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)
“Talk dirty to me, mama.” The manic man laughs, but he only drives faster, tipping his head to the side to allow her even better access. “Dying to see those hands at work.”
Bronx frowns, and then she shrugs and sits back on the seat, checking her bloodred lipstick in the reflective glass. “I’d shoot him if your man didn’t like him so much.”
“Maybe someone else likes me too,” he quips.
“Maybe not.” Bronx glares at nothing, looking at me. “Are you okay?”
“They beat the shit out of him.” The muscles around my heart constrict, my lungs working overtime, still requiring a little extra time to heal. “He was unconscious, B, and they kept beating him.” Like his father used to do.
Anger and hate and pure fucking sorrow threaten to swallow me whole, but I won’t hide from the feeling. It’s not fair to him.
He couldn’t hide from any of it.
Delta’s hands find mine, and she squeezes, our eyes meeting. “He knew something like this might happen. There’s nothing you could do.”
My mouth opens, but before I can speak, the car slows to a stop.
“Here we go,” Hayze mutters.
Damiano flies forward, peeking out the window and his face pales instantly. “Fuck. He’s really fucking here.”
“Who?”
Damiano shakes his head, cursing under his breath.
“Damiano, who?!”
“Enzo.” His brows crash, his tense eyes finding mine. “Enzo is here.”
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Bass
The fuzz in my head begins to clear, my limbs weighing ten times what they should as I try to shake the last bit of the horse tranquilizer they shot my ass with. That shit seems to be the weapon of choice around here, thanks to my girl and her inventive ways of sneaking out under her little lockdown sentence.
I know without the help of the click, clack, clank what I’ll find once my eyes open, and I’m not disappointed. Thick, braided chains attached to three-inch-thick silver cuffs cover my wrists and ankles, but he was a little more creative than I was and strapped one to my neck as well. We’re still at Greyson Manor, this time down in the training room, so he made these adjustments in anticipation of this moment, the moment he got to sit across from the peasant who captured the king, only to let him go in the end.
Rayo Revenaw stares me down from the chair he sits in, amber liquid of some sort splashing in his glass as he tips his head from side to side in that typical rich prick–type shit.
“If you ain’t gonna drink it, shoot it my way.” My voice comes out rasped, the split skin sticking from one lip to the other. I’m sure it’s supposed to sting, but I’ve had more busted lips in my life than I’ve had steak dinners, so other than the drop of warm liquid that rolls over my chin, I show no sign of a beating well done.
It is a beating well done. My ribs are screaming, pretty sure my left shoulder is out of place, and I’ll be looking like a fucked-up dalmatian by this time tomorrow, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. Nothing I haven’t dealt with before.
Rayo’s eyes narrow and he shakes his head, disgusted by the poor punk trapped near his feet. Because he knows as well as I do …
I’m the same punk he met months ago, just add a fistful of zeros to the end, and not much is changed. He still hates me and I’m still fucking his daughter.
What he doesn’t know is that chaining me to the ground does nothing to change that, but I bet it feels good in his own mind to have the boy who got one over on the untouchable man bloody before him.
He watches me closely, doing all he can to pick me apart, to reach inside my brain with nothing but his eyes in hopes of pulling out some magical secret that justifies him getting got by a guy like me. By the scum he can’t be bothered with, who isn’t good enough to take the hand of his daughter on the dance floor, like his son wasn’t good enough to take the seat beside his sister.
Imma get my dance.
Finally, after sitting there staring for who the fuck knows how long, the man shakes his head again. “Tell me something,” He begins.
“What do I get in return?”
He lifts a single brow as if the answer should be obvious, but when I wait for him to vocalize it, he huffs, picking up a small black remote I didn’t see tucked in his lap and holding it between his fingers, his elbow perched on the edge of the chair like a casual-ass motherfucker.
He stares me in the eye, pressing a button and my neck lights up, the muscles there spasming and stretching, straining against the cold metal as my teeth vibrate against one another.