Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 127249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
“Stay.” The word slurs on my tongue. My vision becomes fuzzy, and my head turns dizzy. “I feel… funny.”
“The doctor gave you a sedative, but don’t worry. It’s safe for the baby. I asked him to up the dose so you can rest.”
“Stay. Please.”
“I have to go. Whatever you do, don’t come home. You understand, right?”
She’s telling me to run, to save my baby. If I don’t do as Leander has said, my father won’t let it go. He’ll hunt me down and finish what he started. He’ll kill my baby and force me to marry Joni Stein. And eventually, he’ll beat Dante’s name out of me.
Taking the chain with the cross from around her neck, she presses it into my palm and closes my fingers around it. “You’ll find everything you need there.”
Then she bends over me and whispers in my ear.
Chapter
Three
Tatiana
* * *
When I wake up again, Jazz sits in a chair next to my bed. Her face is as white as the walls closing us into the small room.
A monitor beeps somewhere behind me, beating out a steady heart rate in the space. The television that’s mounted on the wall is turned onto a news channel, but the sound is off. My best friend is staring at the screen with glassy eyes while bouncing her knee.
“Jazz?”
She gives a start and leaps to her feet. “You’re awake. Can I get you something? Food? Jello? Morphine?”
“Where’s Dante?”
She bites her lip.
I frown. “He didn’t come?”
“Your mom didn’t dare call from her phone. She says your father checks her calls. She didn’t want me to do it either.” Wringing her hands, she shrugs. “You never know. She said she left you a burner phone with the other stuff, whatever that is. She didn’t have time to explain.”
I curl my fingers around the chain in my palm, fisting it until the edges of the cross cut into my skin.
Jazz hesitates. “She told me you’d be better off not calling him at all.”
I shake my head, not wanting to go there again.
She jumps into action, lifting a travel bag from the floor. “She packed you clothes and toiletries as well as a few essentials for the baby.” She points at a big stuffed dinosaur sitting in a visitor’s chair in the corner. “And this.”
Absently, I wonder if that means my mother knows the sex of the baby. Did the doctor tell her? Is it a boy? If it were a girl, my mom would’ve gotten a unicorn or a mermaid. That’s just how she is. I can’t help but smile.
Jazz drops the bag. “Fuck, Tiana.” Her composure slips. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I wish I could explain, but my throat is too dry to speak.
“Water,” I rasp. “Please.”
“Shit. Sorry.” She grabs a cup from the nightstand and holds the straw against my lips. “Of course.”
I manage to take a few sips. Water has never tasted so good.
She clutches the cup between her hands. “How do you feel?”
“Not great,” I say honestly.
“The doctor—” Her voice wobbles. She clears her throat and tries again. “The doctor said the damage is extensive, but it will heal.”
I don’t meet her eyes. I can’t. I’m too ashamed of what happened, of what my father did.
My gaze lands on the news broadcast. What captures my attention isn’t the car lying on its roof, consumed by flames. It’s the name of my father that rolls in a caption over the bottom of the screen.
CEO of Teszner Agglomerate and ten people killed in an explosion earlier tonight.
I blink. I must be hallucinating. It’s probably the meds.
“Tiana?” Jazz asks uncertainly. When she follows my gaze, she clamps a hand over her mouth and mutters behind it, “Dear God.”
The sirens of police cars, firetrucks, and ambulances turn around and around on the scene, throwing red and blue light into the night.
Jazz grabs the remote and turns up the sound.
The camera turns away from the flames, zooming in on a news anchor huddled in a coat with a beanie pulled low over her head.
“Pawel Teszner was estimated to be worth billions, which made him one of the wealthiest men in the country. Speculation is that the motive for the attack is crime related. His son, Leander Teszner, refused to comment.”
Footage of Leander leaving our apartment building comes onto the screen. He’s dressed in the cashmere coat and leather gloves my mom gave him for Christmas. A scarf is wound around his neck.
Reporters storm at him, shouting questions, and cameras flash in his drawn face. My father’s men clear a path for my brother as he fights his way through the throng of people to a car parked on the curb, repeatedly saying, “No comment.”
The camera cuts back to the news anchor. “So far, no one has taken responsibility for the attack.”
“Dear God,” Jazz whispers again, her face ashen and her wide gaze glued to the television.