Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 116875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 584(@200wpm)___ 468(@250wpm)___ 390(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 584(@200wpm)___ 468(@250wpm)___ 390(@300wpm)
How the mighty have fallen. He doesn’t know his obsession with me isn’t real; it’s manufactured by me. But I don’t want to be his captor or the villain in his story.
I want to be with him.
I wish we could have that.
But we can’t. It doesn’t matter if I can’t have Kaiser’s love. From the beginning, we’ve been locked in a struggle to fight for the upper hand. Now that I have it, I can’t throw it away. Not until I free myself and my father from this bogus alliance. I still need to figure out how to do that. I’m not just up against Kaiser, but the whole brotherhood. And then I need to figure out who framed my dad for Alfredo’s death and deal with the Vesuvios.
There’s no room for Kaiser in my life.
I wish it could be different. But it can’t. Kaiser made his choices. I made mine. We’ll always be enemies. Even though my body is sated by the orgasms he’s given me and we’ll sleep tonight in the same bed, we’re not on the same side.
“What’s wrong, Bella?” Kaiser asks.
He sounds so earnest, my heart aches. It’s on the tip of my tongue just to tell him.
Even if I wanted it to be different, what are my options? If I tell Kaiser what I’ve done, it won’t go well. Sure, he shook off my drugging him with the candles, but this is different. It’s so much worse. I’ve toyed with his emotions—him, a big, strong man who prides himself on winning every fight.
If I confess all my secrets, he’ll kill me. Not immediately. He’d confer with Fraternitas, and they’d figure out how to get my drug out of his system. I don’t know about mafia contracts, but what I’ve done is probably grounds to break the alliance. They’d send men to kill my father, and Kaiser would probably take his revenge on me. His loyalty to his brothers comes first.
Nothing’s changed. It doesn’t matter how sweetly he speaks to me, how softly he strokes my hair. I’m still his enemy, and he is mine.
He says he wants to figure me out, but I can’t let him. He can never know me the way he wants to.
What we have will always be fake. It hurts so much, like my own poison is burning me up from the inside. Worse, I can’t let the hurt show. I have to act like everything’s normal, like Kaiser’s love is real. My life, my father’s life, depends on it.
“Nothing,” I say, forcing a shadow of a smile to my face. "Nothing’s wrong.” I pretend to be tired and hide my face in the pillow. I’m so devastated, I can’t even cry.
This is the price of being a supervillain, and I have to pay it. For my pride’s sake. For my dad’s sake.
I never thought I’d share a bed, a home, a life with someone who loved me and still feel so alone.
The next few days are agony. I wish I could talk this out with my gal pals, but Raine is still locked up in her stepbrother’s castle.
Honey is willing to sit beside me in orientation class again, but she doesn’t have time to hang out afterward anymore.
Which is why, when Kaiser picks me up at university and says, “Your father wants to see you,” I’m relieved.
He drives me to New Rome. My happy feelings last until he drops me off at the door of our home. When I walk in, I feel like I’m in the wrong place. There are no plants, no decorations. None of Mom’s paintings are on the wall.
Did Papa remove them all as soon as I moved out to go to school? I was the one watering all the plants, but I figured he would take over when I left. The walls look bare, and the breakfast nook feels empty without the giant money tree dominating the space. It used to feel like a jungle or a garden; now it feels like a tomb.
I’m glad I don’t live here anymore.
I take the elevator to the lower levels and find my father in his secret lab.
“Papa.” It’s a relief to see him. He looks thinner, his skin a little sallow, but so familiar my heart aches. He’s even wearing his microscope goggles that help him work but make him look ridiculous. He invented them when my mother was still alive, and she always teased him about them.
These days, no one teases him. He and I don’t have that sort of relationship.
Right now, I feel the urge to run into his arms, but he’s not a hugger. I rein in that urge—I’m always reining myself in around Papa—and linger in the door.
“Bella.” He looks up from his work, removes his goggles, and looks me over, his expression relieved. So he does care about me. “You’re looking well.”