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)
“So what have we learned from all of this?” Lex muses as he circles my father. “That you cannot be trusted with even a dollar of my fucking money.” He pauses and clenches my father’s shoulders. “You used all of my money on that monster.”
He points at me, and it feels like the earth is caving in underneath my feet.
Tears stain my eyes as my fingers dig into my skin.
“And you know, I wouldn’t even mind, if you’d paid me back,” Lex continues. “But you didn’t. No, you had to go and lie your way through everything. Cheat me out of my hard-earned money. Just so you could steal it all and run away with it,” he growls, his grip on my father’s shoulders intensifying. “All this …” He looks around the office and into the warehouse. “And for what? Hmm? It wasn’t for her, that’s for sure.”
The way he looks at me makes me want to cry.
Lex flicks his fingers, and all the guards suddenly walk toward my father.
Oh God.
Are they going to kill him?
“No, please, don’t hurt him!” I shriek.
They pick up his chair and haul him out of the office.
Lex walks past me but pauses to whisper into my ear, “Are you sure you should be worried about his life when yours is no longer of value to me?”
My stomach almost turns upside down right then, and I have to physically swallow down the bile.
“Come and witness your father’s demise,” he says, squeezing my shoulder, “and maybe, just maybe …”
He doesn’t finish his sentence. Instead, he walks right past me into the main hall, where they’ve left my father on his chair. He’s rocking about, desperately trying to free himself, to no avail.
All it does is make the guards, and Lex, laugh.
The only ones who aren’t laughing are Beast and me.
Lex circles my father again and grabs him by the throat. “Well, c’mon then, explain to your daughter what the fuck you’ve been up to.”
He rips the piece of cloth out of my father’s mouth.
“This is just a warehouse. None of it is—”
WHACK!
Lex smacks him across the face. “Don’t. Lie.”
“All right, all right, yes, I used this warehouse to trade around some stuff. It was only so I could make the money back,” my father explains.
“Money you owed me,” Lex adds.
“Yes, yes, but I promise, I can pay you back now,” he says, his eyes drifting to a particular box in the back. “There’s money in there. Enough to pay off everything I owe.”
Lex smiles and leans in. “You think I’d be satisfied with a little payment?” He fishes a knife from his pocket and rams it straight into Papa’s thigh.
I gasp in shock as my father screams out in pain and begins to cry.
“Please! Please, have mercy. I’ll give you everything I have,” my father begs.
“ENOUGH!” Lex pulls his knife from my father’s leg and cleans it on his shirt. “You’ve had enough time. I gave you a chance to pay me back, over and over again. And now I’ve finally had enough.”
“What do you want? I’ll give you anything,” my father says. “You want more than just money? I have plenty stacked in boxes. You can take all my heroin and cocaine. Take the weed and the guns. I don’t care. You can have it all. It’s yours.”
I hate seeing him like this. I hate what his business has done to him. What his business has done to us.
“No amount of money will give me back the trust and patience I lost, Blom,” Lex growls. “No more negotiations. You had your shot. So now, I’ll take all of your money and destroy you.”
I shake my head. “Please, don’t kill him.”
Lex glares at me now, and it feels like I’m being choked by nothing but thin air. “Why do you think I brought you here, Aurora?”
I’m too stunned to speak.
“ANSWER ME!”
“I don’t know. To let me free?”
He laughs maniacally but it suddenly ends. “No.” His smile is gone. “To let you watch the man who spent my money on you die.”
The guard shoves a gun into Beast’s hand. My jaw drops but he seems as surprised as I am.
“And my dog will do it for me,” he growls.
My eyes widen. I shake my head, tears streaming down my face. “Please, no. Don’t do this.”
But Lex completely ignores me as he focuses on Beast, who just stands there with the gun in his hand. “Now prove your loyalty to me, Beast. And maybe I will finally release you from your chains and give you what you always wanted …” Beast’s eyes flicker with promise as they home in on Lex as he mutters the word, “Freedom.”
CHAPTER 28
Beast
Freedom.
The moment he says the word out loud, everything around me ceases to exist.
Years. Years of my life spent in captivity. In solitude.