Total pages in book: 19
Estimated words: 18755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 94(@200wpm)___ 75(@250wpm)___ 63(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 94(@200wpm)___ 75(@250wpm)___ 63(@300wpm)
No. No. No.
"It's true then," she whispered.
Bonnie was having a hard time remembering her orders, with how Kendra looked as if she was mere seconds away from breaking apart, and it was taking the last ounces of her strength just to stay upright.
Kendra was finding it harder and harder to breathe. The silence from Bonnie was making things worse. It was making her think all sorts of bad things. Things that made the cracks in her heart widen—
“P-Please, Bonnie.”
Bonnie hadn't planned on speaking. She was trained for extraction and surveillance and six forms of hand-to-hand combat, but none of those had prepared her for the way Kendra La Rocca looked right now, and so she heard herself slowly and reluctantly say...
"He was nineteen when he met Marjorie.”
So that's her name then, Kendra thought dully.
Marjorie.
"His father, Il Leopardo, had died. He was alone. Vulnerable. And Marjorie...she was a nice girl." Bonnie's voice was careful, like she was walking through a room with breakable things on every surface. "And yes, he became obsessed with her. He didn't know how to deal with his grief, so he tried to distract himself with Marjorie."
Kendra bit her lip so hard she started to draw blood. But she didn’t care. She just didn’t want to let herself cry, lest that would stop Bonnie from speaking.
"By the time he realized what he was doing was wrong, it was already too late. Marjorie had gone to the courts. A restraining order was issued, and for a while, Mr. La Rocca had become the laughingstock of the whole of Sicily."
Kendra didn’t have to close her eyes to imagine how it all transpired. The world Dario had grown up in was all about darkness and violence. It was no excuse, but she could truly see why Dario hadn’t known of any healthy way to cope with his grief.
All he had known was how to love, but it wasn’t enough, and so he had ended up loving someone too much.
"He was able to bear with it for a year," Bonnie went on. “The taunts. The jeers. It was his way of doing penance. Of atoning for hurting the girl he only wanted to love. But one day, he finally lost his temper. Beat up the man who had taunted him to his face. Called him pathetic. Said he was forcing himself on a girl who didn't want him, who was so scared of him she had to go to the courts." Bonnie paused. "The man survived. But it took months of healing. And that was the last time anyone ever talked about it. In fact, people had ceased talking about it altogether."
The silence that followed was something Bonnie wasn’t equipped to comprehend. “Mrs. La Rocca? I hope you don't think that what your ex-husband implied was true—"
"I don't."
Kendra said it so simply, her gaze earnest, and Bonnie started breathing a lot more easily again.
Phew.
Give her a gunfight or a sparring match anytime. Those were so much easier than having to figure out matters of the heart.
SHE KNOWS.
The words lashed his mind. His heart. His soul.
Again and again, it was all Dario could think about.
She knows.
And perhaps he should have expected this. For her to know the truth, because it was what she deserved. And for her to leave him, because it was what he deserved.
A part of him was desperate enough to consider begging her to stay. To hear him explain. But he pushed this thought away. He had already thrown away his pride once. He would not do so again.
Not when Kendra clearly didn't love him either.
Dario waited for her in the living room until she arrived, and the moment he saw his wife's tear-streaked cheeks—
"Dario?"
The way her voice trembled had his fists clenching against his sides. Was she scared of him now? The way Marjorie had been scared of him?
Kendra missed the way her husband's jaw had clenched as she came forward. Her thoughts were all focused on finding the right words to say, but it was just so hard to think straight when her heart was still hurting for him.
Dario as someone powerful took her breath away. And he had always been that. He was like this knight who was devoted completely to protecting her. Cherishing her. Even humoring her in the times when she could tell he absolutely believed what she was saying was hogwash, like that time she asked if it was too early to write Thelma a letter.
That was the kind of man she had married.
The kind of man she had fallen in love with.
And she was so, so grateful for everything he had done.
Everything.
But before she could even say a word—
"I received a report from my security team."
Kendra forgot about everything as soon as she heard that. "Are you in danger?" He had told her that his days of being his father's son were long behind him. But he had also warned her that it was a world he would never be able to completely leave because it was La Rocca blood running through his veins.