Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 145729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
“You have a white knight syndrome so far to the right it’s scary. Don’t you see how truly insane what you’re trying to do really is? You can’t control what others choose to do. You just can’t.”
“The answer is to ignore it? Do you have any idea what is done to those women and children? We’ve stopped them, over and over. We haven’t saved them all, maybe we haven’t even slowed it down, but we’ve stopped some of them. That counts. It counts for the ones we got back. We’ve kept guns from going to terrorist cells over and over. That counts as well. We’ve weakened territories, we’ve messed with books. We’ve turned over evidence to the FBI and found dirty cops and turned over evidence on them.”
“They’ll kill you if they find out it’s you.”
He shrugged. “I had no idea you existed, Sonia. I searched for you and couldn’t find you. My family is truly fucked up and I wanted little to do with them, other than my cousin Evangeline. Ironically, she wanted little to do with me.”
“Does she know the truth about you?”
“She knows the truth about her husband, and that means she knows the truth about me. Before all this, neither of us wanted anything to do with the Tregres. You talk about vile, ugly people, that would be my family. Other than my mother. She was the best.”
She sent him a tentative smile. “I’m glad. I wish I’d had the chance to meet her.”
“I do too, although she would never have approved of what I’m doing, and she’d most likely have told you to run for the hills.”
“I tried that. It didn’t work.”
“You have a nasty little temper. You kicked Shadow. He’s still sulking.”
She shrugged. “He deserved it. And more. He can just not touch Gatita like that ever again.”
“Leopards are rough, baby,” he said softly.
“Maybe, but he was angry with her.”
“She didn’t believe him. You didn’t believe me. God, Sonia, it hurt like hell seeing you so afraid of me. I couldn’t take it. I never want you to look at me like that again.” He leaned toward her. “Do you believe what I’m saying to you? Because if you don’t, if you want evidence, I’ll get it for you. I’ll do whatever it takes so you know, with me, you’ll always be safe. Tell me what to do to give you that. I don’t want you to have one small doubt in your mind. Tell me how to do that.”
She stared at him. The things he’d said to her were scary dangerous and so like him. The white knight. Atonement for his perceived sins. There was no saving him from himself. He was many things, but he wasn’t a liar. He wasn’t a betrayer. Joshua’s loyalty ran deep. His sense of duty. He wasn’t lying to her. He loved her. She chose to believe him because every cell in her body, every instinct she had, said he was telling her the truth and he loved her.
She had to believe. She had to push aside the hurt and fears from her past and look at the man sitting across from her. She could read him, that face, so familiar to her now. She had no idea if she was strong enough to stay with him and face what he had to do every single day. She had no idea if she would have the strength to walk away when she knew he was doing things that were very wrong.
“I believe you. I don’t know exactly what to do with it, but I believe you.”
He went still, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. For a moment, she thought she caught the shimmer of tears in his eyes, and that completely undid her. He lifted his head and his eyes suddenly glittered at her, going a deep crystalline blue that always took her breath.
He wasn’t going to give in to the emotion because it was too overwhelming. She waited, holding her breath, ready to follow his lead to get them out of this moment neither could handle. She knew it would be sex, because sex was his go-to when he needed to be close to her. Right now, she needed to be very close to him, without talking. She didn’t know what she would do or say if he asked her the wrong question before she processed everything completely.
“Since we’re covering everything, I’m not down with you shifting in front of my men. At. All. You were stark naked. I promised myself I would put you over my knee for that.”
A little shiver went down her spine, but she lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes at him.
“In today’s society, adults have evolved, and they don’t hit their children or their women.” She said it in her snippiest tone and gave him her haughtiest look.