Total pages in book: 41
Estimated words: 39068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 195(@200wpm)___ 156(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 39068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 195(@200wpm)___ 156(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
I don’t know what I hope for–some glimmer of satisfaction at ruining Benedict’s beautiful vessel?
Instead, I feel nothing but the gnawing emptiness that’s been with me since the moment Dahlia jumped over the side.
My men and I motor away from the unanchored yacht, now a Norse burial ship, carrying the dead across the rainbow bridge, or wherever the fuck they supposedly go.
I lost three. We took out a dozen of theirs.
I should be satisfied that the battle was won, but all I taste is the ash in my mouth.
“Where to?” Leo, my soldier behind the wheel, asks.
I shake my head.
“You don’t know, boss? Or you don’t care?”
“Head to Miami, you idiot,” Il Greco, my capo, mutters. “We’re in a fucking motorboat. It’s not like we can sail to Australia.”
“Shut up.” I just need to think. To figure out my next move. I always have the next move. I’m the fucking king of strategy.
Except right now, my mind is completely blank.
I don’t care about the next move.
I don’t care about anything at all.
It’s no longer about revenge. I realize, suddenly, that it never was. It was about that girl in the closet who I felt unworthy of.
All this work was actually to bring myself up to Dahlia’s level. To make myself worthy of her.
And I just blew it all by showing her what I really am.
A monster.
Chapter Twelve
Antonio
I stand on the balcony of my Manhattan apartment and look down.
Dahlia’s in this city, not that I’ve seen her.
But illogically, her presence here is what drew me back. I needed to breathe the same air she breathes. Walk the same streets.
Every cell in my body aches for her. It seems incredible that I only had her in my bed four short nights because I seem to remember every single freckle on her skin, every curve of her flesh. I remember how silky her hair is, the way her mouth parts when she’s close to coming.
And the music.
It haunts me all day and night.
I hear her voice singing Puccini. I remember the joy on her face when she was on that stage in Miami, singing pop songs and dancing with abandon.
“Boss, you gotta see this.” Il Greco comes out on the balcony and shoves a newspaper in my face. It’s the society pages of the Manhattan Times, and the bold headline reads, “Yacht King Heiress Spills About Her Marriage.”
I thrust it back at him. “I don’t want to read it.”
“No. Really, Antonio. You need to read it.”
My lip curls in a snarl, but I snatch the paper back and snap it open. What kind of fuckery do I have to strategize around now?
In the days I’ve been back, I’ve expected some kind of assault from King. I expected the FBI or more mercs. I bolstered security on the King Yacht operations and my private residence, but nothing has come.
Now, it seems they’re fighting with public opinion.
What a laugh–as if a brute like me gives a fuck what people think of him. I’m a Beretta. My reputation was tarnished the day I was born.
King Yacht heiress Dahlia King reveals all about the man she has loved since she was fifteen. My eyes slow as the words jumble and rearrange themselves on the page.
What is this?
I reread the pull quote then start again at the beginning.
Dahlia Beretta (King), daughter of Benedict and Barbara King, gave an exclusive interview to the Times this week to explain her last-minute change in groom at her wedding. Last week, the heiress was expected to marry New York City Mayor Jake Reese in a very large and public wedding spectacle in Cape Cod, yet guests were stunned when the mayor did not appear at the altar.
Rather, Antonio Beretta of New Jersey, a man with a criminal record and ties to the mafia stood at the altar and claimed the bride. Beretta also became the sole shareholder of the entire King Yacht enterprise that day.
Speculation over the past two weeks has been that the bride and her father may have been coerced, but the truth is actually even more spectacular of a story.
According to Mrs. Beretta, she and Antonio have been in love since she met him as a teenager. Her father did not approve and alleged the young man stole from him while working as a caterer at Mrs. Beretta’s debutante ball.
Beretta was later sentenced to three years in prison for the crime, which Mrs. Beretta maintains he did not commit and was fabricated by her father to keep the two apart.
The wedding swap was an elaborate plan worked up by the couple to be able to fully celebrate their partnership and matrimony with all of New York’s society as witnesses. Mrs. Beretta said it was important to her that society see and recognize the union, which would have been snubbed had it been previously announced.