Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 79749 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79749 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
All of it is gone.
"I've missed you so much," I whisper, feeling safe in his gaze, but as quickly as he lets the wall drop, it goes right back up.
I can't let this moment pass us by, no matter how much he seems to want to push me away. I stayed silent at the very most important time in my life, and I swore I would never make that mistake again.
"I should've left the first time you asked me to. The life we could've had." I choke back tears as I step closer to him, my hand covering his heart. "I would do so many things differently."
He takes a step back, physically grabbing my hand and pulling it from his chest. "We'll do everything in our power to keep you safe and make sure that Eli isn't left at the hands of an evil father, but this isn't me trying to get you back."
I'm left in what I discover is a small bedroom when he walks out of the room.
I eye the window to the right, wondering how far I'd get if I climbed out of it, but they'll either catch me before my feet hit the ground or I'll die of hypothermia before I can flag someone down and beg them for a ride back home.
Damien would expect me to fight with every ounce of life left in me to get back to him, and he wouldn't take anything less as an excuse. Fear can't come into play because I don't think the man fears anything. He sees himself as invincible, the leader of the world. He expects the same from everyone else around him.
For some reason, I have faith that Jericho will do exactly what he has promised, and that's the only thing that keeps me in this room. I may have to consider taking an alternative approach if things shift in a different direction.
Chapter 13
Jericho
"Congrats?"
I squeeze the phone in my hand, pulling it away from my ear, trying to keep enough of my temper in check to not stomp the damn thing into the fucking ground.
"What the fuck are you saying?" I growl.
"What you told me she said checks out."
"How is that even fucking possible?" I snarl.
"You see, when a man and a woman like each other, actually it's more about biology than liking someone, but I digress. When sperm reaches—"
"I fucking swear, Ricco."
"The baby was full term. During delivery, he swallowed something called meconium and it caused a nearly fatal lung infection. He was hospitalized for over a month."
"So the boy is mine?"
Silence fills the line for a long beat before he answers. "I'm saying the timeline works. I have no idea if this woman was the type to—"
"Ricco," I warn again.
"There are notes in the file written by the nurse that report the baby was born several months premature, and that caused the lung issue. I mean, the man wouldn't have to dig very deep to know the truth, but from the sounds of it, he trusted the hospital staff. Either that or—"
"He's known all these years and hasn't let on that he knows," I finish.
"Exactly. Listen, Damien Gaines is fucking evil. I've heard what he's capable of, and I wouldn't want to fucking cross him."
"I have a son," I whisper, more to myself than the man on the other end of the line.
"The timeline works out," he clarifies.
I don't growl at him again. I know the gift Aspen gave to me, and if I take a minute to think back on all the time we spent together, I know there's very little chance she was hooking up with someone else. As much as I'd like to think she was manipulating me the entire time I was lying to her about who I really was, I know better.
She was innocent despite the life she was born into. Maybe she was innocent because of it. Her father kept tight reins on her, and until I walked into his office that day with Damien ratting us out, Ivan Reese thought he'd warned enough men away from his daughter that no man was willing to cross that line. I wasn't just someone in his employ, however. It was my job to cross lines everyone else was too scared to even make eye contact with.
"Jericho?"
I end the call without another word, feeling like I have the weight of the world on my chest.
I let what I perceived as a betrayal keep me from her, keep me from my son. I let her endure God only knows how much pain and trauma. There's no telling what the boy has witnessed or the suffering he has endured in his lifetime, and all because she didn't stand up and wasn't willing to die for our love.
Sickness washes over me, my stomach twisting and turning to the point of pain strong enough to double me over right there in the fucking driveway of that small cabin.