Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 27683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 138(@200wpm)___ 111(@250wpm)___ 92(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 138(@200wpm)___ 111(@250wpm)___ 92(@300wpm)
My eyes roam from his large hand on my wrist to his soft, dark brown eyes. Those eyes ease my fears. Yes, Bryce has displayed barbaric brutality, but his eyes show regret and compassion, two emotions I never saw in Paul’s eyes. Not once.
“Please,” he adds.
“Let’s go, Isla,” Paul demands, reaching for me. “Don’t make a stupid mistake.”
“I’m staying.”
Paul’s jaw ticks as his lips curve into a sinister smile—a smile I’ve seen many times before he beats me. “You’ll regret it, Isla. You’ve got to come home sometime.”
Bryce moves in front of me again, shielding me from Paul. “She’s never coming back.”
Paul laughs. “Of course she is. She’s not gonna sleep on the streets.”
“She’ll be fine,” Bryce says as he slams the door in Paul’s face. He locks it and rests his forehead on the wood for a second. He doesn’t say a word to me as he walks to the intercom on the wall and presses a button. “Get to my place now. Front door. If my piece of shit son hasn’t left the building in the next ten minutes, I want you to haul him away. I’d do it myself, but I have a guest, and killing someone in front of her wouldn’t be a good idea. Not right now, anyway.”
Killing someone? Would Bryce kill his own son? I want to say no, but the tone of his voice tells me I’d be dead wrong.
Bryce pushes a hand through his hair as he turns to me and leans against the wall. “How long has he been hitting you?”
“What?”
“I know he’s been hitting you. That fear in your eyes isn’t new to me. He hasn’t smacked you once. This has been going on for a while.”
I remain quiet, unsure of what to say.
“I’ve met a lot of men like Paul in my life. Piece of shit men who have a twisted notion that controlling and abusing women is helping them. They somehow delude themselves into thinking that being a man is equivalent to being a piece of shit. Man of the house, my rules, you do as I say or else.” He steps toward me, and I retreat a little. He’s massive. You wouldn’t know he was well into his forties. “I’m going to ask you again, Isla. How long has he been hitting you?”
I don’t know what to say. How do I confess the truth he seems to want but probably can’t handle? My mouth goes dry. I’m unsure how I utter the words that will make me sound more pathetic than I already feel. “It started after a month of dating.”
Bryce tilts his head and rubs his eyes. “He’s been treating you like trash for a year? An entire year of dealing with that abhorrent behavior?”
Shame covers me like ice in a blisteringly cold blizzard. “I’m pathetic.”
Chapter Four
BRYCE
Isla curls her slender arms around her waist. I watch in horror as my words cause her to physically shield herself. If I could drop-kick myself, I would because I’m a fucking asshole. I’ve shamed her, which is all Paul has ever done. People assume abusers only use violence on their victims, but it goes beyond that. Abusers break down every part of a person until there’s nothing left. It’s deconstruction. It doesn’t happen at once. It’s a slow, drawn-out campaign to strip all the layers until everything that makes them who they are is decimated.
I step toward her, and she shuffles back. She shakes, her bottom lip trembles, and a lonely tear glides down her face. She should lash out at me and run for the hills, but she stands there, vulnerable and exposed.
I’m at a loss about what to do. My piece of shit son has harmed her for the last year. Beyond all measures. She needs kindness, but I don’t understand what that word means to offer it to her. From a young age, I learned to be tough, aggressive, and even cruel to survive. Any gentleness was bred out of me a long time ago.
Isla is a rare being in a cruel world—a person who’s suffered but will continue to suffer for the comfort of another. It’s as if she can bear her bruises and abuse better than seeing another in pain. So she buries all the hurt and torment deep within herself to ease the sorrows of another.
What shocks me is that she’s doing it now. At this moment. For me. I don’t deserve her kindness when she should express every venomous thought about me.
I would have defended any woman in this situation. I’m a monster, but violence against a woman is a line I’ve crossed only once—with Julie, who was a child predator.
But when it comes to Isla, my instincts are far more nefarious. Honor and desire fuel me, and it frightens me to the core because, in all my forty-three years, I’ve never come across a woman as captivating as the one standing before me now. My eyes devour her, like simply looking at her can cure every disease ever inflicted upon me.