Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 108119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
The only sound in that room was her breathing and the squeak of my leather gloves as I tightened my hands into fists.
I hated repeating myself.
She blinked slowly.
“Well?” I was agitated. I couldn’t read her as well as I could read other people, and that was saying something. I was forced at a young age to get good at reading the room, the men in it, my father especially. It was how I outsmarted him in the end, and how I stayed alive, by making him think he was in control when I pulled the strings.
It’s why I lasted.
Because I knew pride got you killed.
“Sorry.” She eyed me up and down then looked away. God, she was dirty. What did they do… roll her in a swamp before bringing her in here? I shook my head. No, I didn’t even want to know. It wasn’t my job to know what happened to her before she came here, even though I knew more than I’d care to admit to her.
She didn’t know that I was planning on killing her brother.
She didn’t know that I was going to go with Chase Abandonato and make it personal because I could.
She had no idea the monster I would become.
The one I would embrace.
“Speak.” I waited, my patience thinning by the second. “Or you could return to your room, the one with the chains on the bed and blood running down the cement floors, if you prefer that…”
“No, I just don’t know what you expect of me.” She chewed her lower lip and put her hands on her hips. She was skinny, her leggings showed off nice legs, but other than that I was too distracted by the giant mop of hair on her dirt caked face and the blue eyes peeking out from sooty long lashes to notice anything else. “You said to take a shower — or commanded it, actually — but after the shower, after the food, do I just sit and wait for you?”
“This entire conversation is ridiculous; you get that right?” I smirked, almost enjoying her obvious discomfort. “You don’t get to ask questions. I said eat, you eat, I said shower, you march your ass down the hall and shower, and if you finish and I’m not here, you make yourself useful. You like washing dishes, wash the fucking dishes. You want to watch TV, find the remote, you want me to draw you a list of chores, that’s not gonna happen. I’m sharing my prison with you, may as well find out a way to co-exist without losing your shit every time I speak to you or look at you for that matter. If I say you’re safe, you’re safe. Now, if we’re done, I have a man to kill.”
“Wh-what?”
I grinned, this time enjoying her face going pale. “Well, first I’ll torture him, then I’ll let you get in a few good hits. I may chop off his dick if it pleases you, and then he’ll die, slowly, when I think he’s ready. Sometimes I give them Ivs and just enough drugs to keep them alive. It’s amazing what people will do when they’re desperate. I think you’d like to see him beg, I think I’d like it too. In fact, I look forward to it. Now, if you’ll stop looking at me like I’m the devil, I have a De Lange to destroy.”
“You can’t just—” She stopped herself, as I took a lethal step toward her. Six thirty-two put up her hands like she wanted to stop me. “The Italians, he’s a De Lange, you can’t just kill a De Lange without—”
A knock sounded on the door.
“Come in.” I said, again enjoying myself more than I should.
“Literally the most depressing decorations I’ve ever seen in my entire life and I know my shit,” Chase said as he waltzed into my sanctum and whistled, and then his eyes fell to her.
If she knew what was good for her she’d look away.
She’d run her ass down the hall and shower.
They knew a De Lange was here.
They didn’t know it was her.
I’d give them someone else.
I’d lie.
I still had no idea why I was putting myself on the line for someone like her, someone I would kill without blinking. Again, I had a fascination with her strength, with the fact that she didn’t scream when they brought her in, that every time I looked at the monitors she wasn’t crying.
But staring up at the ceiling like she was on a fucking vacation.
“Six thirty-two, meet Chase Abandonato, De Lange executioner and sometimes friend.”
“Sometimes my ass,” Chase muttered eyeing her up and down. “You look like complete shit.” He looked to me. “One of your new ones?”
I shrugged. “Came in a few days ago.”
He sighed. “I just killed seven people in cold blood and had brunch like it wasn’t a big deal, but this—” He pointed to her like she didn’t even exist; it pissed me off. “This is worse. I don’t know how you keep doing this.”