Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 129676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 519(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 519(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
I broke into a jog.
My entire body was sleek with sweat by the time I got into my car and locked the doors. I spent another full minute glancing around and turning on the flashlight on my phone to ensure I was alone in the car. Then I started driving.
I knew Tate’s address in the Hamptons. Been there dozens of times before.
I couldn’t wait to show up and ruin his week in the same way mine was destroyed.
Yes, he was a good kisser.
Yes, he was suspiciously good at inflicting pain on his opponents.
But we were still enemies.
As I floored it away from the hospital, I caught the sight of Enzo in my rearview mirror. He jogged out of the main entrance, long tan fingers tangling his whiskey hair. He spotted my Cadillac racing through the street. Meeting his gaze through the rearview mirror, I flashed him the middle finger and smiled.
Before I took a sharp right and lost him, I could see him stomping and yelling at his soldiers to get their cars.
1–0 to the underdog team.
“What do you mean she ran away?” I roared at Enzo through my phone. Beneath me was quite the ungrateful guest, thrusting and thrashing hysterically. Then again, I did have my foot pressed against his windpipe, slowly crushing his airway, suffocating him in the same manner in which he’d murdered my father in prison.
The only sad thing about killing Nolan Duffy was that I could only do it once.
“By the time I got there, she’d slipped away,” Enzo muttered in disbelief and more than a little fury. “What the fuck did you expect me to do? Teleport her back to the building?”
Enzo was Vello’s enforcer. He was good with a gun, even better with a knife, and had a talent for making dissident camorristi and foes either bend the knee or disappear. I knew taking this babysitter job wasn’t something he wanted or expected.
He thought it beneath him to babysit a hot piece of ass who happened to be married to a billionaire who worked with them. But he wasn’t going to make a big stink about it. Unlike his brothers, he wasn’t a complete shit.
“She didn’t use the elevators or the stairs,” Enzo lamented. “Filippo had our soldiers manning every corner of the hospital. I thought she was a dumb civilian?”
“Civilian, yes. Dumb, no. She took the morgue elevator, probably.” I massaged the bridge of my nose, pressing my foot harder against Duffy’s throat. My gorgeous, intelligent wife. Always one step ahead. “Find her for me. After you do, you become her personal detail until further notice. Our business is contingent on you keeping her safe.”
“Filippo—”
“Is just a soldier,” I finished for him. “I want the best.”
“You think my brothers will let you waste my time shadowing a secretary when I have an empire to help run?”
I could envision him sticking his fingers in his floppy, heartthrob hair.
“Dude, no offense, but you’re just one person.”
“One person is all it takes to destroy an empire.”
I hung up the phone and smashed Duffy’s throat with my boot, shattering his hyoid bone into dust.
The sky was pitch-black by the time I arrived at Tate’s waterfront estate.
A sprawling neoclassical palace boasting columns and arches, surrounded by private golf and tennis courts as well as a gigantic pool. I knew he had inherited it from his adoptive father and was immensely fond of it. He insisted on not altering a single detail about the property, which was in dire need of a fresh coat of paint and updated furnishings.
My name was registered as a permanent guest in the database of his gated community, so I managed to get through the first set of gates breezily.
Once in front of the property, I punched in the main gate’s password: an elaborate sequence of numbers only he knew. The Fibonacci sequence.
I knew it too.
Thank you, Daddy, for making me a math nerd.
And then I was in.
The house was dim and quiet. I peered around, wondering if he was even here. Maybe he drove back into the city? Maybe this was all a trap set by the Callaghan guy, and I landed exactly where he wanted me to be?
My heart began racing. Clutching my phone in a death grip, I moved through the vast space of the first floor without turning on the lights. If a monster lurked in the shadows, I didn’t want it to see me.
Empty kitchen. Empty guest rooms. Empty study. Empty family room.
The only telltale sign someone had been here was a single glass of water, half-full, sitting on the kitchen counter.
I turned toward the door, stepping over something slippery and sticky. The hardwood squeaked beneath my feet. I frowned, turning on my phone’s flashlight. I grabbed the sole of my shoe, examining the smear of crimson marring it.