Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Yet I’ll commit the same sins if it means I get to keep her. Even if the price is banishing her to a place where she can’t gather evidence against me. If given another chance, I’d steal that book with the incriminating evidence from her father again.
I push myself to walk away. It takes tremendous effort. My feet slap the floor hard when I enter my bedroom. Why does she have to fight me so persistently? If only she’d gone down on her knees, she could’ve slept in my bed tucked against my side. If only she’d asked nicely for once, she could’ve had a warm shower and wake up to breakfast in bed. Instead, she’s locked away in a tower, in a house that my mother’s family rejected and deserted, and I’m here wishing things were different.
Maybe that’s the problem. Wishful thinking and facts aren’t the same. I should’ve known right from the start this was how we’d end up, with her rebelling and me deflecting.
I reach for the decanter of Scotch on the table. On second thought, I retract my hand. Drinking only makes me more volatile. I looked down the bottom of a bottle far too often during the last few months.
Going back to sleep isn’t an option. I get my phone and send an instruction to the guardhouse to dispatch a man to watch the house at the far end of the property, not only to keep my wife safe but also to make sure she doesn’t run. Not that she’ll get far. There’s nothing for miles around. The village is down in the valley. Anyway, I don’t expect her to escape. She’s cleverer than that.
With the task out of the way, I send a message to my uncles, calling them in for a meeting first thing in the morning. It’s time to put them back in their place.
Chapter
Three
Sabella
* * *
Sleep refuses to come. The relief of oblivion evades me. I’m too cold, too scared, and too lonely curled up on the dirty mattress.
I wrinkle my nose at the smell of old sweat. It’s disgusting, but I’ll catch a cold or worse on the floor. Like in Angelo’s house, the flagstone floors in the bedrooms have uneven surfaces. It creates an interesting pattern and depth that are pleasing to the eye, but it’s not practical for camping out on.
My teeth start chattering again. I’m about to turn on my other side when two spotlights are projected on the wall above me. I jerk upright, my body tensing. I left the lights on downstairs, but I switched them off in the bedroom in the hope of catching some sleep. The dark allows me to make out the headlights of a car that slide toward the ceiling as the vehicle rolls up the hill. Jumping to my feet, I hobble to the window. It’s definitely a car, but it’s not Angelo’s Jaguar.
Shit.
I look around for a weapon, my breathing turning shallow as I remember there’s nothing but plastic knives and forks in the kitchen. The cutlery is disposable, meant to be discarded after one use. A knife will crack in two with the slightest pressure. Maybe I should hide, but the lights are a dead giveaway that someone is home. What if it’s one of Angelo’s many enemies? Or the lieutenant who said he’d be back for me?
The car comes to a stop in front of the yard. A woman gets out. The air rushes from my lungs in a sigh of relief when I recognize Heidi’s long braid and sturdy frame in the lights of the car. She takes a bag and a suitcase from the trunk, her body dipping on the side of the bag as she carries her charge to the veranda.
The door squeaks open.
Her voice echoes in the empty space. “Sabella? Mrs. Russo?”
Making quick work of loosening the shirt around my knee, I pull it on and button it up even though it’s wet and stained with blood. I smooth down my hair and try to scavenge a morsel of pride as I walk to the top of the stairs.
“There you are,” she says with obvious relief, as if she expected to find a dead body. She drops the bags and closes the door. “I brought you a few things.” Making her way to the bottom of the stairs, she scrutinizes me, her attention fixing on the cut on my knee. “Your clothes and food.” She motions at the maxi shopping bag. “Bedding and linen too.”
Too ashamed to hold her gaze, I lower mine. “Thank you.” I go down the stairs, wincing as I put my weight on my feet. “That’s very kind. I’m sorry you had to drive out in the night on such a dangerous road.”
“Are you kidding?” she exclaims. Clicking her tongue, she continues, “Look at you, standing there thanking me so politely when you’re the one who’s been wronged.”