Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Remembering how she’d shot Brix in the same place as Andros, I said, “I take it Kyle survived the gunshot wound.”
“Yup. Now he and Nathan will have matching scars.”
Awe filled me. It soothed me to know how capable she was of defending herself. “You were something to witness out there.”
“I could only do it because you chased after me with a bullet in your stomach.” She pressed a kiss to my knuckles.
The memory of the fear that I wouldn’t reach her in time before I passed out lingered. “I only got to you because you got him to stop the car.”
“Okay. So we both saved me. And it’s … it’s over. I feel like we had all these puzzle pieces in our hands that finally make sense. Perry lied to my father’s lawyers and told them she was tracking me down. But they were getting suspicious, and she knew she only had a short time left before they found me themselves. When Brix offered to kill me for the money instead, she jumped on it.”
The thought of her succeeding with Sloane … “I want to kill the bitch.”
“I know. Me too.”
Realizing that she’d been alone while I lay unconscious in this hospital bed, and she found out that not only was her father dead but that her stepmother was trying to off her for the inheritance, ripped at my guts. “I am so sorry.”
Her gaze was fierce. “You have nothing to be sorry about.”
“Your dad, though …”
“I told you.” She leaned forward, bringing my knuckles to her lips. “I will deal with it. I promise. I’ll let myself cry a decade’s worth of tears about it.” The first of those tears slid down her face. “But I need to focus on you right now. When … when I saw you running for me, the fear in your eyes, that bullet hitting you … I knew like I’ve never known but with Callie that someone loved me more than they loved themselves.”
Damn fucking straight. “Good.”
She smiled at my gruff response and then promised, “And you have to know that I love you like that too. That I need you to start protecting yourself, too, because I need you to exist in this world with me. Because I don’t seem to work right without you now.” Sloane pressed a fist to her chest. “You’re an integral beat in my heart, Walker Ironside, and so I’m going to need you to live as long as I do and stay at my side the whole time.”
“I’ll try my very best to do that,” I vowed.
Something shifted in her expression, turning it cautious. Wary.
Alert, I waited patiently for her next words.
“Your parents are here. In the waiting room. Should I … should I tell them to come in?”
Fear squeezed my throat at the thought of my mum and dad in the same building as me. The last time I’d seen my father was when I woke up in a hospital bed. Life was fucking ironic that way, eh?
“I can tell them to leave,” Sloane assured me.
Slowly, I shook my head. “Let them in. But … will you stay?”
Sloane nodded, everything she felt for me right there for the entire world to see. “Always.”
They had aged. Of course they had.
My mother looked as she had in Edinburgh that day. Older, but still the kind of mum you never saw without her hair or makeup perfectly in place. Even now with worry and tension darkening circles under her eyes, she was immaculate. Her smart suit bore nary a wrinkle.
Reluctantly, I looked from my mum to my father. Surprised, I realized he seemed shorter. Like he’d shrunk with age. But his face, the one so much like my own, was smoother than I’d imagined. His lips were pressed into a thin line, and even as I feared what he’d say, I couldn’t drag my eyes from his.
Neil Ironside, a man I hadn’t seen in two decades, slowly crossed the distance between us.
The steel in his gaze collapsed beneath the weight of grief as he stared at me. Tears glistened in his aged gray eyes as he greeted hoarsely, “I’m sorry, son. I’m so, so sorry.”
Emotion blurred my vision as I nodded in acceptance and gestured to the chair by my bed.
Forty-Four
SLOANE
To my darling Sloane,
If you’re reading this, then I ran out of time. All my life, my actions were dictated by a drive for success. To never again know hunger and shame. To give my child the life I didn’t have growing up.
If only I’d known that time, not poverty, was my enemy, I would have done so many things differently. But mostly, I would have set aside my foolish pride and brought you and my grandchild home. When I looked for you too late and couldn’t find you, I’ve never felt such regret.