Total pages in book: 35
Estimated words: 32755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 164(@200wpm)___ 131(@250wpm)___ 109(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 164(@200wpm)___ 131(@250wpm)___ 109(@300wpm)
“Enough!” Aldo spat the words out and she couldn’t help but jump at the sound. It was scary.
She stepped away from both of them.
“You were sent to kill her?” Aldo asked.
“He wanted me to, but I refused. I knew she was hiding something, I just didn’t know what.”
She was going to be sick. This was a nightmare. All she wanted to do was cry. It had been lies, all of it. Every single part of it had been lies. She had given him her virginity, a part of herself she would never get back. The pain hit her hard and fast. She didn’t know if she could handle anything else. Tears filled her eyes but she refused to allow them to fall. This was no time to show weakness. These men could kill her.
“Ruin, I want you to take Callie home.” She turned to Aldo. “This is my gift to you, young woman. You’ll be free to live your life, but be warned. I will be watching and I will know if you even think of going to the cops. Understood?”
She nodded her head.
“Go.”
There was no way he was going to tell her twice.
She rushed past Ruin, refusing to even meet his eyes. There was no way she would go near him. The Bogeyman. Sent to kill her. He hadn’t been trying to join the knitting group, or attempting to join because he found her attractive. He’d been looking for an easy way to kill her. Anger ran down her spine. She left the office and felt Ruin very close beside her, but she refused to look at him.
There was an elevator or a door leading to the stairs. She wasn’t getting on an elevator with him. Callie went to the door and shoved it open. She got down the first flight of stairs, but all of a sudden, Ruin grabbed her arm and shoved her back until she hit the wall. It wasn’t hard.
“What the hell happened to your face?”
“My face. You want to talk about my face when the true problem is the fact you were sent to kill me?” she asked.
“I was never going to kill you.”
“Does it even matter?” she asked. “You lied. You freaking lied to me. Was it some kind of game? Did you get off on it?”
She didn’t even know why she was talking about this. She had to get away from him and fast. She needed air. Callie tried to push past him but Ruin was far bigger and stronger than her.
“He sent someone else, didn’t he?” Ruin asked.
She gritted her teeth. “Yes. One of Aldo’s men was already coming to my home to collect me so I could tell him the information I had. I was lucky it ended when it did.”
Ruin’s fist connected with the wall. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“I don’t want to hear it. You lied to me.”
“For your own protection.”
She shook her head. “Let me go.”
“Callie, we need to talk about this.”
“What is there to talk about?” She burst out laughing. “I guess you do travel a lot with your kind of business. You kill people, right? Do you think I’ve not heard of the Bogeyman after working for Dante Morelli for years?”
“Then why are you so angry?”
“Because I didn’t know!” She yelled at him. This was the most humiliating experience of all. She had no clue, none whatsoever.
“What?”
“That’s right. For the longest time I didn’t exactly know who Dante Morelli was. I thought I had gotten a great job. Not one that paid overly well, but enough for me to have a somewhat comfortable life so long as I lived within my means, and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. I had no idea he was a capo. No idea he was connected to any kind of mafia. None. I had no idea about anything. So you can laugh now. Yeah, stupid Callie didn’t know her life was in danger.” It was so humiliating just thinking about it.
She had known who he was and what he was capable of by the time she had that book in her hands, but the truth was, it had been too late. Callie had never seen Ruin though. Once she realized who Dante was, she had tuned in to the gossip, and that hadn’t helped at all. The Bogeyman had seemed like a myth. The guy that killed without mercy. The man that had no face, that disappeared.
“Is this even what you look like?” Callie asked. “Or is your face a mask too?”
“I’m real.”
“No, you’re a ghost. A tale to scare men into doing as they’re told.” She felt so drained. Her body hurt as did her head, and as for her heart, well, that was sure as shit broken. “You know, you’re the first guy I’ve ever had feelings for.” She hated how pitiful she sounded.