Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 105775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
My mother raised me on knights in shining armor and happily-ever-afters. She groomed me to be the perfect mafia princess. It was only natural that I’d believe in fairy tales.
Only, I didn’t fall for the prince.
I fell in love with my father’s enemy.
I’ve never deluded myself about the man Dante is. Powerful. Cold. Ruthless. Brutal. Bad doesn’t come close to describing him. But when he held me in his arms in a rented room, he showed me that he could be good. Just for me. He always chained the monster when I was pinned beneath him, at my most vulnerable and exposed, in the most dangerous place I could be.
The darkness I glimpsed in him is embedded in his soul, coloring his heart and world black. I knew exactly what I was getting into when I lost myself to a callous man. I just couldn’t have imagined in my wildest dreams that his seduction was only part of a cruel strategy and that I was nothing but the pawn he used for his revenge.
Callous Desire is the first book in the Callous Duet and ends on a cliffhanger. Tatiana and Dante's story concludes in Callous Love. The duet is part of the dark mafia romance New York Underworld series (Books 4 & 5). You don't have to read the other books in the series to follow this duet
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Chapter
One
Tatiana
* * *
Unease creeps up on me as I peer through the window at the red truck parked on the opposite side of the street. The shiny bodywork and flashy wheel caps stand out in a neighborhood where people don’t polish their cars. It’s almost as if the owner wants to attract attention, which would be a good sign for me. If someone were on my tail, that person would’ve tried to blend in with the less fancy and not-so-expensive vehicles lining the curbs and driveways.
Still, I can’t help but steal a worried glance at Noah, who’s making fighter jet noises while flying a paper plane through the lounge.
Abandoning my task of packing chipped porcelain figurines into a box, I call to the back of the house.
“Jazz?”
I’m grateful for the sheer curtains that allow me to see outside but prevent others from seeing in. I hate that I’m like this, spooked by a vehicle simply because it seems out of place and the driver has shown up around the same time for the past two days. For all I know, the neighbor is having an affair, and the truck belongs to her lover. But being suspicious has become a part of my nature.
My best friend walks through the doorway that connects to the corridor, bogged down by the weight of the box in her arms. “Please tell me it’s knock off time.” She drops the box on top of the other ten or so stacked in the middle of the floor and dusts her hands on her jeans. “I’ve had my quota of sorting through messy papers for one day.” She twists a mass of cherry-brown curls into a bun on her head and secures it with a scrunchy that she pulls off her wrist. “Has your client never heard of filing or shredding? Some invoices date back twenty years. Don’t get me started on all those moth-eaten magazines from before I was born. Who keeps magazines for fifty years? At least the study is done. I’ll need a whole lot of caffeine before we tackle the basement, and I’m talking the good Colombian stuff and not that cheap replacement you call coffee.”
Noah runs a circle around my legs. “Whooossshhhh!”
He doesn’t seem to pay us attention, but I’ve learned that kids’ brains are like little computers that can store everything that comes out of your mouth, even when they’re watching Looney Tunes with a bad, tinny sound blasting from an old, fat-belly television, so I’m careful to lower my voice. “Have you seen the red truck parked out front?”
“Yeah.” She blows a stray curl from her forehead. “Don’t sweat it. I’ve already checked it out. Those snazzy wheels belong to a guy doing a handyman job for the neighbors.”
Alarm quickens my breathing. “Did you speak to the neighbor?”
She grimaces. “Not exactly.”
Hold on. I hope she didn’t do what I think she did.
My heart speeds up. “You spoke to him?”
“I just said hi when I took out the trash.”
I press a palm on my forehead. No. No way. “You asked what he was doing here?”
She props her hands on her hips. “I may have squeezed that question in between, ‘Hello. Nice ride,’ and—”
“Jazz!” I exclaim under my breath. “You’re not supposed to talk to anyone. Please tell me you didn’t give him your name.”
Noah clambers onto a box, flying his plane higher. I step closer, ready to catch him if he loses his balance.