Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 127249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
Oh.
I don’t have the handbag any longer. I must’ve dropped it in the explosion.
My hands won’t stop shaking as I wet a stack of paper towels and dab the blood away as best as I can. Then I straighten my clothes and square my shoulders.
There aren’t windows in the bathroom, so I don’t have a choice but to walk back into the lobby. People are yelling and running everywhere. Security guards are evacuating staff and clients through a side exit even as medics hurry inside with stretchers.
Inserting myself into the middle of the screaming, shoving horde, I let the stampede carry me outside. Everyone is being herded to a cordoned-off area where a police official is ticking off names on a list. Another officer is instructing us to line up and stay calm.
Spectators have gathered around the building, crowding the sidewalks. The police have their hands full in separating the bank’s clients and the passersby. Swallowed by the masses, I slip away quickly and go in the opposite direction. I force myself to walk at a normal pace and not to break into a run, but when no one grabs me or calls me back, I turn the corner into a side street.
I walk until the noise of the sirens is a faint sound in the distance before I duck into a clothing store. The sales lady takes one look at me and grabs her phone from behind the counter.
“Please,” I say. “I need help. I need a phone.”
She unlocks the screen and hands me the phone without arguing.
I see it all as clear as daylight, as if it’s happening right now.
That’s when I dialed the only number I remembered.
Chapter
Forty-One
Tatiana
* * *
I remember everything—the whipping, the accident, the stolen necklace, and running from a man who betrayed me, a man I loved. I remember the men who came after me, every cheap, dirty room in which I hid with my baby… The day my beautiful son came into the world, Noah’s first word, his first smile, first step... I remember Denver and Dante, our wedding, and the day I signed over my shares. I remember what he did to Leander, and why I’m not supposed to contact my brother. The attack on Dante’s convoy, Kent standing by while those masked men took me, the trunk in which they locked me… it all comes rushing back. My mom, her death, and the funeral I couldn’t attend… But of everything, the worst is the betrayal.
Dante betrayed me once when he used me to kill my parents. The second time, he betrayed me when he married me to get control of my father’s company. The third time was when I discovered he’d only been after the necklace. And now, he’s done it again, allowing me to love a man I should hate with every fiber of my being.
I clutch my stomach. I think I’m going to be sick.
In the reflection of the mirror, Dante appears in the doorway, freshly showered and darkly handsome in a tux. His thick hair is brushed back, a rebellious strand falling over his brow. Powerful and muscular, he’s both breathtakingly beautiful and cruel.
I take in the ink on his hands and the ring that I put there but not out of free will. I think about the ink on his skin that’s covered by his clothes, the body I’ve touched, revered, and loved, the man I’ve given myself to when this was only another game, another scheme to get what he’s always wanted.
Alarm widens his eyes.
I look at my reflection and see what he sees, a woman with a marble-white face and tears running black mascara lines over her cheeks. She looks unhinged, shaking and fisting the fabric of her dress over her stomach.
He crosses the floor with urgent steps. Stopping behind me, he grips my shoulders. “What’s wrong? Are you ill? Did I hurt you? Do you need a doctor?” He gives me a soft shake. “Talk to me, Tatiana.”
I twist out of his grasp and spin around to face him. Shock but also resigned weariness fill his amber eyes, as if he always knew this moment was coming and expected it. I, on the other hand, have no way of protecting my heart. I left it wide open when I fell for my own lies, the tricks my own mind played on me, and that’s on no one but myself.
Stupid girl. How many times must I bang my head against the wall before I’ll learn?
“Tatiana,” he says with a growl, a warning, raising his hand.
I step out of his reach and show him the necklace. “I remember, Dante. I remember everything.”
Something dark settles in his eyes, something twisted. But his tone lacks emotion. “That’s what sparked it.”
I don’t have to ask what he means. It was a statement, not a question.