Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 128980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
But I will have to. One day I’ll have to face that piece of my history head-on. The lame excuses that Abbie won’t want to hear from me, the ones I tell myself constantly, are weakening by the day. Every time I use my phone, I find myself pulling up her name and staring down at it, wondering if today will be the day that I finally find the strength to do what I should have done years ago. I’m a coward. A bastard. But I need to be in the best frame of mind to venture down the road to redemption, and I haven’t been in that frame of mind since I left.
I breathe in deeply. “We need to get you home so you can get ready for this party.”
“Can’t wait.” She sighs, taking a mouthful of tuna and chewing, looking past me thoughtfully. I sigh myself, feeling hopeless, watching as she chews slowly.
But then her eyes suddenly widen.
“Hey, what’s…?” My words fade when she visibly starts to shake, her frightened stare rooted past me. I swing around to find out what has her panicked attention, my heart leaping, my hand ready to find my gun.
I jump up from my chair.
“Jake!” Camille’s scream is distant, foggy behind my instant cloud of fury.
The motherfucker!
Seb’s hovering a few meters away, his face black and blue, a small army of beefy dudes flanking him. Oh, here we go. How much has he paid them? There are five of the steroid-hyped twats, all trying to look menacing. Fucking insult. The rage that creeps up my spine might make me feel unhinged…if I wasn’t perfectly lucid. I’m lucid. Perfectly sane.
“Still walking, then?” I ask, pushing my chair out of the way. “Let me remedy that for you.” I stride forward, planning my moves as I go, my brain telling me which chimp to take out first and how.
“Jake, stop!”
I can hear Camille through my controlled rage, screaming for me to stop, but there’s only one instruction hammering at my brain.
Eliminate the enemy. Kill the fucker who dared lay a hand on her.
The first guy goes down like a sack of shit with one blow to the face, the second just as easy. I duck, my mind noting the positions of Sebastian’s three remaining minions as I swing around and throw my elbow out, cracking one clean on the jaw. He’s on his arse a second later, rolling around groaning.
“Shit!” The random curse is a signal that one has jumped ship and legged it, and a bellow from behind tells me the last is coming at my back. Fucking amateurs.
I look up to the shop window in front of me, seeing the prick charging like a fucking rhino. I have plenty of time to figure out what to do with this one. Roughly three seconds. It’s even enough time to catch my breath.
I see his arm come wide, and I duck at the last second, sending him staggering past me, straight into the window of the shop. It surprises me when it doesn’t shatter. He recovers quickly, shaking away the proverbial birds fluttering around his meaty head, then he comes at me again.
I remain where I am and wait for the move that I know is coming. He doesn’t disappoint. After a lack of accuracy from his failing punch, he goes for a good old-fashioned tackle instead, charging at my waist and taking me from my feet. I let him, my back hitting the concrete with force. I grunt and circle my legs around his waist, then flip him onto his back, straddling him. His dazed eyes take a few moments to clear before he realizes where he is. I smirk wickedly, then put him out of his misery, launching my fist into his face, the blood from his broken nose splattering a meter in every direction.
Job. Done.
“You’re a fucking psycho, man!”
I pause, flexing my fist. Not so done.
I look up and find Camille’s ex backing away, his eyes darting across the carnage I’ve caused with my bare hands. I feel my lip curling as I rise to my feet. This little prick thought he could outnumber me with a few oversized thick idiots? I want to kill him even more. Painfully. Slowly. Until he begs me to finish it. I take long strides toward him as he retreats, holding his hands up. “I’m going.”
“Only where I’m planning on sending you.”
His back slams into a car before he turns and jumps in, firing up the engine of the black Porsche. He screeches off fast, wheels spinning, the back end of his car swaying all over the road, looking as panicked as its driver.
Allowing the fog of purpose to clear, I take in the damage I’ve done, seeing four of the five men rolling around, groaning. The fifth meaty fucker—the sensible one—is nowhere to be seen. If I were the compassionate type, I’d feel a little sorry for them. They should have had a little more information on who they were apparently going to do over.