Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 71832 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71832 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
He collapses back as he finishes, breathing hard. Sweat’s beading his forehead, his monitor beeping fast.
That speech sits like an atom bomb in the room.
Ticking away.
The end of my life.
I can’t think, can’t put two thoughts together as his story weaves itself in and out of my very soul.
Carson’s been stalking me.
I thought he whole obsession thing was almost like a joke—or like he had a crush on me from back when we first met years ago.
It never occurred to me that it was more.
That he’d been sending business to Smoke. That he’d been taking care of me from a distance, never crossing the line into actually talking to me, but making sure I had everything I needed.
And suddenly, with a sick revelation, it all clicks together.
Carson is my guardian angel.
I double over, hands on my knees. I feel like I might be sick.
The nickname suddenly makes more sense—my angel. Like he’s been mocking me the whole time.
Like he’s been trying to tell me the truth or at least trying to get me to understand.
It’s been Carson. For years, it’s been him.
My guardian angel is real.
And he’s a monster.
“I married him,” I say through my teeth, groaning. “He offered me a deal. To protect me and Smoke from the guys that nearly killed you. I married him, Iain. I didn’t know how bad it was. I didn’t know.”
He lets out a long, pained sigh. “Fuck,” he says. “Then he has you.”
“Iain, please. What am I going to do? This is insane. I knew he was intense, but I had no clue—”
How didn’t I see it though? Everyone kept alluding to this without saying it. Even his mother tried to warn me.
Now I get why she was so worried that he was forcing me into marrying him.
Carson’s been an obsession-crazy person about me for years and years, and everyone’s afraid he’s finally lost his mind and I’m his prisoner.
Iain sounds exhausted as he speaks. “I know something about obsession, and I promise, it’s not a good thing. Obsession consumes a person, makes them do horrible things, turns them into animals.” He closes his eyes like he can barely keep himself awake. “I fucked up, Ash. I really fucked up. And the second I got shot is the second I let Carson get anywhere near you. If I kept it together, maybe—” He shakes his head. “But no, he would’ve found an excuse to get closer sooner or later. He’d been inching his way in for a long time now, ever since the blow-up with his parents. I might’ve slowed it. But I wouldn’t have stopped it.”
“I don’t understand. What’s going to happen to me? What’s he going to do to me?”
“I don’t know,” Iain admits, looking at me with pure fear in his eyes. I don’t remember ever seeing my big brother afraid. That hurts me more than anything. “But if I were you, I’d leave his hospital, go straight to the airport, and fly somewhere far, far away from Boston. Run fast, run far, and never look back.”
I let out a sharp sob. Fuck, how is this happening? How didn’t I see it sooner?
Carson’s been behind everything and my whole life’s a lie.
I thought I was keeping Smoke open because of my hard work, but now I can see all the little ways that it’s been Carson.
Parking tickets mysteriously disappeared. My accountant always magically found more money from the feds every year thanks to some random, obscure program I’d never heard of. The time I needed a loan to cover water damage, and how some tiny regional bank offered me everything I needed and more at an obscenely low rate, and how conveniently I qualified for a loan-forgiveness program only a month later.
That was all Carson.
I hustled. I worked hard. I struggled. But money always seemed to find me.
I thought I was lucky. I called it my angel.
But it’s been Carson this whole time, helping me from afar.
My entire life cracks like a punched mirror. All the good things are twisted now, everything soured. Smoke itself feels wrong—would it have gone out of business years ago if Carson weren’t making sure it didn’t? Would he have bailed me out again once he realized I was struggling to make my payroll?
Or was all of this his way of finally getting what he’s always wanted?
No, I can’t be that paranoid. He didn’t make Iain get that girl pregnant. He didn’t make the Polish family kill my father.
He only capitalized on the opportunity by making me think he was my only shot at survival.
“I have to go,” I say, feeling numb. “I’m so sorry, Iain, but I have to go.”
“Don’t talk to him,” he warns. “Please, Ash, just run away. Carson’s smarter than you realize. He’s manipulative in ways you don’t understand. If he wants to keep you, he will keep you, whether you like it or not. Your only chance is to get on a plane and run.”