Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 91064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
“That’s the way it usually goes.”
His face is devoid of humor or sarcasm and I have no idea what his angle is here, but I won’t let it rattle me.
I’m tempted to make up something as ridiculous as Royce, but I don’t. I give him my street name, which I have no doubt he already knows.
“Scarlett.”
“Like Scarlett Johansson,” he remarks. “You look like her.”
“Cute.”
He used to say that all the time. Bragging to his friends about his hot celebrity look-alike girlfriend. And then they’d ask if he was banging me yet and I’d let him lie about it because he wanted to save face.
His phone rings, and it annoys me that he considers anything else worthy of his attention at this moment. As if he hasn’t been hunting me. As if I’m going to sit here and wait for him the way that I used to.
“Scarlett.” He taps the bar with his hand as if he’s speaking to a dog. “You have my apologies, I need to take this. I’ll only be a moment.”
“Sure, champ.”
Fucking asshole.
He walks away and disappears from the room and I’m trying to strategize when there’s another voice inside of my ear a moment later. A different voice. A husky voice.
“What’s the craic, sweetheart?” Rory asks. “You planning to fuck up that douchebag tonight or what?”
“What the hell are you doing here?” I hiss.
He nods towards another guy across the bar. An unmistakably Russian guy who I’ve seen before.
Alexei.
He’s sitting with two other Russian guys and since when do the fucking Vory do business here?
My paranoia is ripe and I’m annoyed and nothing is going the way it should right now.
“You need to leave.” I tell Rory. “Now.”
Instead, he sits down beside me. In Royce’s seat. And Royce is a fed and Rory can’t be seen here with me right now and… fuck.
“Sweetheart?” he asks. “Are ye alright? You’ve gone pale as a sheet.”
“No, I’m not alright,” I bark at him. “You need to leave. Now. You’re fucking everything up.”
He grabs my stool and yanks it closer to him, pinning me between his legs.
“I don’t want ye doing this shite anymore,” he says.
His voice is low, the usual humor absent. It isn’t the first time he’s tried to get me to stop. But Rory doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know anything about me. And even if he is one of the few people I can actually deal with in small doses, right now he’s about to screw us both.
Alexander has always been the end goal. The culmination of my efforts and my revenge. I’ve waited for this opportunity. I’ve sacrificed and bled for this opportunity. And he’s about to destroy everything with five seconds of stupidity.
“If you aren’t going to leave.” I stand up. “Then I will.”
He grabs me by the arms and yanks me closer still, breathing me in. He gets high off me when he does that, and I’ll never understand it.
“Quit being such a bitch,” he whispers. “Ye know I like it.”
“No, you don’t.”
The vein in his neck is pulsing and his biceps are tense, and that’s how I know he’s lying. But when I reach down and grab his cock through his jeans, it reaches a boiling point.
“You fucking hate it,” I tell him. “You hate it so much that you’re sitting here with me pinned between your legs and your cock isn’t even hard. So, tell me again how much you like it.”
He grabs my wrist and pulls it away from him before releasing me. And just as I hoped, I’ve pissed him off to the point of no return.
“Go the fuck home, Scarlett,” he orders. “For once in your bloody life, think of someone other than yourself.”
His words cut me, but I don’t let him know it. And when he walks away, my panic leaves with him. It doesn’t last long though.
Because when I glance across the bar, Alexander still isn’t here.
And I can’t see him anywhere.
All because of fucking Rory and his misguided attempts to court me like an eighteenth-century romance novel.
Fuck him.
Fuck him all the way to hell.
I snatch up my purse and scrap anything to do with this bar or my revenge or anything else tonight. There is nobody else that will satisfy the demon inside of me now. Not after seeing Alexander and having him slip through my fingers.
I ride the elevator up to my floor and the room where I stashed my bag. I slip the key into the door and step inside, but then I stop.
Something doesn’t feel right.
The curtain is closed, the way that I left it, but the light isn’t on the way that I left it. My instincts are speaking to me again, and this time, I listen.
Or at least I try to.
I pivot on my heel and reach for my knife, but when I turn for the door, there’s a flash of movement beside me. Something reaches out and tangles in my hair and slams my head into the wall. Once is all it takes for me to drop the knife.