Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Shit.
“I thought you were tougher than this. I thought you just needed time to remember who you are, what you’re capable of. But I see now that you’re just a coward.”
Fuck.
“I want the woman who jumped off that rock. I want the woman who carried herself when she had no one else to help her to her feet. I don’t know what happened to her, but I think she’s gone.” He stepped back, his eyes filling with disappointment. Not the kind of disappointment he showed when he didn’t get what he wanted. But disappointment in me . . . as a person. “This is over.” He turned toward the door to leave.
“Wait, Constantine.” I went after him.
He didn’t stop. Ignored me.
“Please, wait. I’m sorry.”
He moved into the hallway and walked off like he didn’t hear me. Like I didn’t exist.
I grabbed onto his arm. “I’m just overwhelmed right now, and I didn’t mean it like that—”
He twisted out of my grasp. “I said I’m done.” He looked at me with such resignation, like I already meant absolutely nothing to him. “Goodbye, Aurelia.” He walked down the hallway again, turned the corner to take the stairs, and disappeared.
The tears were immediate—and they poured down my face. “No, no, no . . .” I knew I’d just ruined the greatest thing that had ever happened to me.
Chapter 21
Constantine
Rocco and I sat with Antoine Allard, a Frenchman who had moved to Rome once his kids were out of the house. His daughter had chosen to make a career in Milan and his son in finance, so he decided to move to where he wanted to live—in the Eternal City.
“I have it on good faith an attack is coming,” I said, sitting in the parlor with the sunshine coming through the ten-foot-tall windows. The garden was visible outside, but the moment summer had hit, it was already too hot to enjoy it. “I want all your intel about shipments so I can make sure we’re doing everything on our end—” My phone vibrated for the third time in a row—and it was Aurelia.
Rocco glanced at me like he was just as annoyed by it.
I couldn’t turn off my phone with the kind of job I had. People could die—literally. “Excuse me.” I pulled out my phone, ignored her call, and blocked her. I set the phone on the table and focused on Antoine again. “You know how those telemarketers are.”
Rocco knew better, but he came to my defense anyway. “I’ve been made aware of all the parking tickets I haven’t paid many, many times.”
Antoine chuckled before he took a drag of his cigar. “My partners are my allies, the French, the Italians, and the British. All my contracts are exclusive to the EU, so I’m certain that the break in the line isn’t coming from me. But could someone in the chain be breaking protocol and sending batches of arms to our enemies? It’s possible. I run a tight ship, but it’s a big operation and someone could go rogue.”
“Can we conduct an investigation on your behalf?” I asked. “We could send a team to comb through all the inventory and all the numbers. They’re good at what they do, so if there’s a discrepancy, they’ll find it.” It was also a tactic to make sure he was truly innocent, because if he refused, that meant he had something to hide.
“Have at it, Constantine.”
Rocco shared a quick look with me. He was the one who assumed Antoine was a traitor, and I was the one who insisted he was a patriot. We’d made a bet on it—and now I was a million richer.
“I’ll get a team together. We’ll make sure it’s delicate so we don’t tip anyone off.”
“Sounds good to me.”
We got into the back seat of the Range Rover and left through the iron gates that kept the public off his property. We were immediately back in the Eternal City, on the congested roads with motorbikes that drove like they were invincible.
“I’ve been waiting for you to bring it up on your own, but you clearly aren’t going to.” Rocco stared out the window for a while before he turned to look at me. “You used to grin like an idiot, and now, you look pissed off every moment of every day.”
I knew he’d seen her name on the screen. Which meant he knew I’d blocked her number. “It’s done.”
“Yeah, that’s obvious. But the reason isn’t obvious.”
I looked out the window and shut down the conversation with my silence.
“You weren’t even in a relationship, so what could she have done—”
“Not in the mood to be interrogated.”
“All right.”
We sat together in the parlor, an elaborate room with twenty-foot sculptures of Roman emperors, Augustus and Constantine, and sculptures of the gods who once watched over ancient Rome. Bookshelves were spaced between the sculptures, rising from floor to ceiling, containing tomes that no one had touched in centuries. Priceless artwork was on the walls. The only thing modern was the furniture and the rug in the center of the room.