Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 94513 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94513 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
When Than stepped back, his chest was heaving, and blood covered his hands. I took the knife from him and enjoyed the image that Ares made. Only four fingers were left on the hand where I’d taken his thumb. Blood coated most of his body. His loud noises as he jerked and shook grew weaker.
His beady eyes stared back at me, and I wanted him to soak in the view. Take this face with him for all eternity.
“She would have never been yours. You know that, don’t you? Even if my brother hadn’t come along, someone else would have. With a face and body like hers, she was always gonna be out of your reach,” I told him, stepping up and thrusting the knife into his flaccid dick, then slicing down and through his balls.
“He’s fading,” Linc warned. “If you want him to choke on his own blood, then you’d better slice his throat now.”
I saw his life barely hanging on. Raising the blade, I looked him in the eye and spit in his face. “You’re gonna die, never knowing just how sweet her pussy is,” I told him, then slashed across the arteries I’d been trained to hit the year I turned eighteen.
We stood in silence while blood squirted from his throat as he spasmed. The choking sound that came didn’t soothe my pain or give me my brother back. But it did take the sick bastard from this world. My nephew would never know his name or that he had once existed.
Eighteen
Halo
I found somewhere to put away the last of the things that Grissele had bought for me. She had asked if she could take me to get me a new bra that fit, and I agreed, thinking I was going to pay for it. That was not what happened. It hadn’t taken me long to realize I’d been tricked into a shopping spree.
I had three new bras. She had insisted that I have a white, beige, and black one. If I’d let her, she’d have bought me every color under the rainbow, but I’d assured her that these were more than enough. The panties, silk pajama sets, and bikinis, however, she snuck in there somehow. I hadn’t realized she had added those until I unpacked the bags.
I’d felt a little like she was playing dress-up with me when she took me to buy outfits that would work with my growing stomach. There were three different ladies who brought me clothing to a large, private area with a dressing room. Grissele sat on in a high-back white velvet chair, drinking a glass of champagne, while I tried things on, then came out to model them for her. She was so happy about it all that I just let her have her way. Telling her I didn’t need that much was pointless. She’d argued that I would indeed need it very soon.
Then, there were the four pairs of new shoes and, of course, my purse. The dresser in this room wasn’t nearly large enough to hold all she’d bought. I had taken out my things that were in there and moved them to the corner, folded neatly, then put the new things that weren’t on hangers in the drawers. The outfits that were in the clothing bag and needed to be hung, I kept them in the bag and laid it over the top of the dresser.
Unwrapping the picture frame I had picked up in the last store she had taken me to, I put it on the bed, then got my photos and chose the one of his little face to put in it. The frame was a blue heart, outlined in opal-colored rhinestones. Placing his photo inside, I smiled down at it, remembering how surreal it had been to see him moving on the large screen today and realizing that he was inside me. I placed the photo on the bedside table, then sat on the edge of the bed to look at it.
Grissele had cried and laughed during the ultrasound. She’d said he had Crosby’s nose and lips. I studied it and had to agree. He did. I wondered if he would be as beautiful as Crosby. I wanted him to have Crosby’s hair. I’d loved his hair.
Pulling my feet up, I crossed them and let my thoughts go to my son. I couldn’t think about the other stuff. The things Linc had told me. What I’d heard. If I went there, I would fall apart again. I didn’t want to allow that emotion in. Too much hurt from my family had already marked me. It was a part of who I had become. The choices I’d made. Knowing that they hadn’t just left me, but it had been planned by all of them. They’d known I was pregnant and had no problem leaving me on my own.