Total pages in book: 35
Estimated words: 32732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 164(@200wpm)___ 131(@250wpm)___ 109(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 164(@200wpm)___ 131(@250wpm)___ 109(@300wpm)
“Easy,” Jonah rumbled, his hand applying pressure between my shoulder blades. He gripped my chin and turned my head to face him. It was taking everything in me not to scream and just sob until I was too tired to feel the crippling pain in my leg anymore.
I took beatings all the time when I fought, but let me tell you, getting stabbed with a fucking knife buried to the hilt in my goddamn thigh? I couldn’t handle this shit.
“All we need you to do is focus on breathing. We will handle everything else. Can you do that? The pain is more manageable if you just focus on keeping your breathing slow, calm, and steady.”
“I can do that,” I whispered.
He nodded and then looked at John. “Let’s go. She needs to get to Matthew.”
“Just breathe, sis,” John coaxed. And then, they lifted me and carried me to John’s car. Tears slid down my cheeks, but I focused on breathing like they’d instructed me to. By the time we got to the car and they got me draped across the backseat, I knew I looked like a fucking mess. And I felt even damn worse than I knew I looked.
“Want to tell me what the hell happened?” John asked once he had pulled out onto the street.
I blew out a soft breath, gritting my teeth when John hit a bump in the road that jostled my leg. “A couple of years ago, I stole Blaze’s Ferrari, and I crashed it—completely totaled it. He’s been after me since, but I’ve successfully avoided him. I didn’t expect him to be out and about today. He doesn’t normally come around this side of town if there’re no fights.”
“Blaze is the owner of the biggest security firm in the world,” Jonah said, turning in his seat to face me. “He had business on this side of town. How do you not know that? CJ goes to him to find the best places to fight because he has camera access and security all over this city.”
I frowned at myself. I really wasn’t a bit stupid and reckless all the time, but I’d been so lost in my head today that I hadn’t even noticed him anywhere around me. And you couldn’t miss his big ass truck. It was pure black and jacked up. The rims were black as well, and his windows were illegally tinted.
He was literally the only person that drove a truck like that with illegally tinted windows.
John cursed. “Sorry, Montana,” and he hit a fucking pothole.
I screeched in pain, my hands automatically going to my thigh. Jonah quickly lurched half into the backseat and snagged my wrists. “Don’t,” he roughly commanded, his hands gentle but secure around my wrists.
I sucked in a ragged breath, my lungs screaming. I fisted and unfisted my hands until the pain somewhat lessened. Jonah kept his hands around my wrists, his touch sending tingles up and down my arms.
“We’re here,” John said. He turned in his seat to face me. “One more move, sis, and then this will all be over,” he assured me. “Just remember to breathe.”
I nodded. John slid out of the car, and surprising the hell out of me, Jonah pressed his lips to my fingers. “You’re doing good, baby girl. Just breathe.”
With that, he released me and got out of the car as well to help Jonah carry me inside Matthew’s.
4
Montana
I gasped in a breath when my leg jerked. Jonah and John stopped, letting me catch my breath again before they resumed moving, carrying me inside.
“Matthew, open the fucking door!” Jonah shouted.
The door swung open a moment later, and Matthew’s eyes widened at the sight of me. “Jesus fuck. Get her inside and put her on the table.”
The two men carted me inside of Matthew’s two-bedroom house and laid me out over his kitchen table. I stared up at the ceiling, trying to remember how to properly fucking breathe.
“Will it hurt less when it’s finally out?” I finally managed to get out through clenched teeth.
Matthew nodded from next to me where he was laying out everything he needed to help me. “It’ll feel better, and I’ll also give you some pills.”
“Oh, thank fuck,” I groaned. Matthew always gave me the best shit.
“Don’t say that like you’re excited for them,” John muttered.
I knew pills and drugs were a sore topic for him. They’d ripped our mother away from us. She’d fallen into a deep hole after Dad left, one she still hadn’t crawled out of. The only time she was tolerable to deal with was when she was high, but she neglected us a lot. And she was a real shitty mom on top of it all.
“She gets shit from me all the time,” Matthew said, not sensing the rising tension in the room.
John lurched up from the chair he’d taken, his murderous gaze on me. I stared him down as Jonah gripped his shoulder, holding him in place. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” John snarled. “You’re just fucking like her!”