Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80495 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80495 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“That’s right.” I wish my voice were more than just a thin whisper. I wish I could sound certain and confident. I am certain and confident, but I also still feel like I might throw up on the spot. And I don’t want to do that. Not in front of Aiden. He’d take it the wrong way, and it would be any way except that he disgusts me. “I expressed the same sentiment to you almost a year ago. I meant it then, and I mean it now. Leave me alone, Aiden.”
I took extreme measures to ensure he would. I gave up everything to get away from him. I was scared if I didn’t just disappear, he’d do something that would get me arrested. Even now, I’m not entirely sure he hasn’t done something that could get me arrested. I think charges last for life, and I’d have to prove it wasn’t me doing all those things and stealing all that money. How the hell could I do that when Aiden’s a fucking genius criminal mastermind who stole my entire online identity? He had access to everything, and I gave it to him like an idiot. He said people who loved each other didn’t have secrets. People who loved each other and lived together and were going to share a life didn’t keep passwords to their social media or anything else a secret.
I was so, so, SO naïve.
Then again, even if I hadn’t given him my passwords, he probably would have found a way to discover them all. He’s an evil genius like that.
Beau marches over, picks Aiden up by the scruff again, and practically throws him off the porch. It’s then that I realize the yard is black as night, which makes sense because it is night, but there aren’t any other cars around. No headlights and no flash of a vehicle parked by the house. How the heck did Aiden get here? Has he been watching me for days? For weeks? For how long? Did he park down the road and walk here so I wouldn’t hear him coming?
Goosebumps break out all over my skin, and my stomach churns. I have to swallow repeatedly to keep from hurling.
“You’re going to leave now,” Beau informs Aiden, who picks himself off the ground and brushes himself like he can rub off the injury as well as the insult. “And you’re not going to come back. This woman is under my protection. You don’t want to end up on my threat lists. Threats get eliminated. You’re just lucky I haven’t destroyed your life yet. Don’t push me. I just might do it for fun in my spare time.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Aiden growls, all brave now that there’s a few feet of distance between him and Beau.
Beau moves so fast that I’m not even sure it’s physically possible to do something like that until he’s down the steps, looking hecking murderous and frothing at the mouth rabid style again.
“My name doesn’t matter, only my intent, and that’s to protect this woman like it’s my job. I’m very, very good at what I do. I’m also incredibly bored with this, and bad things happen when I get bored. I have impeccable control, but I also have a boundless limit when it comes to cruelty and carnage. Unless you’d like to experience both, I would leave, stat.”
Aiden doesn’t stick around to follow that up with so much as an oh shit. Instead, he turns and sprints down the driveway. He trips once and goes sprawling in the gravel, but he doesn’t curse. He doesn’t say anything. He just rights himself and hurtles straight into the dark. I watch his shadow stop and stare back at both of us. He’s probably thinking a few murderous thoughts of his own. Maybe he’s trying to prove he has a bag and the stones to match.
Beau makes one single move forward, and Aiden scampers off, stumbling again. I can just see him hit the ditch and go down on all fours from a dead run. He didn’t see the large, yawning chasm there. He rounds the other side, climbing out, and then his shadow blends in with the dark. All I can hear is the crunching of fast-fleeing steps on the gravel road, and the sound gets fainter and fainter.
Beau isn’t gentle when he turns around. He looks just as angry and feral as before, and even if his anger isn’t directed at me, I take a step back. He blinks at me, stunned, and it’s like that single movement brings him crashing back into himself.
“I’m sorry.” He sticks out his hands, so gentle in comparison to how he did this exact same gesture at Aiden just a few minutes ago. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Most of that was just for his benefit of seeing it and knowing he can’t fuck around.” However, he doesn’t look like any of it was for the benefit of anything. His face is still a storm, even if he calms it down, so I know he will never break over me.