Why?” I pressed. “She’d turn her back on me if she knew. That’s exactly what you’d want, right?”
He remained quiet.
I waited for him to explain.
“Because it would kill her, Bastien. Don’t think for a fucking second that I’m protecting you. I’m protecting her—because she’d swallow a bunch of sleeping pills and never wake up if she knew it was you.”
I let his words bite into me with sharp fangs. I felt no guilt for my actions, but I felt like shit for what I’d done to my mother. I’d made her a widow decades sooner than she needed to be. “It doesn’t have to be this way, Godric.”
“If you’re going to tell us how to do business, then yes, it needs to be this way.”
“You make it sound like you’re the one gunning for me.”
It was dead quiet wherever he was, so he must be at home, probably in front of the fire, a sleeping woman in his bed. There was no sound of his breath, like a cigar was squeezed between his lips and teeth. “I’m not. But I know who is—and I’m not going to stand in his way.”
I miss you, sweetheart. It’d been a few days since I’d spoken to her. I’d been so absorbed in tracking down the idiot who thought he could make me disappear so easily that I hadn’t even texted her.
She hadn’t texted me either, and I began to worry.
She’d already tried to leave me once because she wasn’t ready for something serious, because she didn’t want to be involved with a man who always had a target on his back. We’d moved past it, but I wasn’t sure if we would move past this. I’d never expected her to witness a showdown, and I was mad as hell that some asshole had made his move in front of my woman.
If she left me, that would be it. I wouldn’t chase her, and if she tried to come back to me, I would tell her we were done. Regardless of how I felt about her, I needed her to be like one of my boys, someone who would be there through thick and thin, who had the spine to endure the pressure and a stomach to tolerate the acid.
It took her a while to text me back, even though I knew she was off work. I miss you too.
Did she really? If I showed up at her apartment, would she dump me again? I shouldn’t make assumptions when we hadn’t discussed what had happened, but based on the way she’d taken off last time, it was fair for me to assume the worst. She’d already let me down once. I’ll be there in ten minutes. My driver was already around the corner from her apartment, but I wanted to give her notice.
Okay.
I stepped out of the vehicle and smoked a cigar on the sidewalk. People walked past, getting off work and in desperate need of a drink and a cigarette. I stared at the green door that led to her lobby as I finished my cigar, giving her time to prepare for my arrival. “Don’t let me down, sweetheart.” I stomped the cigar beneath my boot then went inside, and I made it to her front door.