Total pages in book: 175
Estimated words: 164346 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 822(@200wpm)___ 657(@250wpm)___ 548(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164346 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 822(@200wpm)___ 657(@250wpm)___ 548(@300wpm)
“Moving on,” I say, “Did you know where Blake was when she ran away?” I’m not going to waste much of our time. Gunner and Prickett got the Lords out here for a show, so I’m going to give them one.
“No,” she growls.
I lower the knife, slicing a piece of skin off the top of her shoulder. “That’s a lie.”
She screams, blood flowing down her arm and the chair as the piece of skin sits on the floor by my shoe.
If Matt knew she was back and sent Cindy to get Blake out of her way, then Matt had to have known where she was the entire time, which makes sense. It’s just more pieces of the puzzle that I needed. Since I have Cindy’s phone now, I have access to a lot of their secrets. All involving my wife and keeping her from me. “Again. Did you know where Blake was when she ran away?”
“Yes,” she manages to get out through a sob, dropping her head forward.
Now we’re getting somewhere. “How did you know?”
Sniffing and licking the snot and tears that cover her upper lip, she answers me, “Matt told me he was going to talk to her in your room. And that she would run out afterward …he told me to follow her and let him know where she went.”
I hate how much Matt outsmarted me. I knew he told Blake those things to get her to leave, but he knew exactly what she would do, and he wanted eyes on her. I thought it was just the fact that she was leaving me, but he wanted to know where she was when he knew I couldn’t reach her.
“You didn’t find that odd?” I wave the bloody knife in the air. “That your Lord wanted you to follow his ex?”
“He … he told me that he just wanted to make sure she didn’t return.” She yanks on the restraints, and I watch blood start to run from her wrists due to the tightness of the zip ties. Her hands are turning blue. She keeps clenching and unclenching them.
“But she returned,” I add. “Because I found her and brought her back.”
“No.” She shakes her head quickly, throwing her hair around. “She came back for Matt.”
I frown. “What makes you think that?”
A soft sob comes out. “He told me so. Said that she returned for him. That she wanted to divorce you …” Not a total lie when I dragged her back. “And that I had to help him take care of her.”
Matt told Cindy that Blake was at the house of Lords—which was true—and that if she wanted me, she needed to get Blake out of the way. The man is just putting every bitch he knows on my wife, hoping someone takes her out. Over my dead body! “That’s not what Cindy told me.”
Her head snaps up, and her wide, watery eyes meet mine. She doesn’t know that I’ve already played this game with her bestie. “Cindy … no…”
I drag the tip of the blade down her arm, splitting the skin, and she screams. “Try again.”
“Stop,” she sobs. “Please … you don’t understand.”
That’s also what Cindy said. “Explain it to me in the simplest form.”
Spit flies from her mouth when she speaks. “Blake had been blowing up Matt’s phone while she was gone.”
“Another lie …” I grab a handful of her hair and shove her head forward, running the blade across the back of her neck, making sure to only cut the skin and not to cut too deep and sever her spinal cord. “Tell the truth!” I shout, getting tired already.
She sobs. “I don’t know …”
I slice along the top of her bare thigh. I’m not stabbing her because I don’t want her to die. Yet. I just want to make her feel the sting enough to bleed.
My black combat boots step in the puddles of blood on the floor while I circle her, leaving bloody shoe prints around the chair. Ignoring her cries, I walk over to the table and pick up the cell phone that Gunner put up there for me. Opening up a chat, I read it out loud.
“You know Ryat will look for her again, Cindy tells Matt,” I say, jumping midway into their convo. No need to rehash the entire thing. She was part of it, after all, so she should remember it.
“Yeah. I’m counting on it. This time, he won’t get so lucky. The only thing of her he’ll see will be the videos I choose to send him. That was your boyfriend, by the way.” I clarify to Ashley, who just sits there bleeding and crying. “This is where it gets interesting.” I scroll down a little. “You join the conversation, Ashley.”
“I can get you a sedative to give her. That way, you don’t have to fight with her. Just one poke, and she’ll be out. You send with a sleeping emoji.”