Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 149338 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149338 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
I couldn’t run.
I couldn’t escape.
I had no one.
I kept moving because I knew once I stopped I would crash, and possibly never get back up again. I darted around the dining room, my feet stomping with every step, leaving a path of destruction in their wake. Throwing candles, dishware, and chairs. Flipping the goddamn table. I went after anything I could find, demolishing the perfect night.
“I fucking hate you! I fucking hate you!” I yelled, punching the fucking mirror that I caught my reflection in. Not even flinching from the pain. I repeated that mantra over and over, letting it sink into my pores, and making it become a part of me. Destroying everything in my path, the future I would never have.
I pulled my hair back, taking in the destructive scene before me. “Jesus Christ, get yourself together, you fucking pussy,” I rasped, making my way to the bar. Taking four swigs of whiskey from the head, not bothering with a glass, and repeating it several times until the bottle was empty, and I felt nothing but the burn through my body.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I grabbed another bottle, wanting to drown myself in the amber liquid. Leaning my whole body against the wall, I started sliding down, wallowing in the despair of what my life had become. I don’t know how long I sat there, drinking my fucking life away when I heard the front door open, footsteps coming my way.
“Sophia?” I slurred.
A part of me hoped that it was somebody that was coming to put a bullet in my fucking head. Putting me out of my goddamn misery.
“Fuck,” I heard Leo announce as he hovered above me, reaching for my arm. “Get up, motherfucker. Get up!”
I took another swig of the bottle before he pried it out of my bloody hands. “Jesus, are you trying to have yourself admitted to the hospital? The entire bottle is almost gone. I’m not holding your hair back if you throw up, princess.”
“Fuck you,” I groaned, my head swaying.
“Come on, you need a cold fucking shower, then you need to pass the fuck out,” he ordered, placing my arm over his shoulder as he stood me up as I rocked to stay upright.
“She’s gone… Leo… she’s fucking gone…”
“I know, man. I know. She called me.”
“Everyone is gone…” I struggled to get out as we walked toward my room.
“You just keep fucking moving. Tomorrow is another day, brother.” He laid me down on my bed.
I saw my dying mother in my arms.
I saw my sister leaving me.
I saw Sophia saying goodbye.
Before I passed the fuck out. Knowing I would wake up another man because the Devil…
Had won.
“Alejandro,” Dad greeted as I walked into his office. Not bothering to get up.
He was sitting at the head of the rectangle table at the far end of the room. Antonio, a new associate from Panama that we were about to use for the first time, was sitting across from him. I spent the last week in his territory, making sure they knew we meant business and they were aware of how we handled ourselves.
I didn’t acknowledge him.
There was something about the fucking prick that rubbed me the wrong way immediately. The last thing I needed was to babysit another incompetent asshole who thought with his dick and not his head. My plate was already full. I didn't need any more shit piling up. Although, I had to give him some credit, the man had some brass fucking balls for sitting parallel to my father. I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to shake his goddamn hand for it. I’m sure my dad loved that.
A power struggle at its fucking finest.
I wasn’t a take-charge kind of man.
I was in charge.
End of fucking story.
I had proved myself to my piece of shit father more and more as the months passed. I unbuttoned my suit jacket as I sat down next to my dad. Making myself comfortable before heading the meeting.
“I paid off everyone that needed to keep their goddamn mouths shut, and the remaining were silenced… permanently,” I informed, breaking the silence since I barged into the room.
“Antonio, this is—”
“I know who he is,” he interrupted my father, leaning forward on the table with his hands placed out in front of him. “Your reputation precedes you, Martinez. Quite the Devil, huh?”
I grinned, tapping my fingers on the table one right after the other. “I've been called worse things by better people.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, cocking his head to the side.
Waiting.
I knew what he was trying to do. I learned from an early age how to read people. Who was lying, who was pretending, who was bluffing, and who was just full of fucking shit. A person’s body language always told me their story.