Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 79814 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79814 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
I once read in Homer’s Iliad that it was better to flee from death than feel its grip.
“Run?” Anna squeaked.
“I can’t fight, and I can’t hide here. They’ll find me.” If I ran, it wouldn’t just be the senator looking for me… Angel would also stop at nothing. The truth burned in my gut.
“But you can’t run with a baby. Jesus, Mian! We can try going to the police.” I studied Anna’s bright blue eyes, her golden locks, and her red puffy cheeks stained with tears. She was biting her lips, the only sign she was keeping the fiercest of her emotions reigned in.
“And tell them what? That my son’s father, the son of a senator, wants to kill me and my baby, and that another man wants revenge he doesn’t deserve?” In a way, I envied Anna’s naiveté. That level of innocence was something I would never possess again.
Her eyes filled with more tears. “It’s better than never seeing you again.” I forced my gaze away because I couldn’t bring myself to offer promises I couldn’t keep. “What if I came with you?” she offered.
“You’re seventeen and still in school. Taking you with me would be stupid and selfish.”
“But leaving me behind will hurt.” Her voice cracked, and her body threatened to collapse. I jumped from my seat at the foot of the bed and pulled her into my arms. “It will hurt so much, Mian.”
“It doesn’t have to be forever,” I caved. Angel lived a life that would eventually claim him, and maybe just maybe if I disappeared the senator would eventually wash his hands off me.
“Don’t say that if you don’t mean it.”
“I mean it. Whatever the chances, I’ll come back for you.”
She lifted her head from my shoulder. “Where will you go?”
“I don’t know, but anywhere has to be safer than Chicago.” I hesitated to deliver a blow that would hurt me as much as it would her. “I won’t truly feel safe unless I leave Illinois.”
“But that’s too far!” More of her tears fell, and I rushed to erase them.
“I have to be sure, Anna.”
“You won’t get far without money,” she tried to reason.
“I have money,” I answered. “I just have to get to it.”
“What are you talking about? What money?”
“Angel gave me the money the senator paid him to kill me—”
“Oh, God,” she groaned and turned so I could only see her back. I waited until her sniffling died before continuing.
“It’s locked in a safe that only I know the combination to. I can get to it, but I need your help.”
“I don’t understand, Mian.” She turned, her mouth agape and her tears dried. “What safe?”
Chapter Four
MIAN
Two Weeks Ago
I WOKE UP disoriented and sore in places I’ve never been sore before. One glance through the parted curtains and moonlit
windowpanes told me it was still night. My body and weary mind begged me to drift back to sleep, but then Aaron, the senator, the money, and the touching… it all came rushing back vividly. I wasn’t sure if it was the threat of death or the memory of what Angel did to me afterward that caused my heart to race.
Batting away the cobwebs of sleep, I moved to get out of a bed I should have never been in. I had one foot on the carpet when fingers grabbed my hair, and I was pulled back across the mattress until I collided with a hot wall of muscle.
Gasping from surprise, I felt his heat blanketing me. “Where are you going?” His voice sounded like he’d been eating gravel.
“I need to check on Caylen.”
“He’s fine.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not for you to decide.” I tried to leave his bed, but he simply locked his arm around my waist. I could feel his dick pushing against my spine and every other hard part of him molding against my own body.
“I checked on him an hour ago and brought back his baby monitor. He’s fine,” he insisted a little more forcefully.
“How long have I been asleep?”
“A few hours,” he grumbled before having the audacity to snuggle into me. I wanted to kick my own ass for almost leaning back into his chest. It would be exactly what he wanted—me, dependent and helpless against him. “How were you planning to get to him, anyway?”
Because Angel still kept him behind a locked door.
I didn’t hesitate to answer truthfully. “Whatever it took.”
He grunted his agreement because we both knew it wasn’t an empty threat.
Sleeping was no longer an option, so I did a slow sweep of his room. The space took me back in time to when life honestly wasn’t much simpler than it was now. I didn’t find peace or a weapon I could use to knock him out. The lamp on the nightstand would do the trick, but I knew I wouldn’t get to it in time. The monster would probably break my fingers before I could even wrap them around the black base with a silver skull painted on it. My gaze fell to the baby monitor lying next to the lamp. I could hear the faint sound of my baby’s breaths as he slept and felt myself relax.