Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68937 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68937 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
I licked my lips when I was done, setting the glass down beside his water, and said, “How long have you been watching me?”
I hit pause on my show as he said, “Want it all?”
I licked my lips, then nodded.
“If I tell you, there’s no going back for me. Once you know…”
Once I knew, I’d have to be quiet about what I heard.
I kind of had an idea of what I would hear—IE him killing a man to protect me.
But what I got was so much more.
“I’ve been watching you for months,” he began. “Way before your brother and my sister met.”
I nodded.
“Shasha had an issue with the doctor that worked with you. McCinnish,” he continued. “He was drugging his patients…”
He then went on to explain all the bad things that the doctor had done in his time at our sleep center. From assault, to rape, to stealing. He’d done it all.
When he’d explained that he’d finished him off by making him look like he’d had a heart attack, I couldn’t find a single ounce of pity for McCinnish.
That part of me was broken—the one that felt sympathy for others when they’d experienced something horrendous.
I mean, sure, logically, I could sympathize with actual victims. But with men that hurt innocent people all for his own personal gain? No, I wasn’t ever going to feel bad about a man like that no longer living on this earth.
I hoped there was a special place in hell that he went and reaped what he’d sown.
While he’d spoken, Dima hadn’t once taken his eyes off of me.
“…and then I saw you,” he explained. “And I became…obsessed.”
I turned my full attention toward him. “Are you sure that this is a good idea?”
“You mean, you and me?” he asked.
I licked my lips and nodded.
“I’m not one hundred percent sure that I’m altogether sane anymore,” he admitted. “There’s something fundamentally broken inside of me. The United States government made sure of that. My gut says I got out too late.”
I leaned back in my seat and said, “Whatever is broken inside of me is drawn to that broken part in you.”
He picked up a piece of sushi with his chopsticks and said, “I have cameras in your place.”
I nodded. “I figured.”
“I followed you home multiple times,” he continued.
“I figured that, too.”
“I shot your friend’s boyfriend last night,” he confessed.
I blinked at him. “Really?”
“Really,” he replied. “He doesn’t know who I am or anything, but I’m sure it won’t take them very much to connect all the pieces if they see us together.”
“I’m done with her,” I admitted. “I can’t deal with that kind of stupidity anymore.”
He picked up another piece of sushi—my favorite—and handed it to me.
I took the whole piece into my mouth and chewed.
His eyes sparkled as he said, “I killed that man that hurt you when you were younger, too.”
I smiled then.
It wasn’t a pleasant smile. “I wish I’d been there to see it.”
His eyes gleamed then. “I have it recorded.”
I barked out a laugh around another bite of sushi.
Food went everywhere.
He didn’t seem to care, only grabbing a piece of paper towel and wiping it all up into his palm before depositing it into the towel and folding it in quarters.
Once he was done, he said, “I don’t know that I should have kids. I’m violent, Keely.”
“I haven’t gotten that far into my thought process on us,” I told him honestly. “I’m just getting comfortable with an idea that there is an us, let alone an us and more.”
He nodded once. “Fair.”
“So what next?” I asked.
He held out another bite of sushi for me before saying, “Now we dance.”
I always offer to cook, not because I’m nice, but because I want the food to taste good.
—Keely to Dima
DIMA
Her eyes were confused for a bit before I stood up, hauled her off the couch, and made my way to her bedroom with her over my shoulder.
Her cute squeak of ‘eeeep!’ was enough to have me smiling as I made my way down her hall toward her bedroom.
I knew exactly how to get there, following the steps that I knew to take after I’d placed the cameras in her bedroom a few weeks ago.
She didn’t comment on the way I’d known where to go, nor did she say a word when I threw her down onto the bed and followed her onto the plush comforter.
When I went to a plank over her, my dog tags slipped out of my shirt and fell against her torso, the metal pooling on the middle of her chest right beneath her collar bones.
Her eyes were an intense shade of green as she stared up at me with anticipation.
“You know who I am,” I said as I leaned closer, my lips skimming a line along the apple of her cheek. “You should probably be telling me no right now.”