Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
“Why are you here?” His words bounced off me like bullets against a steel plate. I felt no love for this man, none whatsoever, so he was just a crazy stranger hurling insults like a clown tossing pies.
His face flushed red like I’d pissed him off. “No respect—”
“What do you want?” Now, I was the one to yell, wanting him out of my apartment as quickly as possible. “You haven’t seen or spoken to your son in two years, and then you decide to come by and start shit? I’m fully aware of what a grand disappointment I am to you, Dad. But you’re a far bigger disappointment to me.”
I’d clearly hit one of his buttons because he stepped toward me like some cheap trick to intimidate me.
I’d lived a hard life these last two years, so I couldn’t be intimidated. I stood my ground and faced off against the man I hated more than any other.
He snapped first and slapped me, slapped me like we were girls.
His palm struck me first before I twisted his arm around then shoved him hard into the boxes near the wall, needles and garbage flying everywhere, his heavy body thudding against the wall. He released a grimace when he landed hard on his shoulder then got back to his feet, looking at me like I was responsible for all of this. But this was how he’d always been, treating every reaction like it was the action that set everything in motion.
“I wanted one son, and your mother just had to have another. A worthless son I wish I’d never had—”
I punched him hard in the face, using all the muscles in my arm to send him to the floor. “And I wish you were dead. I wish you were rotting in the ground so I could piss on your fucking grave.” I slammed my foot right down on his face.
His nose broke and he screamed. He reached for my ankle and tugged, sending me to the floor so he could crawl on top of me. He was much older than me but could still pack a punch. He hit me in the face with a closed fist. He grabbed me by the neck and slammed the back of my head into the floor. “Pompous. Arrogant. Son of a bitch.” He punched me again.
My head turned, and I saw stars for a second, the lights turning off in my eyes.
He pulled his gun but didn’t have the chance to point it at me.
I twisted his arm and pointed it into his chest, and then I squeezed the trigger, all of it happening in a split second.
He could have tried to get rid of the gun so I couldn’t use it against him. Or he could have been prepared to shoot me right there, in the fucking head, and that was the reason he’d come in the first place.
But now I would never know—because he was dead.
He went limp against me, his eyes shifting away before they went still.
I rolled him off me, the gun dropping to the floor because his grip had died with him.
I lay there, seeing the blood pool on the floor and inch closer to me until it absorbed into my clothes and coated my flesh. I lay there in my father’s blood, my eyes full of tears, not from what I’d done, but because of how this had ended.
He hadn’t come here to reconcile.
He’d come to kill me.
8
BASTIEN
I drove us to one of the warehouses outside the city, a couple miles from the international airport. I rarely drove myself, so my collection of cars seemed wholly unnecessary. I’d picked out the Bugatti, custom-made with bulletproof windows and doors, and drove the two of us out of the city.
Our conversation in the bathtub last night had seemed to chase away her fear, so even though I’d confessed I was a coldhearted killer, at least some good had come out of it. Baths still weren’t my thing, even with a sexy and soapy lady across from me. It was too hot, and I felt like I was boiling. But I did it for her, wanting her to get back something an asshole had taken from her.
She’d told me her feelings for me hadn’t changed despite my secret, and despite the fact that she’d been quiet ever since, I believed her. She had no context for the situation because I didn’t explain it to her. I’d never told Luca either. He probably assumed I’d hunted down my father out of spite and revenge, but it was actually the other way around.
We pulled past the gates and into the warehouse compound, which looked quiet and abandoned since there were only two cars there. The guys hid their cars in the hangar on the property across the road, completely out of sight.