Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 71476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
“Get him, for fuck’s sake!” One of the men demands, and I know immediately he’s talking about my boy. I aim for that motherfucker, but just as I shoot, I feel a bullet tear into my shoulder and my shot goes wide. I shoot a couple of more times. I nail another asshole and he goes down—dead before he hits the ground. I feel a shot go into my gut and this one is bad. I know it, because I instantly feel blood pouring. I shoot until I’m out. Even then, I pull the trigger, but the only thing that happens is a dull clicking noise, telling me there’s no bullets left to shoot. I’ve sunk down on my ass, my vision blurry. Blood is pooling against my lap.
When I look up I see a man in a suit standing over me. It’s the same one who ordered one of the men to get Ryan. I start to speak, but I don’t get the chance before he levels a gun at me, aims at my head and smiles.
I turn to the side, to try and get one last glimpse of Ryan, needing to know he’s okay before I die. I don’t see him and I turn back around. My vision is blurry, this is the end. I know it. For a minute, I think I see Rory standing with her hands behind her back watching me. It’s not real, there’s no way it could be but seeing her hurts because in that moment I understand that I loved her. I would have fought through all the bullshit and fixed what was between us… I would have… if only I would have had that chance…
There’s nothing I can do about it now. Nothing at all. It’s too late. All I can do is hope Ryan gets to her.
Before I can face my killer and spit on him and maybe tell him that I’ll see him in hell, a shot rings out and the world goes black.
Epilogue
Rory
My body jerks as my brother shoots Noah. I cry out, I kick backwards, I scream… I do everything I can to get away…. I get nowhere. It’s no use, I’m not strong enough to fight against the hold Wolf has on me. I can’t get loose. Right now, if he wasn’t holding me, I’d fall to the ground.
My beautiful Noah.
Even with everything between us, even with all the pain… he is a part of me and right now it feels like I’m dying. I watch his head go down, his body lifeless.
“Call the cleaners,” King says and you don’t grow up in the family and not know what that means.
“No! You can’t leave him like this! You can’t!” I scream, although I know it’s useless, of course King can leave him… he just killed him.
I hear this low, sad, mournful sound that seems to echo in the air. It takes me a minute to realize the sound is coming from me.
“Why? Why are you doing this?” I whisper, my voice tortured. “Is it because I slept with him?” I ask, my voice coming out little more than a whimper.
Over the years, I’ve become King’s favorite pet. He loved finding new ways to torture me. We were once so close, but his time alone with my father twisted him somehow and the hate my father always had for me somehow bled into him. My beloved brother is gone and in his place is a monster. A monster who just killed the man I loved… the father of my child.
King walks over to me, his face tight. He’s not happy. In fact, he’s livid. I prepare, because I know when King is mad he lashes out.
I know that better than anyone.
He grabs me by the hair on my head, jerking hard and forcing my head back to look at him.
“I didn’t lead you here to spread your legs for him, Rory. That was never planned. I guess I forgot what a little whore Tony said you were,” he spews the words at me, but I don’t close my eyes—I don’t even blink. I take the words, because I know if I don’t he’ll hit me… or do worse.
“Then why?”
“So you could get close to my son,” he snarls. “You’re going to be the key to getting my child to obey me.”
Obey. Not warm up, not love, not anything fatherly at all… just obey.
I decide right there that whatever it takes I will make sure King never gets his hands on an innocent child. I knew it before, but after this… my brother is even more vile than I imagined.
“Why get me all the way to Whitefish for that? I don’t know your son! I don’t know him and if I did I’d tell him to run!” I cry. I shouldn’t have said that. I let my misery well up and that wasn’t smart. King’s radiating anger even more intense than before.