Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 72284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
“I heard you talking to that woman.”
“Who?”
“The blonde lady who looks at you like she wants to lick you to death with her tongue.”
Lydia.
“So what?” I ask. Then I remember what we were talking about and put two and two together.
“I heard what you said about me.”
“Lydia is a gossip. If she thinks I have one ounce of interest in you, she will use her resources to find out everything about you. And she’s like a fucking bloodhound. She finds out everything. And right now, I don’t need that headache. So yes, I fucking said what I said.”
The moment I saw Lydia fucking Jones, I realized I would need to deal with her loose lips. She’s renowned for spilling everyone’s tea. And while the threat of what she’ll find out if she digs into Brooke’s past is minimal, it’s a fucking pain in the ass I could do without right now.
When I saw her, I reacted. Thought it was better to downplay Brooke’s presence.
But seeing how hurt Brooke is tells me I was too convincing.
“You called me vanilla. Is that what you really think?”
“Is that what this is about?”
“No, it’s about me thinking you aren’t completely soulless one minute only to have you prove me wrong in the next.”
“By lying to some spoiled, nosy gossip because I don’t want her digging into your past and finding Wilson, then digging some more?”
“That would only matter if you killed him,” she yells.
“And that’s not off the table yet,” I yell back.
She folds her arms and glares at me, and I can see that I’ve hurt her.
Which makes me feel worse than it should, considering she’s just a means to an end.
Fuck.
“I heard you, Lev.” Her big eyes try to hide it, but she’s wounded. And damn, if that doesn’t make me feel like shit.
I soften my voice. “Because in my world, I have to be convincing. Especially when I’m lying.”
“Yeah, well, your world sucks, and I can’t wait to get away from it.”
She eyes the doorway, and I know she’s going to try and flee.
And when she does, I storm after her and catch her wrist and press her against the wall.
She struggles. “Let me go.”
“Not until you listen to me.”
“I don’t care what you have to say. Apparently, you’re good at lying, remember? Your words, not mine.”
My eyes drop to her lips. This close, I can see her pulse racing in her throat, right above the choker of diamonds I slid around it.
I lean forward and graze my lips to her ear. “What would you have me tell her, huh? How much I want to tear that dress off you so I can taste your skin? How much I want to hear you moan my name while you’re writhing beneath me? How I want to fuck you so badly I can barely stand it.”
She struggles in my grasp. “Don’t.”
But it’s a weak protest. Her eyes are full of heat.
“You want me to tell her how much I want to spend the night buried so damn deep in your pussy it drives me to distraction every time I see you.”
She struggles harder. “Go to hell. As soon as Wilson returns, I’m out of here.”
Our eyes lock in a heated standoff.
“I’m afraid that’s an impossibility,” I say.
“Why?”
“Because Wilson isn’t coming back.”
35
BROOKE
Alarm trickles through me, and I freeze. “What do you mean?”
Lev pushes away from the wall and crosses the room to his desk, where he picks up a yellow envelope.
My spine begins to tingle. Something is wrong. Whatever is in that envelope is not good.
“He has no intention of returning for you. The night he left your apartment, he fled the US. He took a flight to the UK and then on to Ibiza. And not by way of Oregon.”
He’s lying.
Wilson is an ass, but he wouldn’t do that knowing I might be killed.
“No,” I whisper.
Lev hands me the yellow envelope.
“Go ahead, take a look for yourself.”
I open the envelope, and my stomach drops. He wasn’t lying. Inside are a series of photos.
“These were taken yesterday and today by the men I have following him.”
I turn away from Lev as I look at the photos. I don’t know why. Maybe I don’t want him to see the hurt already registering on my face.
Trying to keep my feelings in check, I shuffle through the photos.
In one lot of images, Wilson is at a bar drinking shots and laughing and looking more relaxed than a man in trouble with the bratva should. In the next lot of photos, day has turned to night, and he’s dancing and drinking, fist pumping and sloppily kissing a young girl in a bikini. More photos show him sunbathing around a pool and, on another day, at the beach.
Wilson is living his best life while I’m here in bratva hell trying to save his dumb ass.