Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
“Yes.”
“So you get it.”
“I do,” he agreed, nodding. “Is that the whole story?”
“Ah, well, no. Then there is the issue with the guys Cody was trying to make a deal with.”
“You are in contact with them?”
“Not willingly,” I said, sighing hard. “And I don’t even know how they are doing it, but they are getting notes to me. They’ve gotten increasingly threatening lately.”
“Why?”
“Because they want to go through with the deal.”
“Why aren’t they going to Colin then?”
“Because they don’t like him. Or trust him. And because he doesn’t have access to the money that was supposed to be a part of the deal.”
“Okay,” Massimo said, exhaling hard. “So, what, exactly, do you want help with? Taking out Colin?”
“I mean, I… I don’t want to be the person who decides if someone lives or dies. But I wouldn’t exactly mourn if he died. In fact, the whole town might throw a parade.”
“And then what? What’s the exit strategy for the whole other problem you’ve got going on?”
“Most of the guys who work under Colin are decent guys. I know them. I went to school with most of them. If he was gone, I could probably convince them to take the money and the contact to these other guys, and work out their own deal, if they will just give me my brothers back.”
“Then what? You start over with nothing?”
“I’d be okay with that if it meant I was finally free.”
“I’m confused what you think you have to offer here, sweetheart,” Massimo said, and I went ahead and pretended that the little pet name didn’t make me feel a strange fluttering sensation.
“Money,” I told him. “I mean, I don’t know what the going rate for… problem solving is…”
“Problem solving,” Massimo said, snorting. “I like that,” he decided, offering me a sexy little smirk. Or maybe it was just a normal smirk, but his overwhelming sexiness just made me think the smirk was sexy too.
God, I was losing it.
It had been too long since I’d been around men who I wasn’t forced to be near.
I was just a little overwhelmed by it, I guess.
“Yeah, I mean, like I said… there is a lot of money. And no one but me knows exactly how much. So I can take a little bit off the top to pay for the problem solving. And then maybe enough for a month or two of rent to help my brothers and me get by.”
“I’m sure, with all your research, you know by now that the Family, if such a thing exists, doesn’t outsource those kinds of services.”
“Well, maybe the Family, who I absolutely know exists, might be willing to help me out since they were the ones who got me in this situation to begin with.”
I mean, sure, I hadn’t planned on being with Cody forever. Actually, I probably would have come to my senses in less than half a year if he’d been allowed to live. But regardless, his being alive was all it would have taken to keep me out of this horrible situation.
Would Cody have been upset if or when I broke up with him? Sure. But he wouldn’t have trapped me in his apartment and kept me his prisoner. He wouldn’t have forced my brothers to work for him, so I couldn’t leave because I’d fear for their safety.
Cody was a kind of so-so boyfriend. But he wasn’t evil. Not like his brother.
So, if Massimo had never killed Cody, all of this never would have happened.
I mean, I wasn’t naive enough to think that the mafia would take responsibility for what they’d done, that they would feel guilty about what had happened to some woman they’d never met. But I thought the money might be motivation enough.
That was what the mafia was known for, right? Making money. Illegal money.
What was more illegal than killing someone?
“Okay. Thanks for bringing this to my attention,” Massimo said, suddenly rising from his chair, and rebuttoning his suit jacket.
“That’s it? I came all this way for nothing?” I asked, feeling irrational tears start to sting at my eyes.
I couldn’t cry, damnit.
I’d cried enough over the years.
I wasn’t going to give the man who caused all my problems the satisfaction of seeing me break down.
Even as I blinked back the tears that had formed in my eyes, though, I could tell that it was too late. He’d already seen them there.
“I didn’t say that,” he told me, choosing his words carefully. “You’ve given me a lot to think about. I obviously can’t tell you what you want to hear. At least not right now,” he added as my shoulders began to slump.
“But… but I have to leave. Pretty much right now,” I said.
“If I need to get in contact with you, I will,” he told me as he made his way toward the door, a silent demand for me to follow.