Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Years ago
In the time I’d been watching War and his family, it became clear rather quickly that his oldest daughter was likely to follow in her father’s footsteps. Naomi was the most like him in the personality department. Very controlled, calculated, and showed an enormous amount of restraint when it came to her emotions.
The Marinos had been interesting to follow. They were quite different from other Italian families I’d grown up around in power. War was more than willing to let his daughter step up even with having three younger sons.
That had me shifting my attention to her, Naomi. If I were to play the long game, that meant she would be key. I was struck by her instantly. She wasn’t an average teenage girl by any means. She was different, and that meant she thought differently. It tracked a somewhat similar pattern to her father, but not always.
There were a lot more moving parts in Naomi’s life, and by that, I mean the people around her she was growing up with. A slew of cousins. Who you surround yourself with is a key marker to how you might change and grow. I had accounted for all the factors that needed consideration.
What I hadn’t accounted for was Naomi’s patterns wavering. It was hard for me to understand or get a full grasp on them. It drove me crazy at first and then amused me. At that time, I could only speculate that those tendencies fluctuated due to her internal struggles with her identity.
She became an obsession, and I was verging on stalking, or maybe I was already there. Naomi more often than not stayed in the city at her father’s home there. During that time, she took many different classes, but none of them were the normal curriculum for her age. They were more in life skills. I respected War for noticing she was different and allowing her to explore her potential.
Every day Naomi would train. I watched the girl run miles at a time. The determination in her at such a young age was impressive and also relatable. Except she wanted to please her father, and I wanted to end mine. The goals were different, but the destination was the same. In the end we’d be taking over.
Naomi is smart and never formed a steady pattern. She could run at all sorts of times of the day and in different locations. It took me a month to get down to the rhyme and reason of her schedule enough that I could predict her moves. It had become a game she didn’t know we’d been playing.
It doesn’t matter how hard you try not to form a pattern; your nonpattern will form one.
That day it had been lightly snowing as she made her way down to the riverfront, where there was a long trail. I’d guessed this one right; only my timing was slightly off.
She was a tiny thing, her dark hair pulled back, concealing her curls. I watched as she stopped at a bench to adjust her thin jacket and put on her gloves before heading down the trail that disappeared into the trees, which made it somewhat isolated. Of course you could come across others, but there was also a chance you wouldn’t.
I waited to give space between her and me, letting her fall from my sight. But I hadn’t been the only one watching her. I spotted two men in their twenties take notice of her. One was short and stocky in gray sweats with a baseball cap. The other was lanky in jeans and a hoodie.
The stocky one tossed down the cigarette he was smoking, nodding to whatever the man next to him was saying before they started off behind her. I knew they weren’t on a fucking stroll and their intentions weren’t good. One could bet that they might be meeting with another person, a dealer, but I hadn’t encountered any of that on this trail before. That meant they were following her.
“Fuck,” I muttered to myself. I had a mask rolled up to only cover my hair and the tops of my ears. I pulled it down to cover my face fully as I stalked after them. Naomi might not know my face, but I was sure I was on War’s radar due to my father.
I picked up speed and slipped further down the narrowing path, the trees making me lose sight of the two men momentarily. Unease crept up my spine, and I trusted my instinct and said, “Fuck it,” running full-out, not caring that they would hear me coming.
I heard a loud grunt followed by a small scream that had my blood running cold. An unexpected panic flooded through me, a feralness I’d never felt before hitting me. Nothing could happen to her. It didn’t matter if she figured out who I was. All that mattered right now was her. I needed to keep her safe regardless of the cost.