Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91809 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91809 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
“Remind me again why we need a confession so badly? We can wait a few hours and end this tonight.”
I shook my head, though he couldn’t see in the dark. “Without a confession, it’ll be ten thousand times harder to prove the guys aren’t terrorists. Not to mention we’ve got to get that fool Connor Langston out of prison. I looked him up on the site—just to make sure he didn’t belong in that cell.
“Connor’s big secret is that whatever money his family did have, all went to countless doctors and specialists for his sick little sister. He’s consistently refused dares that hurt people, even though he’s only allowed to refuse one. I bet anything that he took this dare because it came with a seven-figure reward, and the only one who suffered is himself.”
I found Victor’s hand in the dark. “Trust me, I want to end this tonight, but the wounds Everleigh left behind will keep bleeding. We have to force her to set it right... and then we can force her to hell.”
He sloshed his container. “Just tell me where to—”
A flash of light brightened the forest.
“Looks like Cato already started,” he said drily.
Giggling, I shot through the trees and ran straight for the front porch.
Spinning, twisting, sloshing the can—I wrote a single name on the wooden slats, then lit the letters on fire.
Winter.
“She took away our home,” I shouted over the rushing flames. “She made Winter feel so unsafe and hostile she didn’t know another way out. Let’s see how she likes it.”
I stumbled off the grass, laughing as the fires grew. Consuming the house. Sending black tendrils into the night sky.
I hoped Everleigh looked out Katie’s window, saw the smoke, and dismissed it as some poor sucker’s bad luck. Not knowing the poor sucker was her.
“Guys?” I called.
We split up—each of us surrounding the massive cabin and taking a side to burn.
“Cato, my love. Get over here and drop your pants. I want to fuck while it burns.”
Victor whipped around the corner, running full speed. “Luna!”
“Victor, this is amazing. Feels even better than—”
“Run!” Victor sprinted faster. Two shadowy figures were on his heels. “Luna, run! It’s a trap. She knew we were coming. It’s a trap!”
Pain burst in the back of my head. I dropped—darkness taking me before I hit the ground.
Chapter Eight
“Wake up.”
My head snapped around, jarring my eyes open with the fierce pain in my cheek.
“I said wake up!”
Another slap bounced my head off something hard.
I glared at the blurry figure before me. “I was up,” I croaked. “That second slap... was for fun.”
“Why shouldn’t I have fun smacking you around, bitch? You burned down my house! Those idiots were supposed to grab you up the next time you came back. They weren’t supposed to stand around with their thumbs up their asses while you danced around my burning home.”
My lids fluttered, eyes straining to make sense of her. It took me a long, scrambled minute to realize there wasn’t something wrong with my eyes. It was dark. Moonlight filtered through the leaves and dissipated before it touched the ground. I was still outside.
I forced myself to focus—forming the moving edges of the figure in front of me into something solid and clear.
Everleigh glared down at me—more enraged than I’d ever seen her. Angrier than when I cornered her in Toussaint’s and announced that she was an arsonist and attempted murderer.
I smirked.
“Wipe that fucking smile off your face!”
I saw the punch coming and tried to block it. My hands snagged, bound with something rough and unforgiving. Her fist smashed into my face, and blood spurted on her knuckles.
“You think you’re so clever, Sinclair? You actually fooled yourself into thinking you were getting the upper hand.”
Head lolling, I swayed from side to side, looking for—
“Where are the guys?” I interrupted. “Rafael? Wilder? Cato!”
“You can screech all you want. They’re not here.”
Here was the woods not far from Everleigh’s cabin. I knew because acrid smoke tickled my nose and throat—turning my speech raspy and making it harder to see through the thin haze. Rushing water sounded behind me.
We were by the river... and nowhere near help.
“What do you think I did with them? Like any responsible citizen, I turned the terrorists over to the police.”
Horror leadened my bones. I couldn’t think. I didn’t speak. Cato... Rafael... Wilder... Lucien... She couldn’t have. She didn’t...
“A few of my T.O.D. friends were kind enough to cart those shits off to prison for me. They’re on their way right now. Captain Capaldi will be sure to add arson to the charges after what they did to my home tonight.” She slapped me again for good measure. “Although, I did keep one of your sex toys for myself because we’re ending this. Tonight.”
I didn’t know what she meant until Everleigh hauled me around.