Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 136025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
I hone in on his hands.
He clutches a stainless steel thermos, and in the other, he grips the hilt of a hunting knife. The mattress and orange comforter are already torn to shreds.
My muscles tighten; my jaw throbs from gritting, and I gently shut the door behind me.
As his shock wears off at being found, he narrows his gray-blue eyes on me. “You should understand,” Nate says seriously.
I tilt my head. “I should understand,” I repeat, acid dripping in the back of my throat. “What exactly should I understand, Nate?” You son of a bitch.
“You’ve seen Maximoff. You’ve seen him all over Jane.”
“They’re friends—”
“No,” Nate cuts me off, shaking his head once. “Maximoff has hated me because he’s jealous that I was sleeping with Jane. You know that? You know he wants her for himself?”
I let out a short laugh of cold disbelief. I’m unblinking. Staring at someone who created a twisted narrative off assumptions and fabrications, something more dangerous than the innocent truth. “You really believe that bullshit,” I realize.
His glare grows hotter. “People can brush off the tabloids like they mean nothing, but there’s truth there.” Nate points the blade at me. “You know it, too.”
My jaw tics. “I know you’ve been posting pics of Maximoff’s death on social media.” I’m 99% sure it’s him and just waiting for confirmation.
He lifts his chin and hesitates for a second. Like he’s unsure how to reply. But then his nose flares, and he says, “It’s what he deserves.”
“Fuck you,” I sneer, and a rampant fire ignites inside me. I charge, my stride lengthy and unrelenting.
Nate brandishes the knife at me less like a tool and more like a weapon. Ten feet away, his eyes warn me to stay back.
I don’t slow.
Maximoff Hale deserves peace. And love. I’ll always, always fight to give him the things that people rip away, and that’s not changing now, a year from now, five years—forever.
Nate lunges at me, blade outstretched, but I slip left and catch his wrist. I elbow his temple, then I uppercut his jaw, the impact bangs my knuckles, and his teeth bash together.
He blinks, disoriented, and I twist his wrist. His fingers release the knife, and it clatters to the floorboards. But I strengthen my grip and pull his wrist further back.
I feel his bone crack.
Wincing, Nate spits, “Get off!” He thrashes to push me back, and I fist his button-down.
As he grapples and claws against me, the thermos overturns on us. Something red is in the steel canister, but I don’t focus on that shit. I deck him in the jaw and dodge his blows as thick, warm crimson-liquid smears on our arms, my chest, our faces, his hair.
Blood.
It’s blood.
I slam him to the ground, his back lands with a loud thud. He planned to dump blood on Maximoff’s bed. Probably from an animal, pig or sheep, but I don’t think long.
I pin Nate down, my knee digging into his ribs. Floorboards are so slick with blood that his legs slide beneath me—my legs slide. Both of us searching for better grip.
Fuck.
I sit up partially and throw my knuckles into his smeared-red cheek.
His head whips to the left, but he spits. And I stare at more sick hatred than pain. A sudden thought cuts into me.
Maximoff was supposed to be in this room tonight. Nate didn’t know that Maximoff would be in security’s townhouse with me.
My eyes sear as I seize his irate gaze, and I ask coldly, “Were you planning to hurt him tonight?”
Nate breathes hard through his nose, unblinking. Not affirming.
Not denying. Could be, he doesn’t even know what he would’ve done.
He just leaves me to visualize that horrific scenario.
Fuck you. I can’t unleash the words or spit them out. They calcify inside of me, and my actions come in swift succession.
I fist his shirt, lifting him in an iron grip, and then I slam him down forcefully. His head bashes into the wood. Eyes flutter. One more time. Up and down, his eyes flutter again.
I cold-cock him with a right hook. His head lolls…unconscious. His body slackens beneath me.
I sit up.
Breathing, breathing, my chest rising and falling. I find the cord to my mic and earpiece, hanging off and covered in animal blood. I click the mic, and instinctively, I say, “Farrow to Thatcher, come to Maximoff’s room.”
Not a second later, he replies, “Copy that.”
With another heavy breath, I drop the mic.
I can’t stand.
I can’t move off him.
I spot the knife an arm’s length away. Grab the knife. End this. I reach and clasp the hilt.
The door opens.
Maximoff enters like a quiet force of nature, coming forward, and his sturdy forest-greens make sense of this bloodied scene.
I’m drenched in red liquid.
Nate is unconscious beneath me.
What surprises me, more than anything, Maximoff ignores Nate. Doesn’t look at him long or let his short-temper win. He’s not storming forward to throttle an unconscious body.