Total pages in book: 41
Estimated words: 37733 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 189(@200wpm)___ 151(@250wpm)___ 126(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 37733 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 189(@200wpm)___ 151(@250wpm)___ 126(@300wpm)
"You heading to Texas?" Mattia asks.
"Nah. Scarlett just had a baby. She doesn't need me in her hair. I'm heading to my place in Rockford," I say. It's not a lie. That is where I'm currently headed. I have no intention of staying there for long. But I don't want him sending anyone to Silver Spoon Falls looking for me. The sister I spent my entire life looking for and her family are there. The last thing I want is for this shit to spill over into her life when I promised her husband, Finn, that it never would.
She has an entire MC and the Arakas family looking out for her, not to mention the man I've got in town protecting her from afar, but I still intend to keep my shit as far from her as possible. This isn't her life, and it shouldn't have to be. She's happy and thriving exactly where she is. This shit? The constant bullshit and fuckery? She wasn't made for it. She's soft, sweet, innocent. I want to keep her that way.
I owe that much to Silvia, her mother.
"Enjoy," Mattia says. "I'll call you soon."
"Later," I disconnect, fully aware that next time we talk might be the last time we do so as equals in the family. I made my bed, though. I'm not afraid to lie in it.
Chapter Two
Finley
As soon as I come awake, I know something is different. My eyes aren't even open, and I feel the change in the air. It isn't as heavy as usual, crushing my lungs as if each breath has invisible weights tied to it…or as if the air has grown dangerously thin.
There's something else in the air, too. A masculine spice I've never smelled before. It's not my uncle's cologne. I don't recognize it from one of my cousins either. It's an intoxicating scent, one that makes my stomach flutter. I keep my eyes closed as I take a deep breath, pulling it deeper into my lungs.
"You're awake."
My eyes pop open as the rumbling growl washes over me.
The deepest hazel eyes I've ever seen connect with mine across the room. For a minute, everything else falls out of focus. All I see is the gorgeous giant leaning against the wall, his sleeves rolled up, his eyes locked on me. He's so beautiful in a fierce, warriorlike kind of way. Everything about him is dark. His hair, his eyes, the stubble on his jaw. Even the look in his eyes, as if he was born of darkness.
He isn't one of my uncle's men. I don't know who he is.
And we aren't in my room. I don't know where we are.
But in this moment, when I should probably feel overwhelming panic and fear, the first emotion that hits me is relief. It's an illogical, unreasonable response. But I've spent my entire life in a cage of glass, surrounded by monsters.
If this man is one, too, at least I'm not in that damn house any longer. At least I'll die staring at something other than the pretty gilding my uncle surrounded me with.
I'd rather die free than live another day in hell.
"My name is Domani Brambilla. I took you from your uncle's compound a few hours ago."
Domani Brambilla. The name is familiar. I've heard my uncle and cousins speak it before. But I still don't know this man. I know one thing, though. He's every bit as dangerous as they are. Moreso, perhaps. Because when they speak his name, they speak it in whispers, as if afraid of what saying it too loudly will conjure. He's the bogeyman to my uncle.
And I guess the bogeyman exists after all. He's standing in front of me, isn't he?
"Are you going to kill me?" I ask, far more calmly than I feel. My heart thumps against my breastbone in jarring thuds, each hard enough to rattle my bones. I don't know if it's fear or if it's the fact that he hasn't taken his eyes off me, though. He's just staring at me, a hunger in his gaze that has the same response fighting to rise to the surface within me.
How long has it been since I've felt anything but cold, simmering rage and hopeless despair? I can't remember. Cillian has kept me locked in that damn house since he moved me to Chicago almost two years ago. I'm twenty-one years old, and I'm a prisoner. My life is not my own. It never has been. Like I said, I've been surrounded by monsters.
Except they smile in my face and call themselves my family. And just when I think they mean it, they lock me in my room or tie me to the bed to keep me there. I'm a prisoner in my own life, held hostage by the men my father trusted to guard me with their lives. Their insidiousness is perverse, and they love every minute of my torment.