Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 91164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
He studies me. I move so I can see the man who was at my back in my periphery.
The other soldiers are outside of this room, and we’re unarmed, but Moore doesn’t want a shootout at his house any more than I want to be dead. How would he explain it to his constituents? But I don’t like him. I don’t like his arrogance. His snobbery. And I think he knows something. So, I take the two steps I need to reach him and grip him by the collar, hauling him to his feet.
“Get the guards!” He calls out, but Jet surprises me when he reaches down under the cuff of his pants and draws a weapon. He cocks it and points to the suited man.
“Or stay put,” he says.
I’m impressed.
I walk Richard Moore to the fireplace, press his back to the mantle.
He grips my forearm with both hands as I glare down at him.
“Did you have anything to do with the money Michael Moretti suddenly had on hand? And, more importantly, what the fuck do you know about Allegra Moretti’s kidnapping?”
“I don’t. I don’t know about it. He asked me for the money, but I didn’t give it to him. I’m not stupid.”
“Aren’t you?”
A log slips out of the fire as the ones beneath it turn to ash. I glance down, keeping my grip on Moore. Picking up the poker, I push the log back and hold the poker in the flames, heating it as Richard Moore struggles to get free, a sweat breaking out along his receding hairline. A few minutes later, I raise the poker to eye level.
Moore looks at the red-hot tip of it, then at me. He holds his hands up, palms toward me.
“Amal. He said we’d have a new contract. I’d get Amal.”
“Fuck you will,” Jet mutters.
“Remind me how old you are?” I ask calmly because somehow, I always manage to remain calm during these moments. To remain in control.
“Forty-two this year.”
“And she’s what?”
“Seventeen,” Jet calls out.
“What did Amal think of this arrangement?” His eyes dart away.
“I’m guessing she didn’t want to sleep with a man old enough to be her father,” Jet says. “Truly just a guess though. I’m sure you’re very appealing to a seventeen-year-old.”
“Where is Malek Lombardi?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I don’t know that.”
“Did you see her? Did you see Allegra?”
“No.” He shakes his head furiously. “I didn’t know. I swear. I didn’t know about Michael or Allegra. All I know is Malek said things were changing and I’d have a new contract soon. He said he’d give me Amal. He was going out of town and when he was back everything would be arranged. That’s all. That’s all I swear!”
“Out of town where?”
“He didn’t say. I told him she wouldn’t do it. I told him she was with you.”
“Did you? And what did he say?”
“He just said she’d go along with whatever he was planning after their trip. That’s all. I swear, that’s all I know.”
“You’d better not be lying to me or mark my words, you will regret it.”
“I’m not. Why the fuck would I?”
I shove him to the side and toss the poker into the stone fireplace. It clatters, sends ashes up. I look at those ashes, then back to Governor Moore.
I know Malek’s plan. He’s killed Michael. Now he wants to force Allegra to marry him. Once he’s head of the Moretti family, he’ll sell off his daughter to this pervert and build himself a safety net. How would he get Allegra to go along with it? She wouldn’t. She hated him. And she’s fucking stubborn as hell. He’d have to force her hand.
Her father had her mother and her kidnapped. I know he did. He used his daughter to punish his wife.
Would Malek use his own children to force her hand? She’s very close with Amal and I saw how the little boy clung to her. But would their father hurt them to get ahead?
Yes, he would.
The fire is built too high and another log rolls out of the pile sending more ash onto the hardwood.
I look at it like I did before, the ashes in the grate. The soot-blackened stone. It triggers something.
Malek Lombardi won’t need to use his children to force her hand. There’s another way to get to Allegra. One that wouldn’t involve his children at all. Her own father did it to her. What’s to stop Malek? The trauma she suffered with her mother is something she’ll live with for the rest of her life. And as much as she may think or hope to have it under control, she doesn’t. If she did, she wouldn’t lie to herself about it.
He’s going to take her back there, to that house, or what’s left of it.
He’s going to terrorize her.
And worse if I don’t get to her in time.