Total pages in book: 180
Estimated words: 168587 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 843(@200wpm)___ 674(@250wpm)___ 562(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 168587 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 843(@200wpm)___ 674(@250wpm)___ 562(@300wpm)
But what if Tyson hadn’t? What if he was innocent and someone went after her because of him? I’ve never thought of it that way. Like me. Who have I pissed off? No one. But why would someone want me dead? It doesn’t add up. Because the guy was right, no one thinks Tyson loves me so why would my death matter? Just to make him relive Whitney’s death maybe?
“Couldn’t handle it, huh?” Bethany laughs, seeing the look on my face.
I lift my eyes to Beau, and he gives me a sympathetic smile. “I tried to help you,” he says before giving me his back to go grab an order.
Bethany comes back to place an order and I look over at her. “You can have my table,” I say, and turn, giving her my back. I make my way to the elevator and go up to the apartment.
FORTY-ONE
TYSON
Senior year at Barrington University
I enter the house, shoving the door open. Her car wasn’t outside. “Whitney?” I call out, but there’s no answer. “Whitney?”
I’m pushing doors open, yanking blankets and comforters off beds, trying to find her but don’t see her anywhere. The place looks somewhat abandoned. Cabinets open, but nothing in them. Old furniture in the front living room. “Whitney?” Where the fuck is she?
I come to the last door in the four-bedroom house, and it’s locked. “I’m kicking this open,” I warn, just in case she’s on the other side, my adrenaline pumping that something really is wrong. Whitney has been over the top but she’s never this dramatic. And I’d hate to be downplaying something that’s really wrong.
Lifting my foot, I slam my boot into the door, splintering the wood and I enter the room. There’s a bed in the middle with nothing more than a blanket wadded up and covered in blood. My eyes drop to the floor, and I see her lying there on her back, arms out to her side and eyes closed. I drop down beside her and place my fingers to her neck. “Whitney? What the fuck?” She’s got a pulse. Barely.
Without wasting any time. I pick her limp body up in my arms and carry her out of the house. Ryat is already waiting in my car by the curb.
The passenger side door opens when he sees me carrying her. “Fuck.”
“Drive us to the hospital,” I bark, and he’s already opening the back passenger door for me to crawl in with her. “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay,” I whisper to her, sitting in the back seat. Her body lies in my arms, blood runs from her broken jaw and busted nose. “I promise …” My voice cracks and I clear my throat. The fact that her clothes are covered in dirt, shirt is ripped, and her jeans undone tells me all I need to know. Not to mention the bruises around her neck.
What the fuck happened? Who the hell was she with? I haven’t spoken to her in two days. How long had she been there and how did she get there? I didn’t see her car anywhere.
“Almost there,” Ryat announces from the driver seat while taking a curve so fast, I feel the rear end fishtail, jerking us around.
“I’m sorry.” I rock her back and forth as if that will bring her back to life. I never meant for this to happen to her. I’m her Lord. I’m supposed to take care of her. They promised us protection. They failed us.
“Ty … don’t—”
I tune him out. “It’s my fault.” I pull her lifeless body into me, her arm falls to the side and lands on my thigh. Lowering my face to her neck, not giving a fuck if I get her blood on me. I’ve done my fair share of killing people to know that she’s fucking gone. Whoever did this to her wanted her dead.
I stand in the shower, my hands on the wall as I watch the blood disappear down the drain. The man in my basement got to me. His words about my wife dying in my arms just like Whitney.
I’ve spent every second of every day over the last ten days trying to find out who stabbed my wife. Yesterday, the guys finally got a hit. The man I stabbed in the basement the night the fight broke out had finally felt safe enough to make a move and contact a friend. The guys brought him in tonight.
Someone wants my wife. I thought that maybe she was stabbed by accident. But everything holds some kind of significance. The question is, do they want her alive or dead?
It could be her father or Collin. One of those if I can’t have her, you can’t either type of situations. Or it could have nothing to do with her and everything to do with me.