Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 62266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
“Your father lost all control that night,” Dario says, and I know what he’s getting at.
“And I lost control last night. Is that where you’re going with this?”
“It doesn’t worry you?” Dario questions.
“It doesn’t worry me,” Cosima says from the doorway. I stand when I see her. She’s got a fierce expression on her face, and it is aimed right at her father. “I’m not scared of Z. He’d never hurt me.”
“Are you certain, sweetness?” I ask her.
“I’d bet my life on it.” She smirks. Dario mutters a curse.
“Come here and stop upsetting your father,” I order her.
“Fine,” she huffs, rolling her eyes but coming to me. I pull her into me the second she is close enough for me to grab, sitting in the process so that she’s in my lap.
Cosima has on another dress that doesn’t hide the marks I put on her. “Tell them you won’t hurt me.” Now it’s her ordering me.
“I’d never harm Cosima; if she tried to run from me, I’d just have to lock the house down.” Cosima lets out a small giggle. I’m not sure what is funny, but okay. “And Cosima is too sweet to try and take on a lover knowing it would be certain death for them. One she’d have to watch.”
“You’re a psycho.” She laughs harder. “I suppose if I want someone dead, I’ll pretend to be interested in them.”
“If you want someone dead someday, you only have to tell me, sweetness.”
“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “Your jealousy is kind of hot.” Cosima turns her head toward me to press a quick kiss to my lips, solidifying what I have always believed since she entered this world.
She is my perfect match and was always meant to be mine. That is all that matters to me. Cosima is my god, the only person I live my life for, worship, and could take me to my knees.
Chapter Twenty-Three
COSIMA
Everyone is watching us. It’s for the best that everything is out in the open now, especially for my father. I thought us keeping this to ourselves might be better for everyone while we moved past War’s wedding and so on. After last night, that doesn’t matter. It’s not good for my husband, and he comes first.
"Are you okay?" I ask him, having heard part of what they'd been saying. I have always been rather good at sneaking around the house and listening in when I shouldn't be. It’s how I got most of my information growing up.
"If you're good, I'm good," he answers, placing his hand on my shoulder, his thumb stroking my neck, likely over one of the love bites he'd left.
“I’m more than good,” I tell him, staring directly into his eyes. I want him to see that what I heard doesn’t scare me. That it doesn’t make me look at him any differently than before.
“I think Cosima should hear the rest. It does after all center around her,” War says, and I know he’s speaking to our father.
“Mi dispiace, tesoro mio.” My father says sorry in Italian, making me sit up straighter.
“What did you do?” Z stiffens, and I can feel him wanting to get up. I place my hand on his chest.
“Dad?”
“You were too little to remember, and we never told you, but your mother was taken from me once.”
“No, I don’t remember it,” I respond, but I knew it happened.
It slowly pieced together for me when I was growing up. My hearing is rather impeccable. I knew my mother was taken, but they had gotten her back relatively unharmed. The same can’t be said about the Lombardi family.
“I had an idea of who might have done it, but I was desperate to find her, and Tullio Amato was the reason we did. If not for him—” My father drops his head, not wanting to say the rest. I don’t blame him. I don’t want to hear it either.
“He was key to us finding her,” War continues. I know where this is going. Every favor is a debt owed.
“Did you promise her to his son?” Z asks before I can.
"It wasn't a full promise of marriage; while I might be old school, Rochelle wouldn't agree, so instead we promised to let him court her when the time came. To give him an opportunity, but ultimately it would be Cosima’s choice.”
"And that's why they just so happened to know where my wife was in Italy. Out of all of the places in Italy, they end up in the same town as her," Z accuses.
"No." I shake my head. My father has the same knee-jerk response as I do.
"I wouldn't." My father cocks his head, an action he often does when he's piecing things together.
"Hold on." War steps in. "You're saying the Amato family was in the small town at the same time Cosima was there, and you didn't tell them that’s where she was staying?"