Total pages in book: 35
Estimated words: 32452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 162(@200wpm)___ 130(@250wpm)___ 108(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 162(@200wpm)___ 130(@250wpm)___ 108(@300wpm)
I looked up to find my husband, Odin, walking into the room. In his hands was a bouquet of roses, bright red and beautiful. Seeing them, I wondered if they were for me. I’ve never been given flowers in my life, and they looked beautiful.
“Are those, uh, for me?” I asked. Great, now I seemed desperate.
Odin smiled and nodded. “These are for you.”
“How did you know I liked roses?” I asked.
“Lucky guess.”
They came complete with a vase, and he moved to put them near the window, where I also saw a card.
“A card? Someone sent me a card?” I asked.
“You seem a little taken aback.”
“I never got a birthday card, so getting anything is kind of a shock.”
Odin stared at me for several minutes. “You didn’t get a birthday card?”
“My family didn’t see the point in wasting a card.” I wasn’t going to tell him my sisters got cards, and they were considered a waste of time for me. I was the youngest daughter, and the outcast.
Odin picked up the card and brought it over to me to read. It was from him, and it wished me all the best, and to get well soon.
“Get well soon,” I said.
I closed the card, and it had a little teddy bear on the front. It was so cute and so sweet.
“I, uh, don’t mean to put a damper on anything, but could you tell me, kind of, well, you know, what happened?” I asked.
Odin took a seat on the bed. He didn’t reach out, nor touch me. I stared into his eyes, and it was like he was attempting to find control, which I couldn’t understand.
“We were talking at the nightclub. Do you remember that?” he asked.
“Yeah, I remember drinking your scotch, and if this is what happens, I don’t know why you drink that stuff.” I couldn’t help but wrinkle my nose. Why did anyone drink alcohol at all, if this is what it did to you? That stuff was poison.
“Scotch, if you drink plenty of it, will force you to have your stomach pumped, but we’re talking about a lot of it. That drink wasn’t just scotch, Alba. That drink had been spiked with poison. A poison used by your family in the Serra Mafia.”
His words sank in, and then they registered and I stared at him, and I’m pretty sure my mouth might have fallen open, because I was shocked.
“Poison?”
“Yes. Your family wanted to poison me.”
“You’re serious.”
“Yes, and I stopped you from dying. There were several times the effect of the poison was causing you to vomit, and we had to make sure we were there, so you were not sick.”
That explains why I smelled like absolute horseshit. Actually, I felt I smelled even worse than that.
“Poison.” I spoke the word aloud in the hope it would register exactly what it meant, and it was like my head was a complete blank. I didn’t know what to make of it. It didn’t seem right at all.
I gripped the back of my neck, and I wanted to cry, scream, and just let go. I could have died last night, which was why I felt like crap. My family was going to kill my husband. I didn’t care about me, or the fact I had drunk it. That poison could have killed my husband, and in that moment, I hated them.
The past few weeks with Odin had been the strangest and most surreal moments of my life. Yet, if I actually sat and thought about it, they had been the best three weeks of my life.
I didn’t want Odin to die. He didn’t deserve to die.
“Do you know who did it?” I asked.
“He’s been dealt with.”
I knew what that meant, and I stared at Odin and nodded my head. “That’s good. So, they know they failed?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “That’s good.” I couldn’t help but grip his hand tightly. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Nothing will. And I won’t let anything happen to you.”
I couldn’t look away and I felt the tears glaze my eyes. I tried to suck them down, but the moment I blinked I felt them fall down my cheeks.
“Don’t,” he said.
“They’re going to keep trying to kill you, aren’t they?” He was never going to be free from what they did to him.
“No, but there is going to come a point when they will have no choice.”
“How?” I asked.
“Because there won’t be a single person left.”
In that moment, that was exactly what I wanted. They were not good people.
“Some will try to escape,” I said.
“They will not succeed.”
I swiped at my cheek, hoping to stop the tears, but now I was crying for a different reason.
“I stink,” I said.
“I know.”
And I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “You’re supposed to reassure me. Tell me I’m fine.”