Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 73042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
I grab her arm a bit more forcefully than I intend. But I don’t let go. “Tell me what happened, Raven. Every single detail. That motherfucker will pay.”
She looks around, gulping back a sob. “I’ll ask you again. Do you think we can speak freely here?”
I take her in my arms again, embrace her, kiss her lips.
I look above the gazebo. It’s unlikely there’s surveillance, but how the hell should I know? I take her hand and we walk out into the yard, the Texas sun beginning its descent in the west.
“Talk now,” I say, cupping her cheek. “We should be safe here.”
She gulps. “He just said that I needed to call you and ask you to dinner tonight. Then he gave me this burner phone.” She pulls it out of her back pocket and hands it to me. “He said to get you here, and then I’d get further instructions. But nothing has come. At least not yet.” She points to a few lawn chairs sitting around a fire pit in the distance. “I need to sit down.”
We walk toward the chairs and sit down next to each other.
“I just need you to know,” she says, sniffling. “I heard what you said the other night. That it can’t happen again with us. The call for tonight. It wasn’t about that. It was because he made me call you and—” She gasps.
“What?” My heart thumps. “What is it, Raven?”
“I… I forgot to cancel the date with Brick. He’s probably showing up at my house right about now. How could I be so stupid?”
“Your mom can send him away.”
She shakes her head. “No, I didn’t tell her I was going to break the date. She would just send him here.” She runs her hands over her scalp. “Except Mom said she might take Dad out for the evening. So he’ll just arrive to an empty house. God, he’ll think I’m such a bitch!”
I take her hand, rubbing my thumb into her palm. “Do you have your phone on you?”
She nods.
“Text him now. Quickly. Then that’s one thing off your plate. Tell him you lost track of time and… I don’t know. Just make something up.”
She pulls out her cellphone and taps lightly. “Done,” she says.
“Okay. That’s one less thing to worry about.” I attempt a smile. “Did he say anything else?”
“No. But he hacked my Uber app. That’s how he got to me. When I called an Uber to take me home from CJ’s. Or the Puzos’. Whatever.”
The Puzos. Fuck it all. How is this all related?
“We need to get out of here,” I tell her.
“What?”
“We need… Whoever called you knows where we both are tonight. It’s not safe here, Raven.”
A look of determination takes over her fine features. “This is my home, damn it. I made you dinner. Spaghetti with marinara sauce. And I grabbed a baguette from the local bakery.”
“I’m sure it’s delicious. We can wrap it up and take it with us.”
But her eyes say something else. She won’t be chased out of her own home.
Damn. I could so easily fall for her beauty, her strength, her integrity.
Then she jerks in her chair. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“Some kind of buzzing sound. Don’t you hear it?”
I concentrate, and yes…I hear it. “It sounds like a dragonfly or something.”
But it’s no dragonfly.
“Stay here,” I tell her.
“I’m going with you, wherever you’re going,” she says adamantly.
I put my fingers to my lips again and look toward the noise.
A drone floats above us about twenty-five feet in the air.
Raven throws a hand over her mouth. “My God!”
I point to the house. “Go back toward the house. I’ll take care of it.”
She nods and walks briskly away. I take out my phone and text my grandfather.
Get out of here or I’m done.
I wait for a response. Five minutes. Six agonizing minutes. Seven. Eight…
The drone finally flies away.
“Motherfucker,” I say under my breath.
A cheap rental car and a fake ID isn’t enough to throw Mario Bianchi off track. I didn’t for a minute think they would be.
It should be enough to throw Puzo’s goons off track though.
Because right about now?
Puzo ought to be good and dead.
31
RAVEN
I rub my arms against the chill. “Was that really a drone?” I ask Vinnie when he returns from the chairs.
“It was. But you don’t have to worry about it. I had it called off. Let’s just go have dinner.”
“Can we talk in there?”
“It’s probably better if we don’t.”
I swallow. So he thinks my house is bugged. “Okay. I’ll get our dinner ready. We can eat. And then we can…”
“Fuck the food, Raven. I think we both need a little escape right now.” He holds out his hand to me.
I take it, and together we walk back into the house, saying nothing, and we go straight to my bedroom.
I can feel him studying me, his dark gaze searching my face. There’s an urgency in his grip, a desperation that wasn’t there before. I can’t help but lose myself in the connection, my nerves on fire from his touch.