Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 106292 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106292 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Someone grips the bars further down, throwing themselves up against them. My eyes widen, and my heart threatens to jump right out of my chest. “Oakley? Is that you?”
Relief pounds through my veins, and I race toward my father, my hands fumbling with the keys. “Yes,” I breathe, tears streaming down my face. “I’m here. I’m here. I’m getting you out of here.”
“Oakley, no,” my father panics, gripping the bars tighter. “You stupid, beautiful child. I told you to run. You have to get out of here. It’s too dangerous. If Harrison—”
“He won’t. He’s at the trial with Nikolai, but I can’t leave you. I won’t. I won’t survive out there on my own,” I tell him, so fucking scared and riddled with anxiety that I can’t get my hands to work. The keys shake so violently against the lock that I can’t get it in. “I need you. We can get out of here together.”
“Oakley, no. I . . . fuck.”
Resolve flashes in his eyes and realizing that this could be his only chance, he stops fighting it. My father reaches through the bars and grips the keys, taking them from my hands and hastily jamming them into the lock. He goes to turn the key when something grabs me from behind, yanking me away from my father’s cell and throwing me up against the bent bars of the cell that used to belong to me.
A throaty, terrified scream tears through me as Harrison’s face appears out of the darkness, bearing down on me as his hold tightens around my throat. The pressure of the bars against my back is too much, and I feel as though just a little more pressure could have my ribs snapping right around them, but none of that will matter if I’m dead.
“Don’t fucking touch her,” my father growls, hastily trying to unlock his cell, searching frantically through the array of keys.
“You,” Harrison spits at me as if not even noticing my father’s escape attempt behind him. “The second you showed up in my cells, I knew you were going to be more trouble than you were worth.”
Without giving me a second to try and fight my way out of this, Harrison draws his gun and presses the cold barrel to my temple. My whole fucking life flashes before my eyes, and I watch as darkness flashes in his stare. No hesitation. No regret. Just an overwhelming dark need to watch my brain splatter across the back of my old cell.
I see it, the very second he goes to pull the trigger.
“NO!” My father screams out, raw and broken, and I meet his haunted stare over Harrison’s shoulder, knowing this is it.
BANG!
Harrison crumbles, blood splattering across my face as unbelievable horror blasts through my chest. He falls away with a heavy thud against the dirty ground, and I stumble forward, the moment of being released almost taking me right down with him.
My eyes widen, my heart racing with fear, and I whip around, finding Zade staring right back at me, fury pulsing from his venomous stare. He strides toward me, not saying a damn word, and I’ve never been so fucking scared in my life.
I shake my head. There’s no telling what he might do. “Zade . . . Zade, no,” I breathe as he reaches for me, gripping me by the hair and yanking me into him, the hot barrel of his gun pressed against my head as he looks back at my father.
“Hand over the keys,” he tells him, my father’s eyes flashing between me and Zade, realizing he’s unhinged enough to actually do it.
My father swallows and holds my terrified stare. “I’m sorry,” he tells me before reaching through the bars and dropping the keys right into the center of Zade’s palm, then without a moment of hesitation, Zade lets the gun fall away, shoving it into the back of his pants and pushing me ahead with a brutal hold.
He gives me a hard jab in the back. “Move,” he rumbles, his tone so thick and filled with betrayal, his demands leaving absolutely no space for argument.
I hastily move back through the cells, hot tears streaming down my cheeks, knowing without a doubt I have failed. Not just today, but altogether. I will never find another chance to be free of this. I had one shot and I blew it. Forever destined to suffer at the hands of Zade DeVil.
He leads me back up through the tunnels and into the modern walkways. Every step feels as though I’m drowning, and my knees threaten to give out from beneath me. It’s not long before we’re walking back through the door of the courtroom, Zade’s hand now securely locked around my arm.
I expect to find things much like I left them, somewhat controlled . . . apart from that brief moment where I’m sure Sawyer’s mom’s life flashed before her eyes. But as we stride back in, I find Cara latching onto her father while Sawyer desperately tries to pull her away, her loud, desperate screams darkening something deep inside my soul.