Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 135792 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135792 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
“Stay the fuck away from him!”
Knox scrambled to his feet, but he wasn’t fast enough, his heart beating erratically. He gasped for air, struggling to calm down as he watched the exchange.
Vlad pushed Liv back and ducked a punch to reach for his weapon, but Liv grabbed it first. As they struggled for the handle, the blade gravitated perilously close to Liv’s side.
“I’ll stick you both on it, like a human shish kebab!” Vlad yelled when Liv managed to pull the handle his way, and Vlad’s grip loosened.
Liv kicked the fucker in the stomach for good measure, and Vlad let go of the machete, waving his arms around with a yelp. His balance was holding on by a thread, but he had nothing to grab on to, and with eyes wide as saucers, he fell back into the pit behind him.
Liv leaped forward, trying to grab him, but it was too late, and when Knox joined him at the edge of the pit, they both stared at Vlad’s hulking body below.
Knox’s chest seemed to shrink around his heart, making it tremble in a frantic fight for survival. The thick fingers that had split his lip moments ago, twitched as blood drizzled on the concrete. Four steel bars stuck out toward the sky, going straight through Vlad's chest and stomach.
Vlad coughed. Blinked with unseeing eyes. And stilled.
In the end, he was the one who ended up as spit-roast.
Chapter 3
Liv
The ground under Liv’s feet shifted as a heavy weight dropped into his stomach, attempting to drag him into the pit, to join Vlad. But he was still here, alive, and the man he’d killed was below.
The man he’d killed.
He killed a man.
His blood must have been replaced by boiling water, because he felt nothing but heat when he stepped away from the edge, deafened by the heavy beating of his own heart.
What the fuck had he done?
What. The. Fuck.
His life was over.
And he didn’t even mean for this to happen. He just… he was just trying to protect Knox, and then save himself, when it became clear that bastard Vlad was fighting him for real.
What was he going to do?
“Fuck…” Knox whispered next to him as they both took in the scene that could have been staged for a horror movie yet existed in real life. “Fuck fuck fuck!”
His ragged breath rang the alarm bells in Liv’s head as Knox clutched at his chest, bleeding all over his white T-shirt.
It was the push Liv needed to get back to reality. He was a doer, not a thinker, and right now, the urge to help Knox was the one thing keeping him from falling apart.
“It’s okay. Sit down,” he said, recognizing the telltale way his friend’s breath shallowed.
Knox only clenched his fist tighter, sending fresh blood to drizzle out of the wound on his forearm. “I’m not sitting down! We’re fucked, Liv! Fucked. He’s dead, and I’m going to prison like my fucking dad!”
Something Knox always said he wouldn’t do. He couldn’t do.
The distraught look in his blue eyes made Liv frantic with the need to solve this problem.
“Are you high? You’re not going to prison. You’ve done nothing wrong. I was the one who pushed him,” he mumbled as the reality of what that meant flooded his mind. People spent long years away for less serious transgressions. He was utterly fucked, and still, all he wanted to focus on was Knox, who seemed a little pale in the glow of the lamp. “Will you sit? You’re bleeding.”
Knox’s gaze zeroed in on the wound, and he let out a choked laugh. “See? My DNA is all over this shit already!” But one more pained grunt later, he swayed to the side.
Liv wouldn’t let him anywhere near the pit, and Knox finally sat down.
“Your meds,” Liv mumbled and pushed his hand down the front pocket of Knox’s pants, finding the little bottle. He shoved it into his friend’s hand and placed his palm on his chest. The erratic pounding under his breast bone made Liv’s hair stand up, and he rubbed Knox’s back as he dry-swallowed a pill.
Fuck. Liv had known Vlad was bad news. Knox should have never started working for the bastard. For someone like him, working long hours at a construction site wasn't ideal even if his boss had been an angel. But no. Knox was stubborn. Overestimated his capabilities and ignored the heart condition he’d been born with.
Wavy blond hair that got loose from the short ponytail now stuck to his sweaty cheeks and forehead as denim blue eyes glanced at Liv, hooded, soulful, with lashes for days. He was Liv’s best friend, and the person who made every single day more bearable. But sometimes Liv wished Knox had been born somewhere else, to parents who cared for him, and who could have given him a better life. Somewhere where he didn’t have to struggle so much.