Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
The Nightmare.
It’s what people called him now.
Not Beast’s nephew.
Or Caleb’s nephew.
He was his own man and without even his real name.
Dwayne hadn’t gone out of his way to earn that name. It had started some time ago, actually. Back when he was eighteen and pissed off with Beast for dating one of the girls he’d brought home. Hope hadn’t even been datable as far as he was concerned. She’d been too weird.
His anger had gotten the better of him one night as he walked the streets. He’d been trying to clear his head when he’d heard the feminine cry.
It had been subtle but the pain evident.
“Listen here, whore. You’re going to suck my dick. Take it deep into your fucking throat until you gag!”
His curiosity had been piqued. He’d moved down the alleyway, the streetlight casting enough of a glow to see the two people fighting.
The woman couldn’t have been any older than twenty, if that. The man, someone much older, was disgusting, and Dwayne had snapped.
In the back of his mind, he recalled all the vile things his own father used to throw at him. The way he’d treated his mother, and yes, he’d seen the way his father treated her. When he’d wanted to run to his room, his father had made him watch as he raped her. He’d never told another living soul the things he’d witnessed.
When Beast came to tell him he was living with him, his mother had been long dead. She’d died during one of his dad’s “training sessions” when he said she needed to learn her lesson, his massive hands around her throat, cutting off her air supply. Dwayne had witnessed her death, and it hadn’t been the only one either. Over the years, his father had killed several young women, whores, and others.
There had been no stopping him once he got on the warpath.
Again, he didn’t say anything.
Watching this woman’s abuse though, it was like being back in their home, his mother begging for her husband to stop, crying out, screaming for help.
He’d just stood there, a young kid who didn’t know what to do.
She’d told him to run.
His father had said that if he ran, he’d put the strap to him.
He hated that strap.
It hurt so much that it was like fire dancing on his back.
So, he stayed.
That time wasn’t the first or last time.
To make his son a man, to make him invincible, he was going to make sure he knew what he was dealing with.
At eighteen, watching a man force a woman who was crying and begging for him to let her go, Dwayne had withdrawn the blade he’d kept in his pocket. Moving toward the man, he didn’t make a noise. It was like his heart didn’t even beat as everything moved in slow motion. Nothing mattered, no one cared, and as he jammed that blade into the fucker’s neck, hearing him gurgle, something came over him.
Something profound.
He was so fucking happy watching the blood drip out of the man’s neck from the mark he made. He’d done it again. As the woman ran away, he’d watched the man die, and in doing so, he found his purpose in life.
Dumping the body had been easy. The piece of shit was wanted, as he later found, but that didn’t matter.
Every single week on a Friday night, he’d walk the streets, ridding the world of the vermin that walked. Rapists, murderers, child abusers, the works. There was a kid at school, Arnold, he’d gone to him, asking him to find them for him. Every single person who didn’t deserve to live on the streets. Some of them had been granted parole because of the people they knew high up.
He’d started to crave the violence, the danger. Training became a way of life, studying a thing of the past. Waking up at four in the morning, running, training, spending his day getting stronger, harder, faster, meaner.
He had no doubt that Caleb and Beast were aware of what they called him, but that didn’t matter.
Dwayne had learned the valuable art of not giving a fuck.
“Are you okay?” Charity asked.
He turned to see her in the doorway. The shirt she wore was way too big, but on her it looked really cute.
“Yes. How are you feeling?”
“Sore.”
“I think it’s time for you to get some rest. Tomorrow I’ll take you to your family.”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
He moved toward the spare bedroom. Pulling back the bedcovers, he turned the nightlight on and patted the bed.
“In you go.”
She climbed into the bed, and he tucked the blanket around her.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Just across the hall. Get some sleep, Charity. You’re going to be fine.”
Leaving her bedroom door partially open, he made his way to his room. He left his door wide open just in case. He had several sensors around the apartment so if anyone tried to break in once he set them, he’d be alerted. Checking his stash of guns and knives, he put the ones he’d used today back in place. Tomorrow, when Charity was back with her family, he’d clean them.