Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 94546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
For the first year, I let it sit, confident it would cause more trouble than good. But as the years rolled on and the shame deepened, I was desperate to hide the reason I had a trust fund to begin with.
I wanted the power to control what was written about me. The media seemed a good place to start. I bought the local Jersey paper the following week. I’d only been there three days when every archive about my court case was obliterated from the records, and the final files approved for print were burned. Then I shifted my focus to the towns and cities surrounding my home state.
Within four years, I was touted as the media mogul of the modern times, and everyone referred to me by a different name.
Jack from Jackson was easy, and by adding the removed letters of my given name to my previous surname, the perfect alias was formed. Jackson Car became Jack Carson.
It was almost too simple, and until this day, no one has correctly joined the pieces of the puzzle together.
Well, I didn’t believe they had.
When I shift on my feet to face Octavia, she stops shooting daggers at Silas to return my stare. Regret takes hold of her features even faster than disbelief grips my heart. I wordlessly beg her to deny Silas’s claims, to announce she has no clue what he’s talking about, but the longer she stares at me, the closer the world falls in on me.
“No,” I say on her behalf, confident she couldn’t be related to him. She makes my dick ache—she makes it fucking work—so she can’t also be related to the very thing that broke me to begin with. “You’re Octavia Henslee. You introduced yourself as Octavia Henslee.”
It was stupid of me not to let Fitz do a background search on her, but I thought the unusual circumstances of our meet meant I was safe.
How foolish was I?
“Octavia Henslee Maskretti. Daughter of Simone Henslee and Douglas Maskretti.” While scrubbing at his chin to hide his broad grin, Silas chuckles under his breath. “And you accuse me of being fucked in the head. At least I’m not getting boners over the granddaughter of the man who raped me on the altar with his incense burner.”
“Shut the fuck up, Silas!”
He acts as if he can’t feel the fury burning me alive and that I’m not seconds from following through with my threat. “Oh, man, wait until everyone from the trust hears about this.” Blackened rage singes my veins when he shifts his eyes to Octavia and asks, “Will you at least confirm he fucked you at least once? They might go easier on him if they have a reason to stop looking at him like he’s a pansy. First a limp dick, then rape by association.” He returns his eyes to me. They’re gleaming with bitter mockery. “Who was better? Priest M or his granddaughter I pretended was on her knees in front of me instead of her wrinkly old grandfather?”
I’m blinded by rage, blackened with hate so dark before I can consider the consequences of my actions, I charge Silas.
CHAPTER 26
OCTAVIA
My hand darts up to suffocate my scream when Jack rams into Silas with so much force, they land in the hallway outside my apartment with an almighty thump. Too blinded by rage to notice his towel slipped off partway during his charge, Jack straddles Silas’s hips before he throws his fist into his face. He hits him over and over and over again until the redness on his face matches the blood on his knuckles, and Silas is no longer laughing.
He isn’t even moving.
“Jack, stop,” I beg when he continues pummeling into him, oblivious to the fact he’s unconscious.
The words Silas spoke were disrespectful and in poor taste, considering he, too, is a victim of my grandfather, but I doubt they’ll excuse a murder conviction. If I don’t stop Jack, he’ll lose more than the millions Silas is chasing.
He could lose his life.
“Jack!” I shout again, louder this time. “Enough.”
When my shout does me no good, I crawl across the beaten floorboards of my entryway before throwing my arms around Jack’s sweat-dotted torso and attempting to yank him back.
My insertion into the violent situation doesn’t reduce the power of Jack’s fists in the slightest. He gets in two solid hits before he notices me clinging to his back like a monkey, and it only sees him altering his swings so I don’t catch an accidental elbow.
Several painfully long seconds later, I shoot my eyes to the stairwell when, “What the fuck?” sounds from a familiar voice. Caleb is standing at the stoop of the stairs. His eyes are wide, and his mouth is gaped.
“Help me,” I beg, shocked by his lack of gall. He usually participates in bar fights he wasn’t even a part of. He has aggression issues, and not all the time can it be taken out on a boxing bag.