Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 109286 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109286 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
He pulls me against him. He drags me against his body and tucks my face against his neck, holding me there. In my ear, he murmurs, “You don’t always have to be strong, fighter.”
I nod, inhaling his scent and clinging to him, my arms around his neck. I stay there, because I don’t want to be anywhere else.
I’m there when the sound of a hammer strikes and Hudson starts screaming. I’m there as the hammer falls over and over again, and then the screaming gets louder and the crackle of a fire starts. Smoke fills the air. I inhale Daniel’s scent, trying to drown out the smell of burnt flesh, and hide my face against him, letting him be the tough one here.
After a while the screaming dies down, and Daniel touches my cheek. “It’s over. Let’s go inside, fighter.”
I don’t look back. I don’t need to see—it’s going to be in my nightmares plenty.
We go in and return to Daniel’s room back in the infirmary. Daniel sits on the edge of the bed, and Mendoza follows us in. I sit in a chair close to Daniel’s bed, but I don’t want to hover. The last thing he wants is a clingy girlfriend all over him while he talks to his old army buddy. But I want to be clingy. I want to burrow into Daniel’s side and have him hold me while I try to process what happened.
Hudson won’t be bothering us anymore. He won’t be coming after me or wanting to check my teeth. He won’t be waiting for me to be broken. No more girls will disappear into his dungeon and never reappear. By doing this, we’ve saved so many, and gotten justice for that many more.
And I should feel relieved about all of this, but all I can think of are his screams as he was nailed to the cross. And I don’t feel good about it. I can try to be tough and be a fighter, but I don’t know that I’ll ever be as tough as Daniel needs me to be if we’re going to stick together.
This thought worries me as Mendoza adjusts his belt loaded with guns. It’s nothing to him to walk around armed to the teeth, to live in a favela where people don’t bat an eye when an enemy is nailed to a cross and burned alive.
To them, it says safety. To me, it says torture porn.
“How are the bullet holes?” Mendoza asks as Daniel pats his side, grimacing.
“Well, they’re not magically better yet,” Daniel retorts.
“Maybe it’s because you’re a little too vigorous in your sickbed, eh?” He grins at Daniel and my face flushes. “She was kissing my boo-boos,” Daniel says easily. “Don’t be a hater because one side of your bed is cold.”
“Hell, yeah,” Mendoza says, and I get embarrassed all over again. I curl my legs under me in the chair and try to pretend that Mendoza and all his men haven’t seen me naked recently. They’re not safe, like Daniel, and they still make me anxious, even if they’re nice.
“So,” Daniel says casually, glancing at Mendoza and then at me. “When’s someone going to tell me what happened to my sister?”
I freeze in my seat, anxiety rising to the forefront. Daniel’s voice is calm and even, but he’s been looking for his sister for two years. How is he going to feel once he knows I let Vasily take her? I don’t know what I’ll do if he looks at me with cold indifference. I need Daniel. I need him the way I need air, and I know that’s not healthy and I don’t care.
My hands drag through my hair anxiously. I’ve been hiding the secret of where Naomi has gone for the past few days, and every time Daniel starts to look around his sickroom, or ask questions, I distract him with kisses. It’s not that I hate the kisses—God, I love the kisses so much—but I know I’ve fallen back on my old bag of tricks that Daniel hates.
Don’t want him to ditch you? Get his cock’s attention.
It’s needy and wrong and stupid of me and I can’t help it. I’m terrified because I don’t know what’s going to happen now. I was with Daniel until we got papers and got Naomi. Then, we added “take down Hudson” to that list.
Now, I have papers.
Now, Naomi’s gone again, and Hudson is handled.
There’s no reason for Daniel to keep me at his side unless there’s sex involved. It doesn’t matter how much I love him and desperately want to be with him. I’m still messed up in the head, deep inside, and I know if he sends me back home, I’ll shatter into a million tiny broken pieces.
And Daniel tells me he loves me, and he gives me sweet words, but at the end of the day, am I just pussy to him? What happens when he has to track his sister down again and it becomes dangerous? He’s a sniper, an assassin. He works with dangerous men. There’s no place in that for a girl like me, because I’m a liability.