Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
“Luxe, let me go. You don’t understand.” Tate’s eyes were unfocused, and his cheeks flushed with fiery anger. “You don’t know everything.” He was practically in a trance, consumed by his hatred for Ducky.
Liam shook him. “Tate, snap out of it. Listen to me. We’ll get him. He won’t get away with this, but we have to play it smart.”
Tate didn’t refute him, so Liam took that as a green light to continue.
“Ducky did this to intimidate me,” he said, loosening his hold on Tate’s shoulders. He stroked his thumbs over the thick muscles in soothing circles. “He thinks I’m weak. That I’ll be scared and cower because he vandalized my studio, but that idiot has no idea who he’s dealing with. This is nothing compared to the hatred I’ve experienced. As soon as I have a break between classes today, I’ll file a police report and make damn sure Ducky’s parole officer finds out. He’ll go back to jail for violating parole. There’s the right way to go about this, and it doesn’t involve you going off half-cocked and getting yourself arrested for attacking Ducky.”
Shock rocketed through him as he saw Tate’s eyes well with tears. His man blinked rapidly and swallowed before speaking.
“It was him,” Tate whispered.
“What? I know. That’s why I’ll report him.”
Tate shook his head and pulled Liam into a bone-crushing hug. “It was him,” he repeated. The agony in the words had a shiver running down Liam’s spine.
“What? What was him?” Liam’s stomach churned with dread. Had something else happened he wasn’t aware of?
“Ten years ago…”
“What?” He gasped into Tate’s chest.
No.
“The fair.”
“What?” He ripped out of Tate’s arms and staggered two steps back, gagging. Bile burned the back of his throat. “Ducky was one of my attackers?”
Tate nodded with a miserable mix of sadness and anger in his expression.
“Fuck.” He slapped a hand over his mouth as he doubled over, dry heaving. He hadn’t even had coffee yet, so nothing came up, but his stomach cramped with pain.
Each passing second seemed to push Tate closer to an edge Liam might be unable to pull him back from. He had to keep it together.
He inhaled a long, unsteady breath. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, the words tasting vile. He straightened and rolled his shoulders back.
Tate’s jaw dropped. “What the fuck? It sure as hell does matter. What’s wrong with you, Luxe?”
“No.” He shook his head and grabbed Tate’s arm as he tried to get in the truck again. “It doesn’t. The statute of limitations ran out years ago. There’s nothing I can do about what happened back then. Reporting this to his parole officer is still our best chance of getting him put behind bars. We have to focus on the present and our future.”
“I know the cops won’t do shit about it.” Tate shook off Liam’s hold. “And that’s why I need to do this shit myself.”
“Tate,” Liam pleaded. Would he really go after Ducky? The man was huge and mean as a junkyard dog. He wouldn’t hesitate to maim or even kill Tate, leaving Liam to spend the rest of his life drowning in guilt and grief. “Don’t go. Please don’t go.”
Pain twisted Tate’s face. “I can’t let him hurt you. I won’t let him hurt you.”
“Tate, don’t do this. Stay here.” He grabbed for his man again, but Tate dodged him. “We’ll talk it out. Please. What will happen to us if you go after Ducky?”
“What will happen to us if I don’t?”
“We’ll be together. We’ll clean this mess up, report it to the police, and go about our day. Later, we’ll get some dinner, and then I’ll show you how flexible I really am.”
Tate threw his arms in the air. “And when Ducky comes after you next instead of your building? Did you not hear me say he was one of the guys who hurt you? Did all that therapy you went to make you forget what that fucker did to you?”
Liam reared back as though he’d been struck. “No, Tate, I remember everything about that night. And I remember the nightmares and the fear of being in crowds. I remember the panic attacks and the painful recovery.” He snorted. “I wish therapy could have made me forget it, but it did give me the tools to learn how to deal with it. But thanks for throwing it back in my face because it wasn’t going to be hard enough to deal with learning who my attacker was.”
“Luxe…” The anguish in Tate’s voice was almost enough to have Liam backing down.
Instead of giving in, he turned his back on Tate. It hurt more than he would have ever imagined. “I have to get this cleaned up. I could really use your help. Please stay.”
“I can’t.”
Those two words felt like a death sentence. “Well, I can’t watch you walk away from me.”