Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
It was a picture of my girl, bound and tied in the same vile pit where I’d lost myself years before.
Where I’d become a man I didn’t want to be.
It’d been completely empty last night, the way it’d been for years when I’d searched for Stefan.
And now, he was there, the sick fucker using Tessa as bait.
And the only thing it said below it was, Don’t be late.
“You sure you want to do this?” The last thing I wanted to do was put the Lawson brothers in danger.
They’d had enough of it to last a lifetime. I didn’t want to bring it on their families or cause them risk.
But I also couldn’t risk Tessa.
Couldn’t put her through the very thing I’d been terrified of bringing to her door.
What my spirit had warned me against—dragging her into my sordid world, tainting her beauty, stamping out the light—while the rest of me couldn’t resist the persuasion that was Tessa McDaniels.
I should have resisted.
Shouldn’t have given.
She wouldn’t be in this position if I had.
Now there was nothing I wouldn’t do to free her. To give her a chance at the life that she should have been living all along.
Whatever it took.
My children’s faces flashed through my mind, and every molecule in my body contracted.
Fear that I was letting them down, too.
But I had to stand for this woman who’d stood for me even when she shouldn’t have.
The deviant had gotten away before, and I couldn’t take the chance of it happening again.
When I’d sent the text saying I needed help, it’d taken all of twenty minutes for all three Lawson brothers to show at my door.
Ready to stand for what was right.
Tessa.
“You think we’d let you go this alone?” Trent asked as he stuffed a gun into a holster hidden under his shirt.
“Tessa is family, man,” Jud said. “Same as you. Means we’re in this together.”
Logan straightened out his suit jacket. “Besides, who else are they going to let in there but me? Obviously, I’m the only one around here with this cool sophistication. Best looking one of the bunch, am I right? You’re going to need me.”
Dude winked, as cocky as they came, and he gestured to himself before he tucked a thick stack of cash into the inside pocket of his jacket.
“These guys are foul. To the core. Nothing good about them,” I warned.
Trent’s grin was menacing when he clapped me on the shoulder. “Wouldn’t be the first time we dealt with these types of assholes, now, would it?”
“No.”
Jud smacked his hands together. “Then let’s roll.”
Darkness reigned, the night thick and deep, the air stifled and stagnant.
Aggression coiled my muscles into one seething knot, and my chest was jutting in these spastic snaps as I forced the oxygen in and out of my lungs. Every part of me vibrated as I stood at the door to the dungeon beneath the blacked-out building.
You would think it was completely uninhabited except for the vileness that seeped out from the cracks.
The evil that oozed out on noxious tendrils.
The dirty VIPs gained access on the backside, and you got to it by following a hidden trail that started up on the next street. There was a second door about twenty feet down where Stefan’s men came and went.
For years, it’d remained abandoned, and now I could feel the full force of the corruption rising from within.
The atrocity that had found its way back to my doorstep.
The first time I’d come here, I should have known to run far away, but I’d been drawn to it.
Thirsty for the deviance I could still feel curling from the pit below and slithering through the cracks.
Nausea twisted my guts, and sweat slicked my skin, nerves skidding and skipping, firing with violence and possession.
Tonight, it ended.
My attention swiveled both directions, and I caught sight of Trent slipping around the right side of the building at the same time Jud went to the left. When they were out of view, I inhaled a steadying breath and rapped my knuckles against the metal door.
Some meaty fucker peered out at me through the grate, and there was a rustling on the other side a moment before the door creaked open.
Instantly, I was flanked by two guards as they dragged me inside.
One pushed my chest against the wall and patted me down to ensure I wasn’t armed.
The other stood guard with a rifle strapped over his shoulder.
“He’s clean.”
Anxiety rattled through me.
This whole thing was fucked. So dangerous. One misstep, and we were done.
But there was no other option.
Tessa was inside, and I wasn’t coming out of there without her.
So, I acted like I was playing by their rules when one shoved me forward, gesturing for me to head down the grungy hall lit by a line of single bulbs that hung from the low ceiling.