Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 75240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
I pursed my lips.
“Well, okay,” I held up my hand. “I had more than one incident. In the week that I’ve been out of the hospital, I’ve found that my temper is getting the better of me.”
“How is it getting the better of you?” Alec asked, suddenly worried now and extremely alert.
I had been staying with his sister, after all. Any good brother would be worried at this point.
I held up my hand to soothe the fears I could see running through his thoughts.
“Not anything to do with your sister,” I told him quickly, clearing my throat. “But it’s stupid shit. Like someone cutting us off in traffic, or when an old girlfriend called me and told me she heard I was hurt and that she’d like to see me again. To make sure I was all right.”
His mouth kicked up at the corner.
“It’s good that you remembered your shit, otherwise that chick could’ve told you that you were together when you really weren’t,” Alec surmised.
I nodded my head.
Over the last week, things had started coming back to me.
Slowly at first, until I had all of my memories.
Well…most of them.
I still had a few memories I couldn’t quite latch onto, obviously having a fucking wet dream of a car being one of them.
Then again, I hadn’t realized that I didn’t remember everything until it was blatantly thrown into my face.
Kind of like the ex-girlfriend, Sierra.
I hadn’t remembered her. Not until I’d answered the call and wished I hadn’t.
“And that’s not even beginning to take into account what happened when I went to my house yesterday,” I confessed.
“And what happened?” Alec persisted.
I sighed.
“I had a minor melt down,” I replied. “I was going to go ahead and stay at my own place, but when I got there…I don’t know. My head started to pound, and I got so dizzy that I couldn’t freakin’ breathe.”
“So Nurse Angie asked you to stay with her another night,” Alec guessed.
I nodded my head.
“Yes,” I hesitated, wondering if I should say what I said next. “Angie and I have done a lot of talking over this last week.”
“Yeah?” Alec asked, his eyes turning back to the carburetor in front of him.
“I think she’s scared.”
He froze.
“Scared of what?” He put all his tools down and gave me his full attention.
Studying him as he leaned back against the car, his hands wrapped across his chest intimidatingly, I knew he was a good brother.
And I also knew, though Angie might be upset that I brought him into this, it was the right thing to do.
“Her ex…” I picked up the same pry bar that Angie had been holding that day. The same one—although likely not this particular one since it was in police evidence for smashing into my skull—and studied it.
“She’s scared of Troy,” I told him.
He nodded. “We know that.”
“He’s out of jail, as of last night,” I said. “Right around the time I tried to go into my house and leave her.”
“So, you bullshitted an excuse and now you’re going to stay with her.”
I nodded my head.
I was going to hell.
Seriously, if I didn’t ruin everything with this stupid lie, then I’d have some serious groveling to do to win her over in the end.
“My dad…he’s the ADA. He tried to get him as much time as he possibly could, but something kept him from making those charges stick. Before he could question why, his boss pulled him off the case due to some crap excuse about a conflict of interest, and then gave the mother fucker bail.”
“That’s how it always is with Troy. He knows the right people,” Alec told me. “It’s been like that since the beginning. Why do you think he was able to get away with shooting my sister with a fucking nail gun eight times?”
My belly tightened at the thought.
I’d seen those scars.
At the time, seeing those, I hadn’t realized what those scars were from.
Then she’d screamed at Troy during their altercation, and I’d finally realized where scars like the ones she had came from.
Scars that she told me about just two days before, making me want to kill the man she called her ex.
“She told me that Troy doesn’t like taking no for an answer,” I said. “That when he came over that day, he caught her unaware. Was drunk off his ass.”
Alec nodded.
“I’d just left.” Alec looked down at his feet. “I was building shelves in Elise’s room for her books. Left the nail gun out. Hooked up. Ready to go because I was only running to the store for paint. Came back and found her in a pool of her own blood.”
“He shot her with the nail gun because she supposedly had some other man in the house with his kid.”
“It was me that he saw.” Alec replied roughly. “One of the worst fucking days of my life, walking in on that.” He licked his lips and looked up at me. “That man is so fucked up in the head. He’s fucking normal as hell—then he just snaps. Literally, it takes like an instant and he’s not the same man. He’s got multiple personalities. Fuck, but if I had to guess, he’s probably schizophrenic.”