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)
“It looks amazing in there,” he interjected, dropping a kiss to Carina’s smiling mouth before he found his spot next to her side. He breathed deeply, his next words almost sounding as if he were trying to convince himself and not them of how the night would go. “It all is going to be great, and you did that.”
She just smiled over at Frankie.
Who shook her head back.
“Hey,” Carina added quieter to her, bumping their shoulders.
“Yeah?”
“I have another ultrasound in a couple of weeks. Would you want to go with me?”
Frankie’s eyes lit up, and her heart went pitter-patter. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Yes, I’d love to.”
“I’ll tell you the names later. I already know them.”
All those questions and emotions Frankie had about Carina’s pregnancy faded away. She’d done what everyone else told her to do, and minded her own business, even if it practically killed her.
For what? To find out she was going to be a big sister, apparently. So worth it.
“I can’t wait,” Frankie squealed, doing a little shimmy on the spot.
Everyone laughed.
Even someone else noticed. Nico. He winked her way.
She just bit her lip and averted her stare given her father’s proximity and his earlier promise to keep an eye on them.
“All right, here we go. Best fuck you smile, please,” Salvatore murmured as the first two cars pulled up. “And keep ‘em on, my loves.”
Carina and Frankie passed a look between them.
A smile plastered to her face; Frankie did her job. Shook hand after hand, accepted congratulations after praise and compliment. Too many faces passed her by in that first hour of greeting guests, and her feet had started to hurt in heels about a half hour in, which didn’t spell good things for the rest of the evening.
She ignored the pain.
And then, the vibe changed.
Three black SUVs rolled down the driveway, practically bumper to bumper until the vehicles came to a slow stop at the bottom of the stone staircase. A few guests who milled about the front gardens quieted and grouped together to watch the new arrival. The posted security outside made themselves further known, stepping out under trees and near the front pillars. Salvatore’s arm found Carina’s waist, and he pulled her subtly closer to him, dropping a kiss to the top of her head.
“I’m fine,” she whispered.
“Yeah, I know, darling. I’m not.”
Salvatore’s shoulders stiffened, and his expression hardened in a way that Frankie just wasn’t used to. It was like that loving, soft man who carried so much on his shoulders and in his heart had to get packed away in that moment. Someone else came forward, cold and unmovable. A creature carved from stone.
“Okay,” Carina murmured then, passing Frankie another pointed look that she felt in her soul. “Here we really go. Best fuck you smile on again.”
Frankie shivered, chilled.
Forty or so feet away, even Nico had come to stand up straight in front of the Mustang, but he’d lit a fresh cigarette as well. Taking a heavy drag, the smoke curled from his lips in thick, gray tendrils as his gaze locked in on the vehicles that had yet to open. He didn’t usually smoke that much. Most times, she rarely even smelled it on him. A pack could last him several days.
Unlike her father, she still found her Nico behind the change in demeanor and new intensity settling into his eyes. Yet, he stood on an edge, balancing but still there.
Just like Salvatore. The chill inside her didn’t ease. Especially as the doors opened.
Only the first two vehicles, though. The one at the rear remained closed tight, and the blacked-out windows all the way around offered no indication about who waited inside. Men at the front driver and passenger side moved to the rear doors at the two SUVs heading the line. The mountain of a man, taller than he was wide but with shoulders triple the width of Frankie’s, stepped out first.
Giorgio Russo.
His dark stare fell upon those waiting on the stairs but quickly shifted back to the people exiting his vehicle. His wife, a woman Frankie didn’t know except her name, and a little girl who barely looked ten. Except she thought Carmen turned eleven that year.
Frankie’s heart hurt again as the cutest thing she’d ever seen smiled so widely their way, her little hand waving. In a knee-length navy-colored dress that puffed out in layers from the waist down, her matching kitten heels clicked against pavement. Those green eyes were so unmistakably Nico’s even from so far away. Carina’s eyes.
The cold uncomfortableness that had shrouded the two beside Frankie bled away at the sight of the little girl. Salvatore smiled faintly and pressed another kiss to the top of Carina’s head while her stepmother’s hands twisted together before she waved back.
Frankie waved, too.
“Mama, where’s Nico?” Carmen asked, turning on her mother.