Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
“What?”
Panic edged her voice.
He tried to reign in the anger. It wasn’t at her, and she had no hand in the fact that he was in an entirely different state than his daughter’s final soccer game of her high school career. The game. The location and time of the finals didn’t matter to the boss of the Russo mafia when he demanded a meeting with Salvatore and a certain capo.
A demand to make face with the boss wasn’t a request, and he pressed his luck with Giorgio enough recently. Best not to push it.
“I’m fifteen minutes away,” Salvatore lied.
“What does that even mean?” Carina shrieked.
The phone crackled. He pulled it away from his ear, squinting. “Could you not, Carina? Please, just don’t be you for five fucking seconds,” he said when he thought it safe to put the phone back against his ear.
It wasn’t.
“What does that fucking mean?”
“I have something to deal with in a few minutes, so if we could make clear between us whatever you called for, that would be great, darling.”
The darling did it for her every time, and he knew it. Her tone softened to sweet in an instant.
“I told you when you picked up the call. Where are you? We’re here, the game is starting shortly. She hasn’t exactly asked where you are, but everyone can see it.”
A smile trickled out of Sal. “Everyone?”
“Sissy grabbed a ride with Larkin. A couple of his guys showed up, too. Why do they have so many freaking kids, anyway? I never see them at the estate.”
“Because the guys are working, maybe?”
“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, Nico pulled up in his Mustang with ten minutes to start-time. It’s only you left, Sal.”
“Who drove Frankie?”
“She took the Supra. Something about a party tonight. Sissy knows.”
Why didn’t he know about it?
“Okay, I am going to have a stroke here, Sal, I swear to God.”
Time ticked away, and he watched it go with the diamond-tipped bezel of his favorite Rolex. He didn’t have much left before he had no choice but to exit the SUV he’d asked to drive him today. This plan should have saved time. Right now, it wasn’t.
“Carina—”
“No, seriously. I thought with you here I could breathe through it. If she takes a ball to the face and that new scar starts bleeding, I swear. The stitches have barely dissolved!”
“You’ve got to look at your priorities here because they are not the same as Frankie’s. It’s hard for you to remember that sometimes because you’re used to being the literal center of the universe every time you walk into a room.”
“That’s not true,” she tried to deny with a dangerously rising tone. “Jesus, I totally saw those signs with us wrong, didn’t I? It’s always the same with you and me. That’s the meanest you’ve been in a while. Fuck y—”
Salvatore pulled the last card he had to deal with Carina, and he ate the bullet, knowing exactly where it would lead them. “Babe,” he murmured softly, “it is true. In your mind, there isn’t a moment of your day when you don’t wonder what the people around you or who know you are thinking about you. In one way or another, consider it, and tell me I’m wrong.”
She didn’t.
Salvatore nodded to himself. “It’s how you survived. Frankie just...isn’t like that. She had other things to worry about it. Her own kind of survival.”
Carina remained silent.
Sal continued, “I know you want her to have pictures that she will love but forget about it. She’s going to love that when she looks at them, she remembers the day and who was there. You might see a scar, but she sees a win. Respect. Us. Are you even hearing me?”
Her breathing had practically stopped.
Carina cleared her throat without warning. “Can’t believe I fucking called you today. And over this.”
Salvatore couldn’t check to be certain, but he’d safely bet his wealth on the fact that his wife hadn’t found a reason to dial his number in over a year. They talked around one another, using others as messengers while the two of them were warships passing in the night.
It was...easier.
“I’m gonna be there,” he promised.
“And if you aren’t? She’ll be—”
“She will be fine because today isn’t about me in the end. But it doesn’t matter, that’s irrelevant. I will be there.”
“Okay,” Carina whispered.
The call immediately ended. Salvatore dropped the device on the back passenger seat and glanced at the man behind the wheel.
“Keep the engine running.”
“Not a second wasted, boss man.”
That in mind, Salvatore exited the vehicle. Less than thirty seconds later, he’d bypassed a waitress who knew his face and not to ask and headed straight down a short hallway where Matty waited. The enforcer had the door open for the oncoming consigliere, and Salvatore didn’t apologize for walking straight past the guy without even a nod hello.