Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
It’s too dark to see. Too cold to feel. Terror strikes me to my core. Thump, thump.
His body is found first, his clothing floating in the water ahead of me. I shove past his lifeless corpse to find Kiersten in the murky depths. Seeing a flash of white, I grab and kick for the surface, bringing her with me.
Thump, thump.
I gasp for air and struggle to grip the edge of the dock and pull her up, soaking wet and barely cognizant.
Water drips down from the dock, and under the moonlight, I do everything I can to help her, all the while screaming for Joshua, screaming for help.
Surfacing, I can see the problem. He wrapped a rope around her neck as well. It looks like a bondage device, and something’s still pulled tight. Reaching behind her neck, I grab the rope and pull up, giving her a little bit of slack.
“Gabriel.” Joshua’s voice slices through the fear as I attempt to give Kiersten CPR. Hands on her chest, I breathe into her mouth. Her face is blue, her body still.
“Gabriel!” he screams, grabbing me, and in the dead of night, the sounds of tires and men yelling rings through. He has to rip me away and step in.
“She’s not breathing,” I barely get out. Thump, thump.
The fear of being too late is all that I can focus on as Joshua gives her CPR and then men hustle through the rundown warehouse.
We were too late. We were only a moment too late.
KIERSTEN
“How is she, Doctor?”
“Bruised trachea, a bit of water in the lungs, but she’ll live,” the doctor says, putting his stethoscope away. He’s a private doctor, Joshua assures us. With wrinkles around his eyes and gray at his temples, he’s older and calmer. His calm disposition is welcoming in all the chaos.
“Where did you fall in the water again?”
“By the docks,” I rasp, still shivering underneath the big, fluffy bathrobe Gabriel wrapped me in. The fire behind me blazes, and it’s not the temperature of the room that chills me. It's warm and cozy in Gabriel’s house. I just can’t believe what happened, and every time I even think about it, I start shivering again.
Reaching into his bag, he pulls out two boxes. “Here. General antibiotic, and a wide spectrum antiparasitic agent, a seven-day regimen. Just in case.” He hands them to Gabriel as I pull the robe tighter and try not to think about what happened. I almost died. If Gabriel hadn’t pulled me out of the water and Joshua hadn’t resuscitated me, I’d be dead just like Holden is.
“What’ll it do to her?” Gabriel asks, pulling me back to the moment. He’s still shaken up, in sweats and a white tee that clings to his shoulders, and clinging to me as if he’ll never let me go. He wraps an arm around me, pulling my chest to his front as he talks to the doctor and I lean into his warmth.
It’s over. He whispered to me the entire way back here. It’s over.
It’s really, truly over.
I can barely focus on the conversation at hand. All I can think is that it’s done. And we survived.
“Take these for now,” the doctor tells me, holding out his hand.
“Thank you, Doctor,” I rasp, taking the meds. One’s tiny and pink, looking almost like cake decoration candies, while the other’s a plain white tablet. Setting them on the table, I wait as Joshua escorts the doctor out, locking the door behind him.
“I’ll handle operations at the club tonight,” Joshua says. “I’ll also talk with Zander, explain to him the basics. Take a few days off. I’ll have people securing this place.”
“Joshua, no offense,” Gabriel says, “but can they be trusted? You trusted Holden.”
“And I’m going to be paying for that for a very long time,” Joshua says simply, looking at me. “Kiersten, you’re my business partner, yes. But you’re also like a little sister to me. That I fucked up this badly . . . I’m sorry.”
“We both fucked up,” I reply, getting up and approaching Joshua. “I trusted him too. There’s no guilt on your end. Let’s talk tomorrow, please,” I get out and then clear my throat. It hurts like hell.
Joshua nods, and a moment later, leaves. With the door closed behind him, it’s just Gabriel and me in his house, and the silence is heavy between us. Since pulling me out of the water, I haven’t said a word to him directly.
I don’t know what to say or what to think, even. He comes back into my life, and within weeks, my life is already in chaos again. And this time, I almost died over it.
But he saved me. And all of this happened because of me.
“Kiersten, if you want me to leave . . . I will,” Gabriel says quietly. “But if you’d let me stay, I want to stay.”