Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 79336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Not permanently, but it sure fucked me up for a long time. “Life goes on. She’s seeing someone now.”
“Does that bother you?”
“No. I’m happy for her.” I knew she’d struggled to move on as much as I did. Friends would tell me she’d go to the beach alone, pick up extra shifts because she wanted to stay busy instead of sitting around. We both processed our heartbreak, but she also had to process her guilt.
He nodded before he took another drink. “Seeing anyone now?”
“No. You?”
He smirked. “Kinda.”
“Kinda?”
“Yeah, it’s complicated. Forbidden, taboo, all the good stuff.”
“So she’s married.”
“Yep.”
I didn’t bother to admonish him, just shook my head. I’d only slept with a married woman once—and that was because she lied to me. When I found out the truth, I blocked her calls and moved on. I was pissed that she’d lied, but I was also pissed that she’d made me complicit in an affair I wouldn’t have been a part of if I’d known otherwise. Call me old-fashioned, but I didn’t mess around with that. “So you like the Skull Kings?”
“Like I said, can’t complain.”
“Have you met him?”
“Who?”
“The Skull King.”
“Oh, Darius,” he said. “No, I haven’t met him, but we’ve been in the same room together. And I know him pretty well based on reputation . . . and what I hear.”
“Then I’m sure you’ve figured out he’s a psychopath.”
“And what the hell is Tommaso?”
“An ass—but not a psychopath.”
“What are you saying, Con?”
“I don’t know . . . I worry about you.”
“You worry about me?” He placed his hand over his heart. “Me?”
“I just hear a lot of bad shit about this guy.”
“But no one fucks with him.”
“No, but he fucks with everyone—and you could be next.”
“And you think Cosa Nostra is better?” he scoffed.
“Cosa Nostra sticks to their lane. We mediate disputes, we push product across borders, influence sea trade, bribe judges and officials to lean our way on certain matters, and we only physically harm those who cross us. And we’re bonded to each other, loyal like a family. But the Skull King . . . he’s only out for himself.”
“If you think Tommaso isn’t out for himself, you’re delusional.”
“Darius traffics women, undercuts his partners, lets the city go to shit because he doesn’t care about it or the people who live there. Tommaso at least has a deep love for Palermo and Sicily, which is why petty crime is lower than anywhere else in the EU. Under Darius, crime flourishes—because he’s getting a cut of it all.”
“Which is why I have a job, Constantine.”
“You can have a job with Cosa Nostra—”
“I’m not fucking doing that.”
“So you’d rather participate in these horrific crimes?” I asked incredulously.
He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms, looking elsewhere as he thought of his answer. It was strange to watch him, to see myself and my own reactions like I was looking in a mirror.
“I’m not going to be the lesser brother. I’m not going to live in your shadow. You know how many times a day I hear how great you are and how shitty I am? I hear the way people talk about me, that you should have absorbed me in the womb so I never would have been born. So, no fucking thanks.” He shook off the emotion in his eyes and took a drink. “Rather work in a place where no one has a clue I’m a twin.”
“Edric, I can help you—”
“Did I say I needed your help?” he snapped. “I don’t fucking need your help, Constantine.”
“Well, I’m worried about you. You shouldn’t be involved with an asshole like that. Cosa Nostra is the right fit for us and our values.”
“Your values.”
“No, we have the same values, Edric.”
“No, we fucking don’t,” he snarled. “Because I don’t give a shit about the women he traffics. I see them all the time, and I feel fucking nothing. I’m fucking his wife, and I feel nothing. You and I are not the same, Constantine—and don’t you ever forget it.”
I was stunned into silence, my brain so overloaded with shock that I couldn’t process all the details he’d just shared. “What the fuck did you just say?”
“He uses the women to process drugs and puts them in whorehouses.”
“What if that were Beatrice? What if she went on a trip with her girlfriends and ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time? And she’s stunning, so we both know she wouldn’t be processing drugs.” I felt sick saying that out loud, but I needed fighting words to get through to him. “She’d be drugged and raped for the rest of her life.”
“I didn’t say I agree with it—”
“These are not our values, Edric. Cosa Nostra isn’t a fucking nonprofit, but they aren’t monsters. You are better than this. Don’t sit there and say you feel nothing because, yes, you fucking do. I know you do.”