Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 73398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
“What about the camera feed?” he asked.
“It’s being reviewed,” Tyler Cree supplied from Gabe’s other side. “What was in her trunk, however, wasn’t an actual bomb itself, just the components for one. Fertilizer, C-4, fuse. It was as if someone went and Googled how to make a bomb, then went and procured all of the components. Then shoved everything in there…but they didn’t know what they were doing, so they didn’t actually build the bomb. My guess, whoever did this only has a basic knowledge of what they were doing.”
“Maybe they were only trying to get her into trouble,” Gabe suggested.
“My suggestion is to talk to Beatrice first,” I said carefully.
I was so fuckin’ angry that it was really hard to articulate myself without using a long slew of curse words.
If a man could blow up—I’d be perilously close to completing the phenomenon.
“Already brought her in,” Tyler said. “I have Johnny questioning her.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that.
Couldn’t, really.
I was so carefully controlled, trying to hold all of my emotions in, that if I said anything without thinking the thought through, I might very well splinter.
I’d done this. I’d created this.
I’d allowed this to happen.
Because I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Beatrice had something to do with this.
Then a thought occurred to me, and I pulled my phone out of my pocket.
“Frankie?” I said the moment she answered.
“Yeah, Dad?”
“You need to get in your car and come home.”
“Dad…classes just started…”
“No. No arguments,” I interrupted her. “Trust me when I say that you’ll be much more entertained here.”
My daughter was an intelligent girl. She knew when I said the word ‘entertained’ that there was something wrong.
It was the code phrase that we used when something was wrong.
“You’ll be much more entertained here” was code for “get your ass somewhere safe and don’t fuckin’ move.”
I didn’t really know why I had such a bad feeling, but it was sitting in my gut like a lead weight.
Something was wrong, and it was surrounding my life like a bad stain that just wouldn’t go away no matter how hard I tried.
Fucking Beatrice.
If only I’d known how truly toxic she was before I’d met Cora, I might’ve stayed far, far away from her.
***
Cora
“So…you have a serious boyfriend that’s ten years older than you and looks like he’s about to kick the bucket at any moment…” Luca teased.
I flipped him off, continuing to work on my drawings that were due in a little over three hours.
Tomorrow, I had a meeting to discuss them, and if all went well, they’d start production imminently.
“Fuck you. You’re so full of shit it’s coming out of your ears,” I shot back. “And he’s not old. He’s thirty-five. That’s the prime of life, motherfucker.”
Luca leaned back and laughed.
“Tell me about him,” he ordered, sobering fast.
My brother was like that, though.
Never one to laugh for long, my baby brother.
“I like him,” I said.
His eyebrows rose.
“You like him,” he repeated. “Anything else?”
I grinned inwardly.
“And he’s really good in bed.”
He gagged. “That’s not what I meant, and you damn well know it.”
I knew it, yet I still loved getting a rise out of him.
It was so easy to do that to him that sometimes I worried about his state of mind.
I also wondered how in the hell he’d make it through boot camp—him and his temper always got him in trouble.
Even as a young kid, he’d been argumentative. That’s why when he started dating Katy, I wondered how two of the most strong-willed people in the entire universe would get along. Let’s just say that they didn’t, which was why they fought and broke up as much as they did.
“I don’t know how to tell you why, exactly, but I love him.” I pushed my rolling chair away from the computer I’d been working at and swiveled to look at him. “He doesn’t treat me like I’m crazy.”
His brows rose. “Lots of people don’t treat you like you’re crazy,” he said. “Because you’re not.”
I smiled at my baby brother. He never understood my hesitation in life. He only saw the best in me.
And, if I were being honest, that was one of the reasons why I liked Coke so much, too. He didn’t treat me like I was different. He rolled with the punches and didn’t question why I needed things to be a certain way.
He allowed me to be me, and he didn’t complain if I acted a certain way or my anxieties got the better of me.
When I’d stayed away from him for five days, he didn’t berate me or question me in any way.
He just loved me.
“I don’t know, Luca. I just love him.” I didn’t know how else to say that.
“Have you told him that?” Luca asked.
I shook my head. “We’re still really new. His ex-wife is crazy, and to be honest? I don’t want to jinx it by telling him too soon. I’ll just continue to sit on my feelings until I’m sure he loves me back.”