Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 182641 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 913(@200wpm)___ 731(@250wpm)___ 609(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 182641 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 913(@200wpm)___ 731(@250wpm)___ 609(@300wpm)
She was meant for this place the same way I’m not.
Yeah, I got my start here, learned a lot, but I was held back, constantly itching for more. Never fulfilled and forever waiting for the answer of why to hit me in the face. I was under the thumb of someone else, and like my home girl Rae said to me the day she handed me a check with too many numbers to count, I don’t belong behind anyone.
I know my place now. All it took was a taste of what the other side, the darker side, felt like, and I knew, without a doubt, where I wanted to be.
And that’s in a town not far from here, beside the girl who took my valueless life and flipped that shit. The tempting little thief who slid out of the sweetest ride I’d ever seen and smirked at me from across the parking lot. Who stole my shit with zero fear when I had the body of a man on the ground at my feet. The girl who dragged my sister’s dying body out of the water at the risk of her own.
I knew something was up with her and the water. Why else would an Olympic medalist up and quit diving in the blink of an eye? Now I know why.
The hospital we’re in might be run and owned by the family of this town, the top floor dedicated to those of its blood and choosing only, but I’ve done a lot of good here. My sister’s their family now, so when I demand Rocklin be treated in the same room so I don’t have to be away from either of the two most important people in my life, there is no fight.
My sister lies unconscious in a bed, and across from her is my girl. She sits in a chair hooked up to masks and machines that do the breathing for her because the chemicals in the pool weakened and shriveled her lungs, stealing her ability to breathe easily and on her own.
She put herself at risk for me.
Gasping for three days, being stuffed with steroids the whole time, she didn’t complain once. She didn’t ask for her own space, even though this one is full of others, Royce’s bed positioned right next to my sister’s.
She’s getting antsy, though. Fucked up over all the shit that went down at home and she still doesn’t know the half of it. Has no idea what I’ve done and what I’m about to do the second we get back. This isn’t a detour I anticipated when I took Oliver right out of the school and locked him in the basement, which surprisingly already existed on the property I threw a grip of money down on. Or when I grabbed his father and then hers. Thank fuck for Hayze.
A frown pulls at my brows at the thought of him. Shit, I haven’t talked to him in days. Been so preoccupied with waiting for my sister to wake and making sure Rocklin didn’t go and fucking die on me I haven’t taken the time to touch my phone.
Where the fuck is my phone?
Rocklin sighs beside me, and I look to her.
Gripping her hand, I draw it to my lips, running her knuckles across my lip ring.
Her eyes lift to mine, her head dropping to the wall behind us, and for a minute, it’s just us in this room.
I’ve known she was what I wanted for months now, but it’s been molded and cemented deeper. Now more than ever, it’s crystal fuckin’ clear Rocklin Revenaw was meant to be mine.
My sister almost died in the water because she didn’t know how to swim.
I don’t know how to swim.
But my girl? She’s an Olympic gold medalist.
The water is her second home.
I will be her first.
From the day I arrived in this town, to the moment I met her at her edge of hers, to this second right here, it was all in the cards for us. It was meant to lead us right fucking here, to bind her to me in a deeper way, through the only other person I love, before we go back to her home and do the same.
She’s about to learn a lot of shit, but she can handle it. She’s Rocklin fucking Revenaw, a queen in her own right.
And me?
I will be her king.
Even if I have to take out the current one …
Rocklin
As I push through the heavy hospital room door, Brielle’s voice reaches me. It’s thick and heavy with a rasp, having been out of practice with use. This morning marks day four. She’s been coming in and out of consciousness. She’s wide awake now, and something settles in my chest as I find Bastian is the one to whom she’s speaking. He’s at the edge of her bedside, looking down at her.