Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 77205 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77205 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Not if Millie was alone and scared in Newark.
Sure, there were decent areas there, but she wouldn’t know enough about the town to direct the cab driver.
I prayed she was hiding out somewhere safe. A cafe or restaurant or something. Where other people were.
It wasn’t a long drive, but I swear each minute felt like an hour. It probably felt double that for her, since I had no fucking clue how long she’d been gone before I noticed.
The GPS tag took me right to a seedy-ass looking motel, and I felt no better when I walked into the office to find a man with ‘bad news’ written all over his forehead sitting there.
“Sixty-five for the night,” he said, barely looking up. “Twenty for the hour,” he added with a sneer.
Fucking disgusting.
“I’m looking for my girl,” I said.
“Bet you are,” he said, nodding.
I barely held back the eye roll.
“Red hair. Has a dog with her.”
“Oh, that pretty thing. Yeah, she’s here. But I can’t be telling you where,” he said, shaking his head.
Right.
Because this fuck had morals.
But this wasn’t the time for telling a schmuck like this what an asshole he was.
So I reached for my wallet, passing him a fifty. Which was fucking all he was getting out of me. I didn’t care if I had to bang down every door of this motel to find her.
“Room Twelve,” he said.
I didn’t bother to thank him. That was what the fifty was for.
I heard Storm before I even made it in front of the door. A low, threatening growl.
That dog was gonna get a fucking steak all to himself when this shit was settled, and everyone was safe again. I liked knowing Millie had him around to protect her. Especially as he got bigger and more intimidating.
Hearing me get closer, he must have charged at the door, making a fuss, trying to scare off anyone who wanted to hurt his favorite person.
At least I knew I had the right room.
There was a long pause after I spoke through the door before Millie responded, making me worry how freaked out she was if she didn’t recognize me as a safe person.
How close of a call had it been?
Then there was a shitton of shuffling and noises that had my brows furrowing before the door sprang open, and Millie threw herself at me.
But not before I got a look at her tear-streaked cheeks and puffy eyes.
She was a wreck, clinging to me like she thought she’d never see me again, a slight tremble moving through her body as I walked her into the room, and closed the door behind me.
“It’s alright. I got you,” I told her, wishing I could take her over to the bed, hold her on my lap. But I could just imagine that fucking comforter lighting up like a goddamn Christmas tree under a black light. So I just stood there holding her until, finally, she started to ease away from me.
“How’d you find us?” she asked, still not releasing me, but putting enough space between us for me to look down at her.
“Storm’s collar,” I told her.
“His collar?” she asked, looking down at it, brows pinched.
“It has a GPS tracker, in case he ever got away from either of us. It… came in handy tonight.”
“He came for me,” she said, shaking her head. “How did he find me? I’m supposed to be dead.”
“Unfortunately, I have the answer and blame for that,” I told her.
“What? How?”
“Remember the doctor who gave you a script for pain pills?”
“In Jersey?”
“Yeah. Seems like Neeley somehow found him, beat the shit out of him, and got a name and general location. I just found out about the doctor at my meeting,” I added. “Rushed right home. The place was tossed. And you were gone.”
Even just the memory of that had my heart seizing in my chest. A wrecked apartment. Her absence. A man who wanted her after he’d already tried to kill her once.
“I was… distracted walking Storm home. It made me a few minutes later. If I hadn’t been, I would have been in the apartment. But I just… saw them and ran. But after they… tossed your apartment, they must have decided to just fan out and look. They saw me. So I got into a cab and just… told him to take me here. Well, here, as in Jersey. Not the hotel room from every disgusting 1970s porn movie.”
That made a little chuckle move through me.
She was freaked.
But if she was cracking jokes, she’d be okay.
“What do we do now?” she asked, glancing around the room. “Please tell me it’s not to stay here.”
“I think we can probably do better than this,” I told her. “But we need to stay out of the city for a bit. At least until I can figure out my next move.”