Total pages in book: 180
Estimated words: 168587 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 843(@200wpm)___ 674(@250wpm)___ 562(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 168587 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 843(@200wpm)___ 674(@250wpm)___ 562(@300wpm)
I start to dry heave, but thankfully, I don’t actually vomit. After a few seconds, I shut the lid and exit the stall. I come to a stop when I see two women now standing in the bathroom. Blakely Archer and Ellington Sinnett. Ryat’s and Sin’s wives.
“Are you okay?” Blakely asks me. Her hands on her growing belly.
Did they follow me in here? Did Tyson send them after me? Or their husbands? I’m not sure how close Sin is to Tyson, but I know that Ryat would throw me under the bus without thought. The fact that he stood next to him at the altar proves that.
I nod. “Yeah.” Walking over to the sink, I turn on the faucet and cup the water in my hand to take a sip. Swishing it around, I spit it out and turn it off, trying to get the sour taste out of my mouth. I still feel like I’m about to get sick. “Did Tyson send you two to fetch me?” I’m sure my time away from him has expired.
“No.” They both frown.
Ellington’s eyes drop to my stomach, and I know what she’s thinking. They just walked in on me about to get sick. I’m married to a Lord. It’s not their fault they think the way they do; it’s just how we’re raised.
“I’m not pregnant,” I state, and they look at one another. I hate that this is how I’m meeting them. I’d love to have friends. Like real friends. Ones that I can talk to about my day-to-day life, no matter how boring it is. But then again, they’re married to Lords, so the odds of ever getting close to them are pretty impossible.
An awkward silence lingers, and I take in a deep sigh. I want to punch Tyson in the face right now but also beg him to fuck me. Shit, I need another drink.
“I’m sorry about your sister,” Blakely says softly, probably overhearing my brother talking about her before they walked in.
My eyes lift to meet her blue ones. “You knew Whitney?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No, but I’d heard about her,” she answers vaguely.
“What did you hear?” I wonder.
Nibbling on her red-painted lip, she takes a second to debate if she should tell me. “Someone was telling me and my friend Sarah about the vow ceremony. Said Whitney cheated on her boyfriend with Tyson when she became his chosen.”
I frown at that. My sister never had a boyfriend. Not back then.
“But then I had asked Ryat about her, and he told me not to believe everything I hear. That she didn’t cheat on anyone with Tyson. That she had a stalker.”
“Who was it?” I ask, stepping toward her. This is news to me. Pregnant, boyfriend, stalker? Dear Lord, did I even know my sister?
“He never told me.” She gives me a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry.”
“Did you know her?” I ask Ellington.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t,” she softly answers.
My head hangs, and I watch Blake’s black heels walk toward me. “How are you doing? Are you okay?”
I look up once again and realize she doesn’t mean right here, right now in the middle of this bathroom. She means life in general. I nod and lie. “Yeah.” Unable to tell her that I’ve become Tyson’s whore. Her husband was the one who helped my husband. I can’t afford for her to tell Ryat anything and it get back to Tyson.
“Do you have your cell on you?” Ellington asks.
I open up my clutch and pull it out. Blakely takes it from me and after a few seconds, she hands it over to Ellington. “Let us know if you need anything,” Blakely says, giving me a kind smile. “We may be married to Lords, but us Ladies have to stick together.”
I pray that Tyson will let me see them again. I’m suffocating at Blackout. I’m not sure if that’s Tyson’s plan or what, but if so, it’s working.
TYSON
A server sets another drink down for me when Ryat asks, “How are things going at Blackout?”
I look over toward the hallway that leads to the bathroom, wondering what’s taking my wife so long before I answer. “You guys see the girl all over the news who’s gone missing?”
He and Sin both nod, already knowing who I’m talking about. You can’t miss her. Her picture is everywhere.
“Had two detectives show up a couple of weeks ago looking for her. Said she was last seen at Blackout before she went missing.”
Sin raises both of his hands. “Wasn’t me.”
Ryat snorts at the fact that Sin had brought detectives to my club a while back for killing a man who was last seen at Blackout. And although I wasn’t happy with him about it at the time, it did end up working out for him in the long run.