Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Immortal sat up. “I need to go…have a contact who was recording. I need to get this evidence to a safe place before it’s too late.”
Fear curled through the adrenaline, Milo coming to the full realization of what his snap decision meant. The choice he’d made.
“Go. I need to get to my family.”
The man looked at Milo, something passing through his eyes. “Thank you.”
Milo shook his head as a thousand regrets flooded his spirit. “I shouldn’t have been in that ring to begin with.”
“Yeah, neither should have I. But maybe it’s the way we walk away from it that counts.”
Milo gave a tight nod before he pushed to standing, and he helped the man to his feet. They parted in opposite directions, and Milo began to run, fumbling through the trees to where he’d left his truck parked in a backlot on the next street.
Barefoot.
No shirt.
Body covered in blood and sweat.
He rushed for his truck where it sat on the far side of the lot. He clicked the locks as he ran, and he rushed around the front to the driver’s side. He whipped open the door only to freeze when a knife was suddenly at his throat.
A dark vapor hovering over him from behind.
“You failed. Your betrayal won’t go unnoticed.”
Pain sheared through his body when the blade was impaled at his side.
He dropped to his knees, hand pressing at the wound that poured with blood.
But it wasn’t deep.
It was a warning.
Stefan’s voice was at his ear. “Now, you must be punished, but only because I love you. I hope it will at least bring you to your senses.”
Then Milo was clocked on the temple, sending him into darkness.
Rocks flew up from his back tires as he barreled down the dirt road. Sweat streamed from his temple and pooled on his shirt. His clothes covered in the gore from hours before.
His side was still gaping, oozing, but not deep enough to keep him down.
His hands gripped the steering wheel like it might keep him chained to sanity as he struggled to see through the blur of fear.
Rushing ahead to meet it.
To cut it off.
To stop it.
He shoved the gas pedal to the floorboards, the tail of his truck fishtailing as he whipped around the curves.
It was little relief when the building finally came into sight, his headlights illuminating the trailer. The tires skidded as he rammed on the brakes and threw the truck into park.
He didn’t shut it off.
He jumped out and busted through the front door.
“Autumn! Autumn!”
Only the vacancy echoed back.
A sickly awareness that sank into his flesh.
Dread.
Desperation.
He flew into Remy’s room, terror ripping through him. His daughter was on the ground in the corner, rocking with her hands over her ears, her brother asleep in the playpen beside her.
Relief slammed him so hard he nearly bowed. He raced for her, knelt in front of her, clutched her to his chest. “Do not move from this spot.”
He ran back out, and he burst through the back door and into the night.
His footsteps pounded.
The water glittered like black ice.
She was there, floating facedown, twenty feet off the bank.
“No, Autumn, no!”
Milo plunged into the freezing cold.
It swallowed him whole.
An abyss.
A chasm.
Darkness. Darkness.
He pulled her out on the shore, breathed into her mouth, pumped at her chest.
He dialed 911, begged for someone to come.
It took forever for the sirens to come wailing through the night.
But it was too late.
Too late.
She was gone.
Gone.
And that was the moment his life went dim.
FORTY-SEVEN
TESSA
Sorrow wrenched through my soul as I sat and listened to Milo confess what happened that day.
Because I could see that to him, that’s what it was—a confession.
Confession for his sins.
For his guilt.
For the shame he carried like tumbled stones.
Stones he was pinned beneath.
Rubble he couldn’t free himself from.
All while I struggled to catch up to who Bobby had been. Tried to reorganize everything I’d known and believed of my brother.
Fuzziness blurred my mind, the disorder amplified by the cocktail of painkillers I could feel slithering through my veins.
But it didn’t distort this.
The pain that radiated through our connection.
His hands clinging to mine like he would never have to let go, all while I saw the grief that saturated every inch of him.
“Do you know what happened to him afterward?”
Remorse shook his head. “The cops took me in that night. Questioned me. The second they released me once they realized I wasn’t there, I started to hunt. Hunted his men. Took them out, one by one. One of them was spitting that he’d taken care of Immortal just like he was going to take care of me. I thought he was dead.”
Air huffed from my nose. “Immortal. I can’t believe that was my brother. But he wasn’t, was he?”
Milo’s head shook. “None of us are.”
“But you gave him the chance to walk out of that basement. Gave him extra time. Time to leave the message so someone would know.”