Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 72480 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72480 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Did she survive the fire too?
It feels as if all the heat rushes out of my body then. I’m cold everywhere, dumbstruck by what I’m seeing.
Then one more person steps out into the hallway.
Harper.
Is that really her?
I rub my hands across my face, but when I blink a couple of times, her image doesn’t fade. She really is there, in the living flesh.
I can’t fucking believe I actually found her. And with Molly, no less.
She looks horrified, and she’s trembling.
Fuck.
I wish I could jump through this window right here right now and pull her into my arms.
But if I did that, I’d be caught by Molly’s guards in no time, and they’d put a bullet in my brain too.
Fuck!
I can’t fucking risk it.
My heart contorts. I swore once upon a time that I’d protect her—from these people. From my world. And I fucking failed.
The thought of her being locked inside, surrounded by nothing but hatred, fills my veins with unending rage, causing me to forget all the warnings that filtered through my mind just seconds ago.
I raise my gun, ready to blast through the glass and go save my woman.
But before I can pull the trigger, someone grabs the shoulder strap of my vest and yanks me to the ground.
“Fuck!” I curse as I plummet into the earth. The fall knocks the wind from my lungs.
I look up to find out who the hell just tugged me down at the precise wrong moment.
But it’s fucking Claudio.
“Have you lost your fucking mind, Claudio?!” I shout.
“I apologize, Marcello, but I had no other choice. You were about to burst in there and get killed.”
My nostrils flare as rage pours from my mouth. “I didn’t ask you to stop me.”
“I know,” he replies. “But I would rather see my Don survive. We will go get her, I promise you that. But we will do it the right way. Not now. Not right this second. Listen to your second man, please.”
The fire in his eyes forces me to weigh his words carefully.
He’s right.
It was stupid. I’d get myself killed. I’d get my men killed.
“Fine. We will come back later,” I say.
But in my head, the demons are screaming again.
Because if she dies like Matteo, it’ll be my fault.
Harper
Feverish and completely drenched in sweat, I wake up from a nightmare in the middle of the night… only to land straight back into one. Because I’m abruptly pulled out of my sleep by a hand covering my mouth and eyes locking with mine. A man is crouched on top of me, his body weighing down on mine so hard I can barely breathe.
A guard, one of my mother’s own trusted employees, is trying to have his way with me.
His thin lips move closer, vile stench entering my nostrils as he opens his mouth. “Don’t fucking make a sound,” he whispers.
My eyes widen as his free hand moves to my nightgown and tries to wriggle underneath.
The adrenaline kicks into action, and I thrash beneath him, trying to kick and shove him off me, but my body is still drowsy and weak from the sleep I just had. I can’t wake up this quick and fight off an attacker.
The guy’s hand snakes up my belly, and bile rises up my throat.
I scream, but the sound gets nowhere as it’s blocked by his hand.
His grip is so tight that it hurts as he straddles me, and panic begins to flood my veins. This cannot be happening. I can’t let him do this to me.
I try my hardest to remember my training, and I use all my strength to lock his own shirt between his neck and my elbow so I can choke him, but he manages to grab my wrist before I can and pins me down to the bed.
I try to shove my knee between his legs and kick him as hard as I can, but he’s so much heavier than me, and this nightgown doesn’t help either.
“Don’t fucking move, and it’ll be over quick,” he groans as he fumbles the button on his pants loose with a single hand.
Fuck.
How could I have ever let my guard down like this?
Why did Mother hire someone like him?
Suddenly, my door bursts open, but it isn’t my mother who’s come to rescue me.
It’s Marcello.
My heart almost stops beating the second our eyes connect.
“Motherfucker!” Marcello yells as his eyes home in on the man on top of me, the look on his face darker than I’ve ever seen before. The look in his eyes was like a devil who just stepped straight out of hell to pick up the sinners and drag them back down with him.
Faster than I can even blink, Marcello pulls out his gun and shoots the guy point-blank in the back.
I shriek as blood spatters all around, covering me.