Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 113710 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 569(@200wpm)___ 455(@250wpm)___ 379(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113710 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 569(@200wpm)___ 455(@250wpm)___ 379(@300wpm)
As he rubs his hands together, his gaze flicks briefly toward the diner window. Toward Lucia.
I step to the left, blocking his view.
“That ends now,” I continue low enough that only he can hear. “You don’t go near her. You don’t breathe in her direction. You don’t exist in her world.”
Edoardo chuckles, but there’s calculation behind his arrogance now. “I’ve heard you’re extremely protective. Careful, Dante. That kind of protectiveness can be misunderstood.”
My snarl is vicious. “Misunderstand this. If I see you here again, we won’t have a conversation with words. I’ll use my fists, then my gun.”
Behind me, through glass, Lucia laughs at something funny Camille does.
Edoardo hears it too.
A mask slips down his face. Annoyance, maybe. Or perhaps even interest.
Even with my instincts begging me to punch him in the face, I keep my fists loose at my sides and my expression bored. I’ve played these games many times in the past thirty-four years. This is the first time it’s been about a woman, though.
Edoardo snickers like this is merely a stop on his leisurely walk through a city he thinks will bend for him. His smile is lazy and practiced, the type men wear when they wrongly believe they’re in control.
I have news for him.
“Walk away,” I tell him. “While you still can.”
Like a fool with nothing to lose, he says, “Have you asked Lucia what she wants?”
I don’t answer him.
He takes my silence as permission to continue interrogating me.
“Because from where I’m standing”—he angles his head arrogantly—“it isn’t you.”
I study him the way you study a man you’re considering breaking, but he acts ignorant.
“I’ve seen you the past couple of weeks hovering like proximity equals ownership.” When he chuckles again, I struggle not to wipe his smile off his face. I wouldn’t hesitate if I didn’t feel the eyes of my daughter on me. “But no matter what you do or how much money you spend, she keeps walking away.”
My jaw tightens, but my voice stays smooth. “Because I’m trying to show her how real men do it.”
“Real men?”
“Yeah, Edoardo. That’s all you’ve seen. A man acting like a man. Not this preppy-boy, treat-them-mean-to-keep-them-keen bullshit you wrongly believe is working.”
“Is that what you call being a man? Standing back while another man leverages your girl?”
I inch closer until Camille’s view of him is blocked before I throw my fist into his stomach, bending him in two.
“Fools mistake restraint for weakness.” Fisting the collar of his jacket, I drag him so close that his bloody breaths tinge the air with a copper smell. “You don’t force women into relationships, corner them, or treat them like a fucking asset you own.”
His smile thins when he hears the utmost certainty in my tone, but even when they’re losing by a mile, some jockeys still flog a dead horse. “Moral superiority won’t win wars.”
“And neither will desperation,” I reply, snarling.
With Giovanni’s warning that Lucia’s ties with Edoardo could spark a mafia war, I push him back with force. He slams into the wall, the strength of my push winding him.
Turning on my heel, I head back to the diner. “Stay the fuck away from Lucia.”
In the reflection of the diner’s steamy window, I see him reach into his coat. I spin on a dime, my gun drawn and pointed at his head before he can blink.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Edoardo stammers, stepping back. “I was reaching for my phone.”
Slowly and deliberately, he slides his hand into the breast pocket of his coat and removes his phone. Even with danger nonexistent, I don’t lower my gun. If anything, my finger hugs the trigger firmer when he turns the screen to face me.
His screensaver slices through me better than any bullet could.
It’s an image of Lucia in lacy lingerie. Her head is only visible from her lips down, but I’d recognize that body anywhere.
“That was taken last night,” Edoardo says, stealing my focus from the image clearly taken within the last sixteen hours. The patched-up entrance between our apartments is behind Lucia’s left shoulder, and it’s bordered by a sheet that smells like sex and us. “Is that cooperative enough for you?”
While snarling in warning that he better adjust his tone, I return my eyes to the photo. Lucia is vulnerable in a way she’s never allowed me to see, but the tilt of her lips is wrong. It’s a racy shot, there’s no doubting that, but not in an intimate way. It was demanded, not willingly given. I’d put money on it.
My finger itches to pull back the trigger, but I don’t move or breathe.
Camille is mere feet from me. Lucia is there too.
The reminder alone keeps me from exploding.
I refuse to let scum like Edoardo Cordoza undo all the work I’ve done these past six months to prove I’m not the monster my daughter’s mother told her I am.