Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 88918 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88918 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
He glared at the man who had bound him there. I’m going to kill you.
“You made me knock you out.” Van sat in front of him on the couch, all casual and calm, despite the bloody, swollen mess of his face.
Tate’s cheekbone pulsed with its own swelling pain, his knuckles split and sore. He and Van had beaten the shit out of each other, and he seethed to do it again.
After Lucia is safe.
He hadn’t heard everything that had been transmitted from the bug on her shoe, but he’d heard enough. The dinner, the torture, and Armando’s reward.
Listening to her being assaulted, violated, and forced by that man had been a horrifying, inconsolable hell. In a fog of murderous wrath, he’d holstered his guns and stormed toward the door intent on raining death and destruction on the compound in his effort to save her.
But Van had stopped him with a fist. Then they fought with more fists, putting holes in walls and breaking furniture. Until one of Van’s swings caught him on the temple and lights out.
How long had he been unconscious? He tried to bellow the question, but the gag garbled his words.
“She’s in her apartment.” Van lifted a phone and held it near Tate’s face. “Alone and quiet.”
He strained his hearing until he caught the distant sound of her raspy, wheezing breaths.
His blood boiled anew, steaming through his veins and clouding his vision. He thrashed against the tape across his chest, desperate to get to her.
Let me go! Let me go! Fucking release me!
“Calm down.” Van stood and paced through the room, picking up broken pieces of the coffee table. “I saved your life.”
Fuck off. He growled low and deep in his chest, heaving against the gag.
“You’re here for her. I know that.” Van dropped the splintered wood in a pile and stepped toward the window to peer down at the alley. “But I’m here for you. To protect you. To keep your stupid ass alive.”
Tate closed his eyes and drew a sharp breath through his nose. Maybe Van had saved him from a bloody, unproductive death. And maybe he would thank Van later. But only if Lucia was still alive.
He still didn’t have the blood results back, and the lab wasn’t returning his calls. He’d talked to Cole Hartman earlier today and explained Lucia’s situation. Cole could bring a doctor to her, but it was going to take two weeks.
She didn’t have two fucking weeks.
“What’s it going to be, Tate?” Van prowled toward him and gripped his jaw, forcing his head up. “Are you going to be smart? Or dead?”
CHAPTER 22
Something soft and warm whispered across Lucia’s lips, rousing her. Arms slipped beneath her body and lifted her from the floor, jostling swollen joints and pushing against bruises. Pain blasted through her bones, and she cried out.
“Shh.” The satiny sensation returned to her lips, making gentle sounds and infusing her inhales with a clean, minty, familiar scent.
“Tate?” She opened her eyes to a crystal blue dream.
“I’m so sorry.” He brushed his mouth against hers again, lingering over the cuts on her lip. “I would’ve been here, but…”
He raised his head and glared at something across the room. The glow of the night light illuminated a crisscross of gashes on his cheek and around his eye.
“What happened?” Her pulse kicked up, and holy fuck, it hurt.
Her heart, her head, her stomach, everything hurt so badly. She still couldn’t move her legs, but she summoned the strength to turn her neck and follow his gaze.
Van. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned his butt against the counter, his scowl as puffy and battered as Tate’s.
“We had a disagreement.” Van narrowed his eyes. “Why were you sleeping with a gun pointed at your mouth? With your finger on the trigger?”
Her thoughts imploded with painful sparks. Flashes of the Beretta in her hand. Echoes of her dismal hesitation. She’d wanted to die, had even tried to squeeze the trigger. But she hadn’t tried hard enough. Hadn’t wanted it bad enough. She must’ve passed out.
She focused on Tate, on the swirling depths of his vigilant gaze. “I couldn’t do it.”
Now would be a good time to tell him what happened with Armando. But as his entire body shook against her, vibrating with barely-contained fury, she decided not to throw salt in the wound.
“If I’d been here, I wouldn’t have allowed you to even consider it.” Another death glare at Van. Then he lowered her to the mattress and stretched out beside her, cradling her against his chest.
He was so close his short beard tickled her chin. His fingers combed through her hair with agonizing tenderness, and his exhales incited her to breathe.
He was here. This was real. She was breathing.
Those merciful thoughts swarmed in with the ugly ones—her abused body, her necessary return to the compound in the morning, and the inevitable fate that awaited her at the end of this.