Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 128290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Enzo shoots to his feet, charging off in the opposite direction.
“Ann-Marie!” he barks.
Just like that, the woman follows after him, and I’m left alone at the breakfast table.
Anger brews low in my belly and I slap my hand on the tabletop, glaring at the doors he just walked through.
I have no words for how this morning has gone, but I’ll be damned if I sit around as if hoping he’ll come back.
I didn’t even know he was going to be here in the first fucking place.
What I hope is that he chokes on his next meal, especially if his next meal is her.
I don’t wait for Grandma—that is officially her name since she didn’t warn me this was a three-way breakfast when I have no doubt she was aware—to collect me again today, but calmly step up to the sealed double doors and wait to see if they open.
They do, so I head back to my jail cell of my own accord, and somehow manage not to slam the door once inside.
I kick my flats off, shove the chair against the wall, roll the rug up and scoot the vanity closer to the window. I shove the pants from my body, leaving me in the bodysuit, and step into the center of the clear space.
Closing my eyes, I take several deep breaths, allowing my muscles to relax before straightening my shoulders. Starting with the opening chords of Mickey Valen and Joey Myron’s “Chills”, the dark version, I play the melody from memory in my head, moving my body to the beat.
I do it over and over and over again.
I don’t stop until my spine burns, spasming, and sends me crashing to the floor.
I cry out slightly, staying there long after I should before slowly climbing to my feet and wincing my way to the tub, turning the water as hot as it will go.
It’s going to sting, but only for a moment.
I’m slick with sweat, muscles aching as I strip the sticky top from my body, easing into the burning water.
“Ah,” I hiss, clenching my teeth on the way in.
Once I’m submerged, my shoulders lower and a small smile finds my lips.
That’s better.
Just as my mind settles and my muscles ease, a throat clears behind me.
I jerk, my eyes snapping toward the door.
Grandma stands there, brow raised as she looks to the disarray of the room, then my sweat-soaked top on the floor. “Out.”
“No.”
Her eyes widen, only to narrow a moment later. “Out…or he will come in to collect you.”
I tense, reaching up and touching the space between my shoulder blades subconsciously.
Satisfaction blooms along the woman’s face, as if she knows what she couldn’t possibly, and she spins on her heel.
“I can buy you twenty minutes, tops.”
Rolling my eyes, I cringe as I lift from the bath that was nowhere near enough time. “Sure thing, Grandma.”
She freezes. “Make that ten.”
Fuck my life.
Chapter
Five
Boston
I was the only soloist in the summer showcase at Lincoln Center in New York last year.
It was a prestigious event, and the last I was allowed to perform in. Only for the richest of the rich and those from elite families. Like Enzo, my father is nothing but a businessman to the outside world. Where Enzo is known and respected as the owner of the top security organization in the world, my father is a real estate guru and entrepreneur extraordinaire. Of course, that’s only to those who don’t look a little deeper.
Anyone aware of the darker ways of operating a business, or a dark lifestyle in general, knows the name Rayo Revenaw. He is a man feared, and with good reason. When he found out I was offered the solo, he refused to allow me to go, assuming it was a ploy of an enemy looking for a way to get to him. It was Rocklin who convinced him to make the exception, and Father always listens to my twin’s reasoning more than mine.
New York was outside his territory, the underground world there ran by another family altogether, but no one wanted to cross Rayo. He was the key to crossing borders, having strategically purchased properties all across the nation under his real estate front in precise, and well-planned, locations—no one moved without his permission—so against his better judgment, he allowed it.
The behind-the-curtain experience was exquisite, and that was saying something coming from a girl who learned from legends. My father literally found a way to secure me the top ballet masters and artistic directors. Whoever climbed to the top spots as the years went on somehow found their way to our door. Likely via blackmail, but who knows. Money talks as much as knowledge does.
The event held rows and rows of costumes, and walls of pointe shoes, custom down to the centimeter and every shade of silk, though the one I wore was a one-of-a-kind piece, stretched with the rarest of diamonds in the world. Lights and crew scattered the place, makeup artists with every palette in existence, and a spread of fruits and nuts imported from their countries of origin.