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)
“Shut the fuck up, Ten,” he whispers. “You just need to get through this, and we’re both in.”
All his friends are here. I see them and feel them and that’s betrayal slicing through me like a hot iron. I’m still screaming beneath his hand when Duke moves off of me and Alexander takes his place. He grunts and pushes himself inside of me, smothering my face with his hand.
“Dude, you need to make her shut up,” someone says.
There’s a hand in my hair, and my head is slammed back into the ground. Once, twice. Dizziness threatens again.
“Put some more shit in a drink and give it to me,” Alexander tells them.
A couple minutes later, my mouth is being squeezed open and more liquid is sloshing down my throat. I almost choke on it, but they keep forcing it down, anyway.
Whatever it is, it renders me limp and useless again.
“Finally,” one of them mutters. “Now flip her over so I can have some too. Don’t be a greedy pig.”
There are so many hands on me. Bodies crushing me.
I only get fleeting glimpses of the nightmare, interspersed with bouts of unconsciousness. I don’t know how long it is before I start to feel something in my limbs again. But the moment I do, I try to fight back.
This time, someone clamps a hand over my mouth and my nose.
I can’t breathe.
And I can’t fight back.
Not anymore.
The last thing I hear when it all goes silent around me, is Alexander’s voice.
“You gave her too much. What the fuck? What are we going to do now?”
I’m being dragged through the dirt, tossed into a shallow hole. Leaves and rocks scraping over my skin and burying me alive.
Hatred settles into my stomach and oozes through my veins, blackening everything inside of me. Until there is nothing left. Nothing left but evil.
My carefully constructed kingdom of control is crumbling around me.
The bathwater is cold now, my knees drawn up to my chest as I smear the dried blood on my hand across the wall.
It mixes with the condensation and forms tiny rivers of red in the cracks of the tile, leaking back into the bathtub and poisoning everything around me.
The betrayal, the pain, the complete loss of control.
It’s happening all over again.
The time for war has come, and there’s no backing down now.
I’m trapped in this game. And the only way out is by leaving a trail of blood in my wake.
I’m going to kill them all.
I’m going to make them pay for their sins and I’m going to fucking win.
If Alexander thinks he will ever touch me again, he can die thinking that as I plunge my knife into his heart.
But it isn’t enough. It’s not enough to temper the fire inside of me. Alexander and his friends aren’t enough.
There’s someone else I’ve been holding back on. And I don’t hold back for anyone. I was being nice, and I don’t do fucking nice. And it’s now two times that Rory Brodrick has crossed me.
If he hadn’t interrupted me tonight, none of this would have happened.
I wouldn’t have been off my game and I would have been paying attention and Alexander wouldn’t have caught me off guard.
He just keeps fucking everything up. He thinks he can fix me, but I’m going to show him. There is no fixing me.
There’s only the violence and the want and the hate.
And now, I’m going to use him like a pawn. I’m going to take Rory’s fragile, vulnerable little heart… and I’m going to play with it like a fucking toy.
Cross me, Mr. Brodrick? You better cross your heart and hope to die.
Seven
Rory
Fight night.
My favorite night of the week.
Every Thursday, I’m in this warehouse. Having a bit of craic, fucking shit up.
Irish men are natural born fighters. And I’m no exception to that rule. I love to lamp some poor bloke upside the head just as much as the next lad.
It’s what we do.
And all the lads get in on it too. Drinking and placing bets. Cheering me on from the sidelines. The place is standing room only. The stench of blood and sweat and beer permeating the air around us. There are women too. Lots of women.
There always are.
I usually end up taking one home with me at the end of the night. They know the score, and so do I.
Casual. Always keep it casual. They want to bag a fighter, and I want to work off the last of my adrenaline.
But the last few I’ve taken home with me have only ended up passing out on the couch since I’ve been too piss drunk to do much of anything.
Conor’s got it in his head that there’s something wrong with me. Something bothering me.
Tonight, I’m set to prove him wrong. My eyes scan the crowd before I even square off with the Italian I’m fighting in just a few short moments.