Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 131916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Wanted to be the hope in his life when that hope had nearly run out.
Thought of it had regret obliterating my heart, nearly knocking me to my damned knees as talons dug into the gnarled, deformed organ inside my chest.
Otto clapped me on the shoulder like he’d read every thought that had just tromped through my mind. “You’re too goddamn hard on yourself, River. Lighten the fuck up.”
I grunted at him, and he grinned.
Otto was a fucking beast. Maybe an inch shorter than me and just as thick. Brown hair a bit on the shaggy side, scruff growing all over his face. Rough as fuck because none of us had come out of our pasts unscathed.
Loved the asshole to pieces, but most of the time, I wondered how the hell it was possible he was constantly sporting those easy smiles with the lot we’d been given.
With the pact we lived out.
Probably since the dude dipped his dirty dick in nearly everything that walked, fucking away all the strain and stress and grief. Never letting the weight of this sordid world hold him down.
Case in point, he squeezed my shoulder, mischief in his prodding voice when he said, “Seems to me, someone needs to get laid. Sink your fingers into some delicious cherry pie because you’ve been going hungry for too long.”
That was all it took for my mind to go racing, traipsing right back to the girl who’d been splayed out in my chair last week. Woman clinging onto my thoughts and filtering into my dreams.
His grin widened like he thought he’d tapped directly into the problem.
He wouldn’t be wrong.
“Things are slow right now, brother. Not a thing to be spun up about,” he said.
Not a thing to be spun up about? I got his perspective on some level because his position was different than mine.
He got to be the white knight, while I succumbed to the call of the avenger. Not that I begrudged him.
Each of us fell into the pieces of the puzzle we’d been fated to match.
“Why don’t you take this time to lay low and enjoy the more pleasurable things in life?” He didn’t attempt to hide the suggestion. “You can bet your ass that I will be.”
I was about to tell him he knew better than to get too comfy when a loud thunk then a crash reverberated from inside the house.
My insides seized for the flash of a second, and I shared a disturbed look with Otto in that beat, before I was sprinting across the lawn, taking the three steps in one, and ripping through the door.
That was just as a high-pitched cry reached my ears, and I was tearing through the living room toward where Nolan was in a ball at the base of the stairs.
Stairs that were hard wood. Stairs that I was constantly telling him not to run on because he was going to fall and get hurt.
“Nolan!” I wheezed, my heart a fucking mallet bashing against my ribs as I flew around the couch and into the foyer, dropping to my knees at his side just as he was rolling over and sitting up.
I tried not to let the clump of fear tear out of my lungs at the sight of the blood gushing from his mouth. No question, it would only wind him up more.
But fuck.
I wasn’t equipped for this shit.
Didn’t know how to handle it without freaking the fuck out.
Nolan handled the “freaking out” part for me, a wail coming out of him when he realized he was bleeding. “I fink I bit the big one, Dad!”
“It’s okay, buddy, it’s okay.”
My gaze raced to take stock, muttering the whole time, “You’re okay, Nolan. I’ve got you. You’re okay. You’re okay.”
Fuck, let him be okay.
He looked at me with those giant blue eyes, tears streaming as thick as the blood.
“Can you tell me where you hurt?” I asked, trying to keep calm while my guts were tied in knots of dread. I ran my palm gently over the top of his head and down the back, praying to fuck there weren’t any injuries there.
“My mouf.” He poked his bottom lip out at me, giving me a glimpse of where it was split, plus a gaping hole where one of his bottom teeth was missing.
Ah shit.
“You think you can open up so I can see what’s going on in there?”
He did, tipping his head back and making an ahhh sound like he was at the dentist.
Yup, one of his gapped baby teeth was missing, but I was breathing out the smallest bit of relief when I couldn’t see any other injuries.
“Looks like you knocked a tooth clean out,” I told him, letting a little tease slide into it, hoping to assuage him.
Only another wail tore out of him when I said it, and he smacked a hand over his mouth in blatant horror. “But I gotta eat, Dad.”