Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
His eyes never leave mine.
I run.
He’s too far away. I need to get to him.
Fuck, Slade. No. I love you. You can’t die. We need to grow old together.
Lucien’s booming laughter echoes through my mind and despite my eyes being locked on Slade’s, I don’t miss the way Lucien wipes the blood splatter off his face and hands. The gun is pocketed and I scream as Lucien walks away.
Slade lays in the thick grass bleeding and I’ve hardly gotten four steps out the window when a strong arm curls around my waist, hauling me back toward the house. “NO, LET ME GO,” I scream, desperately needing to get to him. I don’t even know where he was shot. In the back? In the head? Fuck, is he bleeding out? Is he struggling to breathe? Is he dying? Is he already dead?
My fingers dig into the guard’s arm, my nails clawing at his skin, prompting him to hold me tighter and making it nearly impossible to suck in another breath.
“SLADE,” I cry as I’m pulled away, refusing to tear my eyes off him. “GET UP. YOU HAVE TO GET UP.”
I don’t know if he doesn’t hear me or if he’s just…dead, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t twitch, doesn’t blink, just keeps staring.
Why won’t he move?
Oh, God, no.
Tears stream down my face as I struggle against the guards hold. I need to get to Slade. Why doesn’t he understand that?
Lucien cuts in front of my vision and I try to look around him, refusing to take my eyes off my boyfriend. Lucien looks over my shoulder at the guard as though he doesn’t even see me here, as though he didn’t just tear my world into a million pieces and shatter it. “Take her to her room and lock the door. I want a guard on her door all night. She is not to move, not to eat, not to fucking breathe without someone knowing about it. Got it?”
The guard nods so forcefully that I feel my whole body rattle.
Lucien's eyes darken and as his eyes meet mine, he grins, and at that moment, I swear he’s the actual devil sent from hell to destroy me. “Next will be Shaylee, then Blake, Daniella, Emma, and Rain…You fuck up, you lose. Do you understand me?”
I swallow back fear for the only people I have left in this world while unable to stop picturing the way Slade’s eyes widened in fear. I didn’t even get to tell him that I loved him.
My whole body slumps against the guard in defeat, but Lucien’s not finished torturing me yet. “No one else has to die, Skylah. Their fates are in your hands.”
With that, he walks away, and as my heart tears right out of my chest. I’m hauled back into the house, staring at the man who lies lifelessly in the grass, realizing that he’s gone.
I will never love again. I will never find someone who completes my soul the way that he did, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to love another man, I don’t want to even try. I just want him. I need him, but he’s dead because of me.
Slade Cruz was my world, and now my world is gone.
I can feel the fight draining from my body as I realize that I suddenly have nothing to live for. Keeping my family in Aston Creek safe is all that matters now. I allow the guard to drag me away and lock me in my room. Here is where I'll live each day as a blur, knowing that my actions killed the man I love. I will never know happiness again.
Chapter 7
Slade
Agony pulses through my body.
I’ve never felt anything like it. Is this the kind of torture that Sky had to put up with while also drowning, trying to free herself, and then having her rib broken with resuscitation? Fuck, she’s more of a survivor than I could have ever known.
This is easily the worst thing I’ve ever felt in my life. It fucking burns like someone just stabbed me with a flaming sword and left it in there to burn me from within.
I lay in the thick grass, willing myself to move. I need to get the fuck up before Lucien decides to come and finish the job. His words ring in my ears louder than the echoing of the gunshot.
‘This is the only time you will ever find an advantage in being my blood. Next time I see you, this bullet will be through your eyes, but know, if you ever come here again, I will kill her.’
He didn’t even give me a chance to run before he shot me. What kind of person shoots their own fucking son in the back? It’s as though he was putting on a show for Sky and judging by the way she screamed…the way I still hear her screaming from up inside this big fucking mansion, I know she thinks I’m gone. That cuts me more than this fucking bullet did.