Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
“Trust you?” I let out a harsh laugh. “You’re fucking unbelievable, do you know that? You just want to get in my head and fuck with me. My family would not use me, pawn me off. My father wouldn’t have, and my brother wouldn’t and he wouldn’t allow Malek to either.”
“Alaric’s dead so I’ll let you hold on to your delusion if that’s what you want, but at least don’t fool yourself about the others. Burying your head doesn’t make reality any less real.”
“I don’t bury my head—”
“Malek tried to sell you to me, and your brother would have done the same if he was in control, but Malek Lombardi is in charge now. I think he’s been in charge for a while. You do know that don’t you?”
“Why don’t you worry about your own family and leave mine to me. I mean, you’re the one with the missing brother and all.”
His eyes narrow. I’m pushing his buttons, I know I am. And I know I should stop, but I can’t.
He cocks his head and something cold settles around us. “Are we doing this?”
“What? You don’t like talking about reality, Cassian? Not talking about it doesn’t make it any less real.”
He snorts, gives a nominal shake of his head. “Okay then. Tell me what happened when you were fifteen, Allegra.”
“What?” This is not what I’m expecting.
“After your mother’s death, your father pulled you out of school and you pretty much only reappeared years later at a handful of classes at the college and then only under guard.”
I feel my face grow hot and anxiety bubbles at my core. “How do you know that?”
He shrugs a shoulder casually. Too casually. “Not hard to find out.”
“Why were you digging around my life? It’s none of your business.”
Without looking away, he closes his left hand over my right one and takes the nub of my pinkie between his thumb and forefinger. “You know what else I know? You had all ten fingers before you disappeared.”
Blood roars in my ears. I try to snatch my hand back, but he holds tight. Sweat collects under my arms, between my breasts. “I didn’t disappear.”
“Your mother died in a fire, her body conveniently charred to ash. And you never returned to school after that.” He studies me, but I have nothing. “There was a rumor she’d been kidnapped and I’m starting to think it wasn’t a rumor at all,” he says.
“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear,” I say, my voice sounding weird, too thin, too high, my brain trying to think of a response that might shut him up, but my mouth spitting nonsense.
“There’s video footage of you leaving school that day, did you know that?”
I didn’t. “And?” I say, shrugging my shoulders as if it couldn’t matter.
“I recognized the driver.”
I just stare up at him because I don’t know how to respond. My father told me the kidnapping had to be kept a secret. Not that there was anyone I could tell. If it wasn’t kept quiet, then more of our enemies would come after us and maybe I wouldn’t survive the next attack. It was one of the reasons he took me out of school, not that I’d been able to go back anyway. Not after what happened.
“Do you want to know what I think?” Cassian continues, drawing me out of my head.
“Not especially.”
“I think they took you and your mother. And I think they did this.” He rubs the little nub.
I try to pull my hand away again. “Let go. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Who are you protecting?”
“No one. You’re not making any sense,” I say, looking beyond him to the wall.
“Do you know what’s really interesting though, Allegra?”
I shake my head. “I don’t care. Let me go, Cassian.”
“That driver, do you know who he worked for?”
I grit my jaw, my breathing tight, my body cold and my heart hammering against my chest. “Let me go.”
“He worked for your father. Did you know that?”
My vision starts to go dark around the edges, my heart thuds, each beat heavier than the last like an army is marching across my chest. For a moment, I’m back in that car. Back in that room. For a moment, I feel the man’s hand like a vice around my arm half dragging half carrying me out in front of her. For a moment, I hear her scream.
“Your mother’s betrayal cost her her life—”
“Stop!” I pull my hand free and this time, he lets me. I cover my ears. It’s stupid, I know, but I can’t hear this. I shake my head. “Just stop!”
“Did he intend on it? That’s my question. My guess is he wanted to punish her for some transgression, but did he intend on killing her?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I hiss through gritted teeth, my brain rattling in my skull the sound of blood pumping deafening, my heart thudding so hard I think it’s going to explode out of my chest.