Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 108988 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108988 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
He stilled, and for a second, his eyes blazed.
“Did you?”
“Two years ago, I saw a pamphlet for this school on your desk.”
I growled. “That’s not an answer.” Why wasn’t he answering me? It wasn’t like him. But then I thought about what he just said. I really thought about it.
Two years ago . . .
He was right. The pressure had been getting to me, of living in Cincy, everyone knowing who I was to Creighton, everyone just knowing who Creighton was. There’d been a fair at our college, and I walked through, idly picked up the brochure, but there’d been nothing idle about it. I remembered thinking how far away New York City was from Cincinnati. Thinking there were probably other Mafia families who operated there, and since it was New York, maybe Creighton couldn’t get to me as much. I had a thought that I could hide in the shadows, hide from him, hide from everyone.
Then he hanged my date the next year, and the decision was made. I started the process.
He’d been watching me. Waiting. Now he let out a soft sigh. “You wanted to get away from me. I knew that. I chose not to let you. I didn’t know where you were going to go, but I knew you were going to go somewhere. I made plans. I hadn’t just made the decision to push into this city. I started by taking over surrounding cities first.”
I was horrified. “On the off chance I decided to go somewhere else?” Him taking over meant death. Bloodshed. “How many people have you killed because of me?”
His eyes went full-on black. He moved in a flash, grabbing me and twisting so I was on the bed beneath him. He loomed over me, but lowered his head so he was a few inches from me. “None.”
I gulped. My hands were shaking. “Creighton—”
“None.” He let out a curse and ran his nose over my jawline before dipping down to my neck. He inhaled me, one big breath, and then lifted his head to hold my gaze again. “You need to get this through your head. You are not responsible for anything I choose to do. My choices, Blake. Mine. You can agree with them. You can hate them, but they are not yours. They are mine. Now, did I decide to start a war for you? No. I decided to push into a territory where you might attend college because I wanted to make sure the territory was safe for you. When I did that, when I made the decision to do that, I was met with resistance from the current territory holders. I did that. Me. You had nothing to do with that.”
I said weakly, “But if I hadn’t decided to come to this city, you wouldn’t have pushed your way in, and the people who died wouldn’t be dead.”
A new tenderness came over him.
He closed his eyes once, bent his head so his forehead rested on mine gently, and murmured, “I have minimal memories of my mother. A few. I don’t know if I loved her, but I didn’t hate her. My last memory of her was the night she overdosed on street crank. My first kill was her pimp. And if you think when I found out she had a whole family who did nothing to help her, that I wasn’t going to do something about them? I was going to wreak havoc on the Worthing family. You coming to New York just meant that I wasn’t going to destroy all of their assets. I’d simply take them over instead. But no, Blake. Again. You have to stop trying to take responsibility for decisions I make.”
Did that help? Hearing all of that?
Somewhat.
He let out another soft curse and moved us again, but this time he slid an arm underneath me, and lifted me. He reversed our positions so he was sitting against the headrest and I was on his lap.
I sank back on his legs, knowing what he was saying, and hearing the words, but I couldn’t accept them.
He ran a finger along my cheek again, sliding down to trace my neck until he cupped the back of my neck. “What’s battling in your head? Let me in.”
I drew in a ragged breath. “I’m the reason you took over Cincy. You started to do that after you met me—” A sob choked me. Those are years and years of death, all at my doorstep. All because of me.
He exhaled a long and deep breath. “You need to listen to me very clearly.”
I blinked back the tears and met his gaze.
“When you moved into Miss Marcie’s house, a particular network set up shop. Their specialty was kids for sex trafficking. They started taking kids in the neighborhood, and yes, one of their recruiters saw you, and his eyes lit up. I dug out his eyeballs that night, but there was a picture of you on his phone. He’d already sent it to his employers. They were going to move on you. I started tracking them down, and I took them out. I realized I was good at doing that shit. Death and destruction. I took over the streets, then the city, because I didn’t want other little kids to get targeted. There’s rules in my territory. You recently learned some of them, but yeah, I run that territory, and yes, I do bad shit there. But I also keep them safe for people too. You’re so horrified at the people who died, but you don’t realize a lot of people are alive. If you insist on taking credit for the bad shit, take credit for the good shit too.”