Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 50561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 253(@200wpm)___ 202(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 253(@200wpm)___ 202(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
I breathed a little easier when I saw that she was still okay and in one piece. She was tied to a chair and a man was walking around and around, pacing, with a gun rubbing the side of his face. The sight of that gun sent shivers down my spine, but I bit back the growl of anger.
I felt helpless as I watched him hold out the phone to her, having a good idea what he was saying. But then he hit her and everything else ceased to exist. I don’t remember crashing through the door, or pulling the trigger to get him away from her. I just remember the feel of her in my arms when I picked her up from that chair, safe, whole, alive.
Once I got her out of harm’s way, I was finally able to think clearly again, which might not be so good for the asshole I’d left writhing on the floor. He’d be lucky if the shot to his hand was the only one he suffered before the day was done. There are a million ways he could find his end out here in the backwoods of Tennessee never to be found again.
Back inside, I had to caution myself not to end him before I had some answers. “Who the fuck are you and what do you want with me?” He was either very crazy or very brave, because all he did was grin at me like I wasn’t standing there with a gun pointed at his head.
“So you don’t remember me huh?”
“Am I supposed to?” I knew for a fact that I’d never seen this asshole before in my life.
“Sure you are. Or do you make it a habit of going around destroying other people’s lives? Other than mine of course.”
“Am I supposed to know what the fuck you’re talking about? Why were you and Jen after me? I’m not your usual mark, so there must be something else going on here, tell me.”
“You really don’t remember huh. Well that’s just great.” I waited for him to tell me what the hell he was talking about but he just glared up at me with venom. “I need to get to a hospital.” He raised the hand with the hole in it at me.
“We’ll get to that as soon as I get some answers. That is, if there’s anything left for them to patch together when I’m done if you don’t start talking. Now I know you and Jen had some kind of racket going, what I don’t know is why me? You keep inferring that I’ve wronged you in some way but I don’t see how that’s possible, since I have no idea who the fuck you are.”
“Does the name Rosalinda Strait mean anything to you?” It sounded familiar but obviously wasn’t someone I dealt with on a regular basis because I still couldn’t place it. He seemed to become more irate at my blank look, and forgetting the gun I had pointed at his head struggled to his feet.
“She was my mother and you destroyed her with your lies.” Spittle and blood came flying from his lip where I’d punched him when I walked back into the cabin. “Now do you remember?”
“Not a clue.”
“So you don’t remember the woman whose name you dragged through the mud. The woman you destroyed until she slit her wrist in the bathtub of a filthy motel after her family turned their back on her.” I was starting to get a picture but it couldn’t be, could it?
“Are you, was your mother the one who took me in as a teen and treated me and others like me like shit?” Now I was incredulous. Granted he was about three or four years younger than I back then, but there’s no way he didn’t remember what the hell went on in that house.
“Ding-ding-ding-ding, what have we got for him Johnny?”
“You’re just as fucked as she was and if she ended herself all the better. Your mother was a sick twisted fuck.” He charged me, giving me the perfect excuse to put a bullet in his head, but instead I kneed him in the balls.
Maybe if she wasn’t sitting out there scared half out of her mind I would’ve pulled the trigger, but there was no justification for it. Too bad, but I was sure this little prick would suffer even worse behind bars.
“And the judge and the ex-DA worked the case I presume?” Now it all made sense, the connection between me, and them. How long had he been planning this shit? What a fucking waste of life. I remember the family, outside of his demented mother, there was a grandfather I think, and yes they did come from money. He could’ve gone on to become anything, but instead he chose to give his life over to vengeance for a woman who didn’t deserve it. That still didn’t answer the question of Jen and her involvement.