Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 92702 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92702 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
The door opens, and the sensation only intensifies when Enzo steps through it. He’s wild, his eyes blazing, hair mussed like he’s been running his hands through it. His normally healthy color has drained away—now he’s gray, drawn. But I don’t get a sense of illness or weakness from him, far from it. He looks like he’s ready to kill.
And he’s glaring at me.
I force myself to stand but can’t hide the way I’m shaking. It isn’t weakness. Anybody in their right mind would shake if a man like him was looking at them the way he’s looking at me. Like he wants to slaughter me and watch the blood drip out on the floor.
Is he waiting for me to speak? I lick my lips to moisten them. “Enzo. You might not believe this, but I’m so sorry about your grandfather. If there was anything I could have done, I would have.”
That’s as much as he lets me get out before crossing the room and grabbing me. A squeak escapes my lips as his fingers dig into my cheeks while he backs me against the wall. I know I shouldn’t be surprised, just like I shouldn’t let it hurt me. But it does. It hurts my heart. I’m looking into the eyes of a stranger when I was so sure things between us had changed.
“Let me give you a piece of advice.” He hardly even sounds like himself, more like a wild animal with its teeth bared, and it’s clear from the smell of his breath that he’s had at least one drink already. “You are never, ever to speak of my grandfather again. I don’t want you to mention him. I don’t want your sympathy. All I’ll ever get from you is lies and more lies, anyway. So don’t waste your breath or my time.”
“I wasn’t—” I suck in a pained breath when his fingers dig deeper into my flesh. Pain ignites in my cheeks. Much more pressure, and he’ll break my cheekbones. I’m sure he’d like that.
“You will only speak when you’re answering a direct question. I don’t want to hear anything else from you.” His voice shakes with barely restrained rage. “Nod if you understand.”
My head bobs up and down as much as I can move it.
“Now. Tell me who the hell you are,” he snarls. “Before I kill you.”
2
ENZO
I probably shouldn’t be in this room with her. Not while I feel the way I do. Certainly not while I’m touching her this way when it would be so easy to hurt her. That’s all I want to do. Hurt her. Make her scream, make her beg, and watch her blood run through my fingers like a river.
Focus, dammit. Why are you letting a woman rule your emotions?
Maybe I am truly going insane. For a moment, I hear Grandfather’s voice in my head so sharp and clear, as if he were standing beside me.
But that’s impossible. He’s dead—his life snuffed out right in front of me, his blood is on my clothes. This suit another symbol of the charade that went on here today. Another symbol of how easily I was led around, as well.
My grip on her tightens, and I feel her delicate facial bones beneath my fingers. I could destroy her beauty in an instant, ruin her, break her.
“By the time I’m finished with you,” I whisper, barely hanging on to the last threads of my control, “you won’t even recognize yourself. No one will.”
She’s tough, I’ll give her that—or at least she’s attempting to be. She doesn’t blink. A tremble courses through her body as she sucks in a pained breath as I dig my fingers deeper into her flesh. But she won’t blink nor back down.
“Well?” I growl, leaning in close. If she isn’t careful, she’ll hyperventilate, her rapid breaths short and shallow. “Start talking.”
“Can’t,” she manages to whisper. She looks down at my hand, covering half her face.
That’s all that’s stopping her? Fair enough. I take hold of her throat instead, pivot, and throw her onto the bed. She lands in an ungraceful heap, but instead of scrambling around, trying to sit upright to have a little dignity, she remains that way, gasping and coughing on her back.
I don’t know what part of her I want to injure first. I have too. It’s the least she deserves. “It’s amazing you’re still breathing,” I whisper, and even my voice shakes with my barely controlled rage. I’m going to lose it completely, aren’t I? I hope I do. I hope I blackout from the rage and wake up covered in her blood.
When I reach out and touch her ankle, it seems to stir her to life again. She attempts to pull herself away, to escape to the other side of the bed, but her legs get lost in the long dress, the heel of her shoe caught in the hem and tearing it. Her wedding dress, now stained and destroyed, is the perfect symbol of what was destroyed today. Thanks to her, all thanks to her. My grandfather’s life. Any hope of my family securing their place here.