Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 72669 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72669 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
That was the best news I’d heard since I’d left the hospital and the doctor said Masen would be just fine.
“Okay,” I clipped. “Now what?”
“Now you get your protection since it’s no longer petty theft,” he apologized.
“She doesn’t need protection anymore. I’ll do it or one of my boys will do it. What you need to do is figure out who the fuck did this,” I countered, slightly annoyed.
But I couldn’t help it.
If Luke had done something instead of saying his hands were tied, then we wouldn’t be in this position right now.
I wouldn’t have had to run a call on my woman only hours before, scaring about twenty years of my life off of me.
“I understand,” Luke sighed. “I’ll keep you updated on our progress. I just wanted to touch base with you, and keep you in the loop.”
I grudgingly offered him my hand.
“Thanks,” I grunted.
“You’re welcome,” he said, turning to go.
“What would you do had it been your wife?” I asked.
He shook his head, turning around long enough to say, “I don’t know. I can say that I’d do whatever the fuck I had to do to figure out who was behind this.”
“And you’ll let me?” I asked him.
He nodded. “I would expect nothing less. Just don’t get caught doing anything stupid.”
I grinned. “Got it.”
With one final visit to Masen to ensure she was sleeping, I went to the neighbor’s house that had the live camera feed and waited.
What I should’ve been doing, however, was watching over my soon to be wife and not fucking around waiting.
If I had been, I would’ve been there to protect her from the sick fuck that came after her a second time.
Chapter 20
People need to understand the difference between want and need. Such as I want a shapely ass, but I need that supersized fry.
-Masen’s secret thoughts
Masen
My eyes, swollen as they were, opened what little they could.
When I’d been beaten with the bat earlier, one hit had rained down on the top of my head before I could fully get it covered. I’d been left with swelling that started to overtake my face, even though I hadn’t actually been hit in the face.
The sound of the door opening and then closing had me turning my head, making me thankful that they’d finally taken the collar off my neck, enabling me to do so.
I tried to focus my eyes, but it was dark in the room, and the only lights were coming from the hallway through the cracks of the closed door.
I could vaguely make out a black shape, making my heart start to race.
“Booth?” I asked, sounding hopeful.
“Wrong,” a man’s voice said.
A familiar one, but I couldn’t place it.
“Who are you?” I asked.
Then something covered my mouth, and I breathed in to scream out of reflex, which turned out to be the wrong thing to do.
The towel that was over my mouth had something on it, and in the next instant I was out of it.
***
I came awake slowly, almost as if I was still under but not quite.
What had woken me?
Then I heard it again. Shuffling.
“Hello?” I asked.
Everything hurt.
I patted around on the bed I was laying in, but I didn’t find the button that would call the nurse.
I’d always wanted to be on this side of the bed, not because I wished myself sick, but because I always wondered what it would be like to have someone at the other end of my button.
But I didn’t find the button.
In fact, I didn’t find anything.
Not the phone that’d been there earlier. Not the bedding that Booth had piled on top of me before he’d left to go to the neighbor’s house. Not even the water bottle he’d been sure to leave at my side.
Not a damn thing was there except a mattress.
“Hello?” I called again, confusion in my tone.
“God, would you shut up? You’re making it to where I can’t think,” the same familiar voice from earlier whined.
My eyes widened as my mind raced.
What was going on?
“What did you do to me?” I asked, remembering the foul smell just before lights out.
There was shuffling again, then a light turned on beside the bed I was laying on.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Masen. This has nothing to do with you and everything to do with my family,” Dash growled. “I’ve got stuff at stake that you couldn’t fathom, and I can’t have you ruining it with your stupid bitch mouth.”
I blinked, surprised at Dash’s outburst.
I’d never, not once, heard him talk to me like that.
“Can you tell me what’s going on?” I pleaded.
He turned his glare on me, letting me feel all of his displeasure in that one, single look.
“I told you,” he repeated, turning back to the empty wall he’d been staring at. “I’m busy.”
He was busy.
It sure looked like he was busy.
He got up and looked out the window, staring at something I couldn’t see.