Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 101985 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101985 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
“I saw the way he looked at you. How he acted around you. All of it. I watched how it changed. I saw how it drove him crazy whenever I got close to you. It was too easy, really—he didn’t even make it challenging.” He looks me up and down, scoffing while pacing the room. “And I bet you get off on that bad boy thing, right? Dumb bitches like you always do.”
I can’t believe I have to sit here and take this. But he has a gun. I can’t fight with a gun, especially with him being as unhinged as he is.
“Maybe I should find better ways to pass the time.” He stops across from me, folding his arms, smirking. “I have all this entertainment right here in front of me. Maybe that’s what I’ll do. Maybe I’ll take you to your bedroom and tie you up there, and I’ll use you the way you let him use you. And when he finally wakes the fuck up and finds you, he’ll see what it feels like to have the thing he cares about ruined. Broken.”
My teeth are chattering so hard, and I can barely speak. “No. He doesn’t even care about me—”
“Stop it. Don’t lie to me. I can see right through you. You’re in love with him, and he probably thinks he has feelings for you. Fucking sick.”
I try to scramble away from him when he lunges, but he’s too quick. And too strong—he wasn’t scrawny, to begin with, but he’s bulked up a little since we first met. I didn’t notice. Even if I did, why would I have cared? I didn’t know he was doing it so he could be strong when it came time for this.
He picks me up, both arms around my waist, and I kick and scream and claw at him while he carries me to my room. “Loosen up,” he pants close to my ear. “You might even enjoy it.”
I hit the bed hard enough to knock the air from my lungs, but I recover fast. “Don’t do this!” I beg, but he only climbs onto the bed. I kick out blindly and connect with his stomach. It’s enough to stop him—he doubles over, one arm across his midsection.
I fight my way to the foot of the bed and jump off, then make a run for it. It would be easier if we stayed here, where Zeke could find us, but I don’t know how long that will be, and he’s coming for me. I hear him pounding down the hallway. “You’re gonna bleed for that!”
He reaches me before I can unlock the door, and I scream when his arm encircles my waist again. Now he clamps the other hand over my mouth, covering it along with my nostrils. I can’t breathe because he’s suffocating me. I tried to dig my nails into the back of his hand to make him loosen up. “You can’t do things the easy way, can you?” he grunts, hauling me across the room and dumping me on the sofa.
“Please, please.” I’m on my back, trying to get up, to get away, but he looms over me.
Then he pulls his gun, aiming it at my head.
“Maybe I’ll let him show up and find out he was too late,” he mutters before grinning in triumph. “How about that?”
I’d answer, but I’m too scared to speak.
Besides, a soft, high-pitched beeping noise catches my attention before I can react.
The alarm. Zeke disarmed the alarm from outside.
And Dean didn’t hear it. Too busy planning to kill me.
“I’m a victim in this, too,” I remind him, desperate to stall for just another minute. “Don’t punish me for that. These things happened before I ever—”
He didn’t hear the alarm disarming, but there’s no way he couldn’t hear the door being unlocked.
He spins around, aiming the gun at the door now.
The only thing I can think to do is scream. “Zeke! Gun!”
33
ZEKE
Mia Casteel owns my soul. She might have saved it by showing me I’m more than a cold, unfeeling hitman. More than a bodyguard.
And by screaming my name at the last second, she might have saved my life.
When I hear her scream, I pivot, pressing my back to the wall beside the door while it swings open. A bullet hits the wall across from the doorway, one that would’ve gone through me if I hadn’t moved.
I pivot back, my own Glock drawn, and I aim it into the room.
He’s not aiming at me anymore. His gun is pressed to Mia’s temple, her body in front of his. “I should’ve known somebody like you would use a woman as a human shield,” I mutter. “Like I told you. This is between us. She has nothing to do with it. Let her go, and we’ll handle this like men.”