Touch of Hate Read Online J.L. Beck, Cassandra Hallman

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Contemporary, Dark, Forbidden, Mafia, Romance Tags Authors: ,
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Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 125465 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 627(@200wpm)___ 502(@250wpm)___ 418(@300wpm)
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Guilt tugs at my heart, and I can’t help thinking about Aspen. I really hope he got the message to Q sooner rather than later. I would hate to think about her going through stress while she’s pregnant.

Naturally, I can’t mention any of this to the back of Ren’s head. I shudder to think how he might lash out if I dared.

Tears well up in my eyes before I can stop them. It takes rapid, frantic blinking to push them back. I don’t want him to know how this is killing me. Seeing him like this. Knowing how badly he must’ve been hurt out here.

Stupid me. I used to think the most painful thing in life was being kept away from the person I loved.

Now I know there’s a fate far more painful. So terrible, I’m afraid my heart’s literally about to shatter. I can’t reach out and touch him—not when he’s like this, brooding in his dark place.

I can’t ask any questions about it for fear of how he’ll react.

I can’t help him. Not at this very moment, at least. I don’t know what to do. How to fix him.

No way would he want to act like this if he had any idea what he was doing. No, he either had a fall or was in an accident. Or maybe he was sick with a high fever and didn’t get treatment in time. This cabin seems very remote from what I’ve seen through the grimy windows. Trees and more trees. Even a moderate snow might make getting to a hospital all but impossible for a sick or injured person.

My poor Ren. Out here all alone, with no one to care.

And now he has someone who cares but isn’t well enough to accept help. Not all the time. Not when his temper flares up, and he ends up shutting me out of his life.

Out of his heart, even. It sure seems that way.

I can’t help but shed a tear, but I manage to brush it away before he turns to the stove and feeds more wood into its mouth.

My Ren. I’m going to get help for you if it’s the last thing I ever do.

Even though I know you’ll make it difficult.

20

SCARLET

The birds chirp madly outside the bedroom window as I open my eyes on yet another day of wondering how the hell we’re supposed to get through this together. After spending a long, boring day listening to him clicking the keys, he was still on his laptop when I went to bed last night.

He had his earbuds in most of the time, shutting me out in favor of the music he was listening to. He had it cranked loud enough that I could hear some of it, vaguely recognizing the driving beat of heavy metal. He was so deep into whatever he was working on that I might as well have not been here.

The sting of being ignored still paled compared to the piercing pain of being left alone with my thoughts. Even now, hours later, I want nothing more than to turn away from the dark self-reproach which gripped and threatened to break me.

I’m putting my family through agony for this?

I hate myself for having thought it, but there’s no denying the bitter truth. My parents have already lost a daughter. I witnessed that torment, heard my father’s powerless pacing and my mother’s helpless sobs. Just like I watched Q break down and wished I could take it all away.

You can’t absorb someone else’s pain, no matter how much you love them.

This time, I’m the source of the pain. I’m the reason my father has probably threatened to murder dozens of men—if he’s stopped at threats, which he probably hasn’t. I’m the reason Mom’s crying and asking herself if she could’ve done something to stop this. And what about Aspen? What if—

Stop this. What good did punishing myself do yesterday? What might it do again today?

Oh no. My body curls on itself at the question. I couldn’t take another day of nothing to do but torture myself. He needs to be in a better mental place today, or I might shatter for good under the weight of my guilt.

My poor, lonely heart sinks when I wake up to find him already out of bed. The pillow is cold, no big surprise.

And the keys are clicking away. Again.

Still? Did he ever come to bed?

I search my memory for any hint of him being here overnight, next to me, and come up blank. Maybe I slept deeply enough that I didn’t notice.

Maybe he never went to sleep at all.

I know better than to ask for a clue as to what’s so important. It must be something to do with this mission of his, which I hardly know anything about. Only that it’s important—of course—and he supposedly needs me to be a part of it.


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