Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Her cheeks heated at the flippant comment.
“You make them look like shit every time you walk onto the soccer field. You don’t even try, you’re just focusing in. I bet you barely show up to class and pass, huh?”
She bit the edge of her lip. “You want me to brag?”
He shook his head. “No need. I could tell. They can tell, too. Stop letting people you could destroy if you cried to the right people make you feel bad about yourself. They don’t matter. They’re not supposed to be your friends. That’s the point. You’re so much better than they will ever be, anyway.”
“Snobby.”
Nico rolled his shoulders, unbothered. “Because it’s true? Who cares? People don’t like the truth. In twenty years, that won’t change. And neither will they. You, though? You’re still gonna be like a fucking legend to these people. Untouchable.”
I made you untouchable.
He had perspective, she realized.
Like Carina.
Frankie took it all in. Clearly, she needed some.
•••
Nearing one-thirty in the morning, Frankie had the ICU unit scouted to the thirty-minute rounds the three nurses in navy scrubs had to make until she found her dad.
Waiting until the rounding nurse left his room to make her move, Frankie bolted from behind a blanket warmer and sprinted under the number plaque on the door. She had at least thirty minutes before anyone would be back. The nurse doing the rounds only shone a red flashlight into her room, and Frankie bet how she left her pillows and extra blankets looked real enough.
They hadn’t come looking for her yet.
Salvatore, asleep, didn’t hear his daughter’s approach until she had walked around his bed to sit in the chair at the other side. His bandaged chest lifted higher, and then his voice made her realize she’d woken him up.
“You’re not supposed to be in here, baby.”
Frankie sniffled, absolutely refusing to look up. She couldn’t even sleep not knowing how he looked, if he could talk to her—would they lie to her for a while if he had died just to spare her a few hours of a grief she couldn’t survive?
“Does it hurt?” she asked, finally peering through wet lashes to survey the damage to her dad. All in all, she thought the bandages on his right hand and arm looked the worst. The cuts on his face had been cleaned well, but the bruise on his right temple was dark and bad. They hadn’t taken out his IV. “It looks like it hurts.”
“Drugs,” he rasped. “Really, really good drugs that I shouldn’t have accepted.”
That made her laugh.
He almost joined in, but the grimace replaced his grin, and he grunted with clenched eyes shut tight.
“Sorry,” Frankie whispered.
His brown eyes opened fast, nailing into hers. He told her once that she looked so much like her mother, it sometimes haunted him. But her eyes? All him.
“Don’t be sorry. You’re okay,” he told her, smiling again, “and that’s all I wanted.”
“Sir!” came a shout from down the hallway somewhere outside the room. “Visiting hours are over! Sir, you can’t go back—”
“I will do whatever I damn well like considering the donation I make to this fucking hospital on a yearly basis,” a voice responded harshly. “Take note, or I’ll take your fuckin’ job.”
The second voice had Frankie’s father grabbing her arm. “Get down,” he uttered.
“What?” she asked.
“Ma’am, you’re going to want to let him go,” another man said, closer to the room now.
She knew that man.
Rob.
He worked for her dad. Alongside Larkin.
“Time to hide, Sunshine,” Salvatore hissed.
This time, he shoved her. She dropped to her knees beside his hospital bed.
“Look, he’s sleeping anyway,” snarled the first man.
Frankie did her best to slide as much of her lower half under the hospital bed as she could and keep the rest against the floor.
“This will take five minutes.”
The nurse said something in the hallway that Frankie couldn’t make out.
Rob spoke up once more, as close as the man had been earlier. “I’ll be at the door, Mr. Russo.”
Mr. Russo.
Her father’s boss? Nico’s father? Why would he be there?
“Wouldn’t expect anything less,” muttered Giorgio.
Frankie shivered against the cold tile, the beeping from machines fading into background noise as her heart began beating faster. The very presence of Giorgio Russo changed the shape of the room, making it smaller.
A rustling sound filled the space. Something got tossed to the floor. The noise only stopped when a jingle, like keys, echoed.
“These goddamn rings,” Giorgio growled.
“What are you doing?” Rob spoke up.
“Trying to hide his sins,” answered Frankie’s father, still sounding as if he needed a glass of water. The room silenced at his words, meaning everyone heard him loud and clear. “That’s what it is, right, Giorgio?”
A throat cleared roughly.
“Close the door, Rob,” Salvatore murmured.
“Boss man...”
“Close the door.”
A click followed.
“Hurry up,” Salvatore said the moment he could. “Take the tracker.”
“How do you know I’m looking for a tracker?”