Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 114281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
But I’m not done yet.
I walk up to the guy I threw out the window who was touching her in the back seat while she tried to fight him off.
He’s still alive, groaning from all his broken bones. I flip him around, and he shrieks with fear, then pisses his pants.
“Please, I beg you—”
“YOU. TOUCHED. HER.”
I spit in his face while he cries. His eyes skitter back and forth between his dead buddies bleeding out in the sun and me, which only makes him cry harder.
“We were drunk. We didn’t mean it,” he lisps.
I hold out my knife in front of his chin, poking the flesh until I draw blood.
“I’m sorry man, please,” he says, his voice fluctuating in tone like a mouse in a trap. “Please don’t do this. My mother is waiting for me back home.”
“Your mother is better off with you dead,” I growl as he swallows against the knife. “Now you pay the price for hurting what belongs to ME.”
I slice open his throat slowly, allowing the blood to gurgle in his mouth.
I don’t fucking care how vicious it is as I stare at him while he dies slowly, choking on his own blood. I want the last thing he sees while on this fucking earth to be my devilish smirk so it’ll haunt him in the afterlife.
When he’s gone, I wipe my knife on his shirt and get up to face the only person who matters right now.
Her.
But the fear still lurking in her eyes tells me this is far from over.
April
When he stands, he towers over the body of the man he just killed like a beast unshackled. His muscles are violently taut, his shoulders rising and falling rapidly as he breathes in and out. And I can’t help take a quick peek at the man lying underneath him. The man who tried to use me for his own gain, to make me grateful for his help.
His eyes are empty, as though his soul has left his body, and there’s nothing left but blood pooling at his neck.
The last sounds he made instantly make me reach for my throat, and I swallow hard.
Soren just went full berserk on them.
The second he saw me, I had no choice but to call for aid.
But all these bodies lying on the cold, hard concrete make me freeze up.
They’re dead because of me.
Was all of this bloodletting really necessary?
I shiver in place as he turns to face me, his body covered in the blood of men.
He made my enemies his and, in doing so, sealed their fate.
He killed them to save me.
To avenge my honor.
To claim me for himself.
And I gulp when he starts walking straight toward me, my body weak and my knees bucking underneath my own weight. I quickly jump back into the car, scared to death of what might happen.
Because I ran from a man like him … and he just chased a car, broke into it, and killed three men like it was nothing.
Like it was child’s play to him.
Snapped them in half and tore them apart like an animal.
I can’t fucking breathe.
Within seconds he’s here, his powerful footsteps the first thing I hear before his face comes into view. And I sink back into the seat furthest away from him, wondering if I too, should plead for my life.
The look on his face predicts thunder as he peers inside, and our eyes lock.
I hold my breath as he sits down next to me and slams the door shut.
The air is thick with unspoken words as silence envelops us, and it feels like I’m choking on my own breath.
“Stay back,” I say.
“I came to rescue you, and this is how you respond?” he scoffs.
“I didn’t ask—”
“You. Did.”
The starkness in his voice catches me off guard, and both our eyes momentarily flick to the blade in his hands.
And he’s right.
I called out his name.
Begged him with a look through the window.
And we both know he saw.
But it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow. “You didn’t have to kill them.”
“I did,” he responds in a low tone. “They hurt you.”
My lips part, but I don’t know how to respond to that. How to feel about the way he cares for me so much that he’d kill someone just to defend my honor.
But when his hand reaches for my face, I freeze. The back of his hand, covered in blood, swipes over my cheeks so gently that it feels unreal, and it stirs something deep inside me that’s hard to ignore. But then I remember why all of this happened, and I swat his hand away. “Don’t.”
“I want to know if you’re okay,” he says, cocking his head.
“I’m not,” I say, tears welling up in my eyes. “I didn’t choose any of this. They’re all dead now … because of me.”