Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 119597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 478(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 478(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
The room spins, and I grab the bed railing for support.
“You’re not going anywhere.” He lifts my bare legs, tucks them back in, and directs his eyes to my head. “Do you remember what happened?”
I reach up and prod at the bandage covering my entire skull. “How long have I been here?”
“A few hours. You have a head injury. Concussion.” His Adam’s apple bobs. “Lacerations and contusions all over your body from your broken seat, flying debris, and impacts with the interior of the aircraft.”
“What about Leo and Kody?”
Impatience, anger, and something else flash in his eyes. “You know better than anyone that the hospital doesn’t provide patient information to non-family members.”
Monty is their family.
Maybe he doesn’t know.
Or maybe he’s still keeping secrets, pretending to be someone else.
He never told me he had siblings. Never warned me he had a raping, kidnapping, pedophile brother.
Why hasn’t he asked me who Leo and Kody are or why I was with them? It’s as if he’s deliberately avoiding the topic.
Do I even know this man?
Married or not, we’re strangers with the same last name, and that name isn’t even real.
He said he was searching for me. Does that mean he knows I was kidnapped?
He knows something.
Do I think he was involved in Denver’s evil bargains? No. Jesus, I can’t fathom that. But he may have been privy to it, and that’s a level of fucked-up I can’t process right now.
I don’t trust him.
But I do know one thing. If Monty wants something, he gets it.
“You’re telling me…” I narrow my eyes. “You let a little privacy act stop you from acquiring information? The Monty I knew would’ve pressured and plied everyone here until he found out who his wife was traveling with.”
He lowers to the edge of my bed, studying me. “I overheard the nurses talking about them. They sustained injuries, but they aren’t life-threatening.”
“Spinal injuries?”
“Nothing serious. That’s all I know. I didn’t even know their names until you just told me.”
I briefly close my eyes, savoring that confirmation.
“Do you remember what happened?” he asks again, coaxing my gaze back to him.
“A lot has happened, and I remember every goddamn second of it.”
I’m not the same person I was nine months ago, and I’m not the only one who’s changed.
The man sitting before me looks startlingly different. He’s the Monty I remember but older, sadder, and brutally worn down. He looks fucking exhausted.
His face, once so chiseled, smoothly shaved, and distinguished, now bears the shadows of unkempt stubble and sleepless nights. The wrinkles around his eyes are deeper, more pronounced, as if each day without me added another layer of age.
Those eyes are still hard and cutting, but they now hold a depth of sorrow and regret so profound it hurts to look at him.
They’re the eyes of a man who faced the very real possibility of never seeing his wife again.
He’s lost weight, not to the dangerous degree that I have, but his suit hangs off his shoulders, oversized and crumpled, as though he’s been wearing it for days on end, perhaps even sleeping in it.
He doesn’t look like a man who’s been out on the town, fucking every woman in Alaska.
He looks broken.
I’ve been searching for you…for so long.
I have so many questions I don’t even know where to begin.
Despite his deterioration, there’s a resilience in his bearing, the same focused, unwavering determination that made his global consulting firm so successful. He’s not a man who gives up, no matter the cost to his physical and mental health.
He’s been ruthlessly punishing himself for a long time, and it’s unsettling to see it so clearly in his haggard appearance.
I harbor deep-seated anger for him, but I feel a pang of guilt for the pain he’s endured, a swell of love for the man I married, a man who evidently never stopped looking for me.
I’ve always been weak where he’s concerned. But I can’t afford to be that way now.
“Can you forgive me?” He braces his hands on either side of my head, ensnaring me with his gaze.
“What are your sins, Montgomery Strakh?”
He doesn’t react to his real name on my lips. Doesn’t blink or breathe. Then slowly, stunningly, a sound rises in his throat. A deep, guttural sound of pain.
Pressing his lips in a tight line, he strangles the sob, swallows it down, and stares at me with a staggering cloud of agony and rage pulsing in his eyes.
I shiver. “Do you know who Leo and Kody are?”
He shakes his head, hands fisting in my pillow, his eyes never leaving mine.
“Denver took them when they were children. Held them captive all these years.” I lower my voice, a soft murmur against the wall of tension between us. “He took me, too.”
My heart clenches at the thought of them, my feral protectors. Are they awake? Looking for me? Needing me? How badly are they hurt?