Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
I could see the anger rising off of him in waves.
He was pissed.
The suited man was also there, but it was only when a man came up and addressed him as Senator Kennedy that I realized who he was.
And why Daniels was acting like he was a nut job who forgot how to do his job.
“She’s a murder suspect,” Daniels snarled.
“She’s a traumatized woman that needs medical care,” Dr. Felix interjected. “Now get out of this hospital before I have you taken out.”
Daniels looked ready to argue, but that’s when I’d had enough. “Get the fuck out. Right now.”
I was done playing by the rules.
The next fucking way he was getting out was by me knocking him unconscious with a fist to the face, then dragging him out by his ear.
Daniels finally saw the seriousness in my eyes, because he backed away, his chest puffing up. “You are officially suspended.”
I snorted. “Who cares?”
“You should,” he said. “Especially since it’s your partner that was found dead in her apartment!”
That was a kick to the gut.
I’d known the moment I saw the dead body’s feet in the bathroom who it was.
John loved his fuckin’ boots. He’d gotten them from his mom as a present in the military, and he hadn’t stopped wearing them since.
She’d spent eight hundred bucks on them to have them tailor-made for him, and they had a signature at the bottom of his mom’s.
The boots had been all I’d had to see to know that it was John, and the blood filling up the stopped bathtub was enough to let me know he was gone.
“You don’t think that I want answers?” I laughed, my voice sounding strained. “I would love answers, but I know that getting them isn’t going to happen when you’ve been traumatized so badly you can’t talk.”
“Whatever.” He rolled his eyes. “You can’t use your cruiser anymore, either. So I hope you find an alternate way home.”
Then he was gone, the senator following in his wake.
When I turned around, it was to find Nastya sitting up in the bed, her legs crossed underneath her, and her rocking back and forward.
When she saw me, she started to cry.
I wouldn’t pass a vibe check.
—Nastya’s secret thoughts
NASTYA
John.
John was dead.
Haze’s partner.
He’d died in front of my eyes.
It took me twenty rotations of the second hand around the clock before I worked up the courage.
“Two masked men came into my apartment,” I rasped. “One was wearing dark clothing, but there was a badge hooked to his belt. A Fort Worth Police Department badge.”
Haze’s gaze met mine and held.
The intensity in them made my heart literally stall inside of my chest.
The strange flip-flop of the organ beneath my hand took a stutter step, then resumed beating like normal.
Out of the corner of my eye I watched Shasha glance at the monitor where my heart rate was being displayed.
I ripped the monitor from my finger and heard the alarming beep follow.
Dima stepped right up to it and turned it off with a few quick taps of his fingers, and I idly wondered how he knew how to do that.
He had zero medical experience at all.
He…
I realized then that I was stalling and forced myself to get back on track.
“Daniil and I were in the hallway that led to my room. He’d already done the walkthrough that cleared the apartment when the doorbell rang.” I swallowed hard past the lump in my throat. “Daniil went to the door. And you know how stinkin’ shitty the peepholes are. Daniil was only able to see the officer that came from the chest down. He asked for the badge to be held up to the door so he could see it, and only when he called in the badge number did he let what he thought was only the officer inside.”
I watched Haze’s chest.
Watched the cords in his neck tense as I was talking.
“Do you remember the badge number?” he asked carefully.
I swallowed hard. “I’ll try…”
He nodded and said, “Please, Mama. Continue.”
Milena came up to my side, fed up with the distance, sat on the edge of the bed and threw her arms around me.
I leaned into my sister’s touch for a long moment before continuing.
Maven moved in, still hesitant around me, but I held out my free hand and waited for her to take it before continuing.
“The door barely made it all the way open before the second guy pushed through. Daniil sensed the danger immediately and told me to run. I did, and that’s the last I remember before waking up,” I said. “When I woke up, it was to find Daniil dead beside me, blood everywhere, and my body…stiff.”
“Do you feel like you fought?” Dima asked.
I shrugged. “I feel like I’ve run a marathon.”
I was being for real, too.
I’d run several, and every last one of them I’d felt like death afterward.