Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 72822 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72822 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
In a cell. Underneath my old house?
“For how long?” I whispered, my eyes closing in despair.
“For three and a half months.”
My eyes opened as a keening cry of utter despair left my mouth. “Three and a half months. And what did he do to you in those three and a half months?”
I was almost afraid to hear the rest.
Every night I had cursed him. I had been so freakin’ mad at him for not getting his head on straight faster, I couldn’t fucking think.
And all of this time… all of this time he’d been in a cell. A freakin’ cell. Being beaten.
“He whipped me. Tortured me. Starved me and humiliated me.”
“What did he do?”
Dante shook his head. “I won’t be telling you specifics.”
I wanted to argue. I wanted to rage.
But I could see the resolve in his eyes.
He wouldn’t be telling me.
That I knew.
“How did you finally get away?”
What would he have had to do? If he’d been there for that long, then surely nobody could find him. Right?
“Drake got careless. Thought I was too weak to move—which was what he’d planned by only feeding me a slop and a slice of bread morning, noon and night. But one day while he was hosing out the cell to combat the smell, he got too close, and I struck. I choked him with the chains he had me—”
“Chains!”
“—held down with, and fed him the water he was using to spray me with. Once he went limp, I found his phone and called Rafe. The rest is still a blur. I don’t really remember what happened next.”
I couldn’t breathe.
Dante wrapped his arms around my shoulders and pulled me in tight to his chest.
“I’m okay.”
“You’re not okay.”
I could feel those raised scars underneath my fingers.
He was not okay.
“What about since you got away from him?” I whispered. “Were you in the hospital?”
He nodded.
“Drake got away. That’s why they didn’t call you to come.”
I nodded, throat thick with guilt.
I should’ve never left him.
And I told him as much.
“I needed you to leave,” he rasped. “If you hadn’t left, I wouldn’t have realized what I was missing. Without you, I wouldn’t have realized just how sad and bleak my life had become.”
I made another of those sounds in the back of my throat.
“He forgot to tell you about his problems stemming from his captivity.”
I froze in Dante’s arms, just as Dante cursed and let me go.
My eyes lit on Rafe in the entrance.
“What?”
Rafe’s eyes flicked from mine to Dante’s and back. “He has a muscle-wasting condition called rhabdomyolysis. The exertion from the fight, paired with his overtaxed heart—his dehydration, his lack of food, as well as the wounds on his body—could cause a heart attack. He was supposed to be taking it easy. He was supposed to be letting me come get you.”
Dante didn’t say a word.
I did, though.
“You mean to tell me that you’re supposed to be taking it easy, and you just had sex with me? That wasn’t taking it easy! There was nothing easy about it!” I semi-shrieked into Dante’s ear.
Dante pulled me into his chest again.
“Oh, I don’t know about that, it was pretty easy getting you into bed.” His grin was wide.
I hit him and then apologized before kissing the tiny hurt I must’ve just caused him.
“I’ll be okay,” he promised. “I am okay. Those circumstances aren’t going to happen again.”
I swallowed the bile that was making its way up my throat—a common occurrence as of late.
This bile felt differently, though.
I just knew that I was going to puke, so I took off toward the bathroom and lost what little lunch that I’d had left in me from earlier in the toilet.
“Rafe knew you were gone all this time, didn’t he?”
I looked over my shoulder to see Rafe.
“Yeah,” Dante croaked at the same time Rafe nodded his head.
Even his voice sounded different.
I lost my battle with the tears, and I dissolved.
Jesus Christ. I was a broken record today.
Chapter 23
The struggle bus should have a loyalty program.
-Dante’s secret thoughts
Dante
“Ummm.” Cobie looked around the place. “What happened?”
We’d just arrived home—to my home—after a very long drive.
We were only coming to pick up some clothes, and then I was picking Mary up and we were heading back to Cobie’s place.
I would have cleaned up, but the moment I was released from the hospital I’d gone to check on Mary. Once I knew she was okay, I’d left her with Reed and his wife, and then I immediately left for Alabama, where Rafe had stashed Cobie.
I’d been so fucking mad—still—that I’d lashed out without thought. A-fucking-gain. I was good at that, though. It was the apologizing part that I wasn’t good at.
I looked around the house, seeing the broken light fixture that Lily had bought and lovingly restored. Her prized China that we’d gotten as a gift on our wedding day from my mother was shattered into tiny pieces. The stupid Tupperware that was always in perfect order, tossed haphazardly across the room.