Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 77719 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77719 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
When Nico had appeared, I’d finally managed to relax, knowing Wes would keep her safe no matter what.
It’d been one response from me, four little words, that’d cracked her and triggered the attack which had resulted in forty-eight stitches on the inside and outside of my abdomen.
“What you gonna do if I kill her? Huh?”
Looking over her shoulder, I saw Nico standing where Sienna had been only seconds ago, looking at her back blankly, before I focused back on her.
“You’ll never get the chance.”
Lifting the gun and pointing it at my head, she started shifting her weight from foot to foot, like she’d done only moments ago. “Why?”
“Because I love her.”
Those were the four innocent words that’d snapped whatever control the shifting movement had given her because I saw her expression change and ducked just as she fired the weapon.
Not even thinking about it, I lunged forward and tackled her, knocking her down to the ground, and reached up to grab the hand the gun was in before she could get her bearings and aim it at me again. Unfortunately, I forgot all about the pencil, until I felt a sharp pain in my abdomen.
But I couldn’t let go of her hand.
In fact, I didn’t let go of it, even when Nico squatted down next to us and pushed her onto her front on the ground. It wasn’t until he nudged me and gestured with his chin to unwrap her fingers from around the gun that I moved. Flicking the safety on and wrestling her fingers from their grip around it, I had it in my hand and was able to relax while he cuffed her hands behind her back.
That’s when the adrenaline started to wear off, and the sharp pain in my side morphed into something much worse. Pressing the hand that wasn’t holding Hazel’s gun against it, I felt something warm and wet and pulled it away to check what it was.
Even in the dim lighting, I could see the crimson shade staining it.
Nico yelling, “Fuck, Jinx! Get an ambulance,” jolted me, but then I was knocked onto my back by Bash and Mento, who’d finally managed to get free from whatever had been used to tie them to the bed.
I’d been taken into hospital, but with the angle and the lack of momentum she was able to build up in the short distance between us to plunge the pencil in like she had to Sienna, they were just seriously deep lacerations.
My intestines were fine, my kidneys were fine, everything was fine, and they’d closed the wounds and released me the following day with antibiotics and painkillers.
I finally truly understood some of what Sienna had gone through eleven years ago. Fear, the pain of it happening, the pain of the recovery, and seeing it every day and remembering.
Whereas hers had been a memory she wanted to erase, mine was one I never wanted to forget because it marked the moment her freedom truly started.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to get a tattoo over it when the time was right and the skin was healed, though. Hell no, I already knew what I was having done.
Giving it one last look in the mirror before I pulled my t-shirt over my head, I took in the angry red lines with small dots on either side of them from where they’d removed the stitches only four days ago. The moment I dropped the material, it disappeared from sight, but that didn’t mean it was gone from my mind.
No, wounds like those still causes pain after the stitches were out. When you laugh, cough, sneeze, move too quickly, trip… everything makes them hurt. It’d go away with time, I just had to remember that the pain was worth it. Hazel wasn’t getting bail, so she couldn’t get to Sienna again.
Walking slowly into her living room, and ignoring the glare coming from her grandpa, Arnold, I carefully lowered myself onto her couch, breathing out a sigh of relief when my ass was on the cushion.
Shelby, her mom, may have already known her daughter had gotten a tattoo over her scars, but she’d managed to keep it a secret from the rest of her family. That was until Sienna’s shirt had ridden up yesterday when she’d reached to get something out of the cupboard.
All Arnold had done was turn his head and glare at me. And that’s all he’d done since.
“Now, Arnie, give the guy a break. Can’t you see he’s hot?” Rose sighed, patting him on the shoulder. “You’ve got to give the handsome ones some leeway.”
Not taking his eyes off me, he crossed his arms over his chest. “Why?”
“It’s a general human code. I think the tattoo’s beautiful, Jordan. Would you be able to do one on me, too?”
Her husband sat up straight in his seat and turned to glare at her. “Are you out of your ever-loving mind, woman?”