Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 73423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
But the moment passes, and she spits out the cloth I pushed between her lips. “What do you want from me?”
My lips smash together, and my fists tighten as she tries to slide off the bed.
“Don’t move,” I growl.
“What are you going to do to me?” she asks, tears staining her eyes. “Are you going to kill me?”
The question sounds so simple.
The answer should be yes.
Should.
When I stood in front of that piano, fingers locked around her throat, I thought of nothing else but choking the life out of this girl until nothing but another body was left on the pile. Just for trying to get in my way.
Until our eyes met, and I saw my own reflection through her pupils.
And for the first time in forever, I felt something more than pure and utter rage.
My fist tightens so harshly my nails dig into the palm of my hand, and I turn around and start pacing the room.
I should not be doing this.
I should not have brought her here.
I should’ve killed her when I had the chance.
I glance at her over my shoulder, but she keeps staring at me, making it hard to focus.
The second those eyes chose mine, I was lost.
I growl to myself and immediately turn to charge at her. She shrieks as I approach, my hands at the ready to curl around her neck again and end this swiftly. I have to. For my sake. For my owner’s. For her.
No.
I stop right before the tips of my fingers hit her skin.
She whimpers. “Please, don’t kill me.”
I pause and stare down at my fingers, her skin. My senses come alive, prickling with energy like lightning.
She looks up at me with doe-like eyes, shuddering with fear. “Please. There must be something I can give you. Do you want money? My family has plenty.”
My nostrils flare.
She thinks I can be bribed with money? Wrong.
Her lips part. “My father can pay you what you want if you let us both live.”
Her father.
I grasp her face with one hand, pressing her cheeks together, forcing her to listen. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” she replies, crying. “Please, don’t hurt me.”
Hurt her?
I must admit, the thought did cross my mind several times.
I almost killed her.
Almost.
But something about the way she looks at me stops me from going too far.
I lean in and lift her face so I can look into her eyes. Her face is round and puffy, lips heart-shaped and petite but pink, her neatly kept black hair all bungled up from the messy ride, but I know what it looked like before I raided that house.
She looks like a porcelain doll.
An expensive one, but a doll nonetheless.
I put her back down on the bed and continue pacing around the room to try to make sense of things.
One thing I know for sure is that I never miss my target.
Except for today.
Fuck.
Blom should’ve died.
I was this close to fucking ripping off his head.
Until I got distracted by his daughter raising a gun at me, and he escaped.
And now I’m left with her.
What the fuck do I do?
I pause and turn to look at her.
My mere gaze has her crawling back on the bed until she reaches the edge, her fingers searching for anything to grab onto, even when her wrists are tightly locked together with a strap.
What could she possibly hope to achieve?
She couldn’t use anything in this room against me and win.
And I think she knows that, judging from the petrified look on her face.
“What are you going to do with me?” she asks.
Hmm …
That’s right.
What am I going to do with her?
I can only stay in this hotel for a single night. My owner expects me back in the morning. With a head. Which I don’t have.
All I have is this girl.
She’s seen too much to be let go. But I can’t kill her either.
“Please, I’ll do anything. Just don’t kill me,” she murmurs, tears rolling down her cheeks.
I’ve seen girls cry before, but never one as pretty as her.
And never once before in my life have I felt the need to take a girl up on her offer.
Until now.
Aurora
Suddenly, he marches toward me, and I shriek again, “No!”
Too late. His hands are already around my ankles, dragging me down the bed until I’m flat, and he spins me around to lie on my belly. Then he crawls on top of me, his weight bearing down on me as I kick around helplessly.
“Please, I don’t wanna die!” I beg.
He grasps my wrists, pinning them to my back, and pulls out a knife.
The same knife that easily sliced through my father’s arm.
My mind is sinking into a hole so deep I don’t know if I can crawl out of it.
This is it. This is the end.
Oh God.
I’m not ready. I want to live.