Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 77126 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77126 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
I grab a big one, the fluorescent lights of the kitchen glinting off the steel blade.
I hold it up.
“Raven, if your intention is to try to harm me—”
“No, that’s not my intention, Jared.” I brandish the knife in front of him. “Why would I try to harm you? You’re twice as big as I am. And of course I’m still recovering from my illness, as everyone is so quick to point out to me. Poor weak little Raven. Can’t take care of herself.”
“Then what are you doing?” he asks, his voice low.
“Going to do the one thing you won’t let me do.” I place the steel against my neck. “If you don’t let me out of here, I’m going to slit my own throat.”
He blinks. “You’re bluffing.”
“Am I though?” I stare him down. “I’ve faced death, Jared. Just as you have many times in the military. I love my life. Don’t get me wrong. But I don’t fear death. When my body was so weak and ill and everything hurt, I prayed for it.”
He takes a step toward me. “I served overseas, Raven. Do you honestly think there weren’t times when I prayed for death as well?”
“I’m sure there were. But what would my brother or my father or whoever is paying you do to you if they found me with a cut on my neck?”
He takes a step toward me.
“Stay back,” I say, pressing the steel slightly farther into my neck. It’s cool against my flesh, and in a warped way, it feels good. Almost freeing.
“You’re not suicidal, Raven.”
“Of course I’m not. If I were, I would’ve ended my life while I was lying in a hospital bed. But no, I fought. And I will fight you now with the only weapon I have. My safety.”
“Your family only wants the best for you.”
“What’s best for me is to be in my own home, Jared. I can’t spend my life running. I lost several years of my life already fighting that damned illness. I’m not going to lose the rest.”
“You’re in danger. You’ve been getting the texts.”
“And I’ve also been getting texts from someone who’s watching out for me. Are they coming from you?”
“No. You know they’re not.”
“Then they’re coming from someone else who’s watching out for me.” I twitch my eyebrows up. “You have my back. My father and brothers have my back. In his way, Vinnie has my back. But you’re forgetting one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I have my back, Jared. I’m not helpless. For God’s sake, you and I both know that I have the best security system on the planet in my home. I’m not going back to that safe house, and I’m not going to stay at my parents’ house either.”
He sighs. “Let me make a phone call.”
I finally put down the knife. He heaves a sigh of relief.
“Don’t make a phone call. It doesn’t matter what anyone else tells you to do. You’re my bodyguard, and I want to go back to my home.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” He reaches into his pocket. “But it’s going to take a phone call.”
“Jesus Christ.” I whisk past him out of the kitchen and head into the bathroom. My dress is a wrinkled mess, and my hair… Well, my hair is so short it can hardly be messed up.
My makeup still looks good.
I take care of business quickly, and then, while Jared’s on the phone, I walk to my bedroom.
My bedroom where Brick Latham’s body was found, his throat slit.
I wonder if his throat was slit using the knife I just had against my own throat.
Probably not.
Whoever did it didn’t leave any evidence.
And that is odd in itself.
But my father and the police took care of it, and I trust them without question.
I walk back to the kitchen where Jared is finishing up his phone call.
“Yes, sir. I’ll do that.”
“You’ll do what?” I ask.
“We have to wait here. For your father. And Mr. Gallo.”
28
VINNIE
Bellamy’s phone buzzes.
“I have to take this,” he says. He walks away from me, back toward the ballroom.
I follow him. The hotel staff is cleaning up. The chandeliers have been dimmed and the silk tablecloths have been stripped away to reveal bare wooden surfaces.
Bellamy, still on his phone, paces. His dark eyes are distracted.
A waiter trudges by with an almost empty champagne tray and I take a flute. The bubbly liquid feels strange in my mouth, cold and flat. Kind of the way I’m feeling at the moment.
Bellamy ends his call and walks toward me. “We’ll talk in the car. It’s nearly an hour drive to my house.”
“Why would I be going to your house?”
“Because,” he says, clearing his throat, “Raven is there.”
I cock my head. “Why is she at your house?”
“Her bodyguard had instructions to take her there. Either there or to the safe house, and the only reason I’m mentioning that is because apparently you know all about it.”