Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
And a few times, I cried like a fucking drama queen, these big, hiccupping gasps into my palms.
Then I got pissed off over being upset and started thinking about other ways to hopefully one day bring down the fucking cartel.
That was the only way I was ever going to have a normal life—if they were gone.
I’d been content just getting by, trying to do everything possible to not catch their attention. For so long, they were the bogeyman living under so many of the beds I’d slept in, the monster in every closet my clothes had been in.
Was I totally unprepared to bring down a multimillion-dollar operation that had withstood other cartels and whole government interventions? Absolutely. But it wasn’t fair. I hadn’t done anything to them. I’d never done anything to anyone.
And they now knew without a doubt that I was alive.
It was then that I thought about the one idea I’d brought up to my grandma right after my grandpa had passed away. The idea she had shot down immediately because it required too much trust in people who could be paid off and in people we had no reason to believe wouldn’t backstab us to make a point. The idea that was way too risky.
So I stopped thinking about it.
I didn’t know what the cartel’s game was drawing this shit out, but I had to stay on my toes. It wasn’t like they’d brought me here for shits and giggles. For whatever reason, they weren’t jumping straight into pulling out my fingernails, but I wasn’t going to hold out hope that it wouldn’t eventually happen.
The anticipation was the fucking worst.
I drew invisible patterns and designs on the floor. I cracked my knuckles and spent a lot of time doing breathing exercises. Just doing those hurt; my ribs were so achy, but if there was a chance I might need to run in the near future, I had to keep my lungs in shape.
And like I said, I spent a lot of time looking at the man seemingly sleeping like a baby and wondering what in the hell was going on with him and if he was going to get better anytime soon.
Sometimes I went and sat closer to him. I made sure he was still breathing. And maybe once or twice I sat by his head and pictured myself choking him out for showing up and putting me into this situation, even though I knew I should have moved away months ago.
And that was when he woke up.
With me sitting by his head, in the middle of glaring at him.
“What are you doing?” The Defender asked, scaring the shit out of me. “Why are you on top of me?”
For the record, I wasn’t on top of him. I was next to him.
And I’d thought about it, sure, but for heat purposes. It was still freezing, and that was part of the reason why I couldn’t sleep that well. I’d tried tucking my arms into my shirt to stay warm, but it didn’t help enough. Neither did curling into a ball.
“Why are you looking at me so much?” the most beautiful man I’d ever seen asked, somehow still looking amazing even though he’d been asleep for days and hadn’t showered in who knows how long. He didn’t even smell. How unfair was that?
I eyed him, taking in the fact he was still speaking to me. “I don’t look at you that much.”
The expression on his face said he disagreed.
I blinked. “I don’t, and you’ve been sleeping so….”
He yawned, flashing me those bright white teeth. “My eyes are closed, but I’m aware.”
I scoffed. Yeah, all right.
He caught me. “You used the bathroom eight times, hummed the Electro-Man theme song about a hundred times, hummed other songs completely off-key.”
I stopped moving.
“Cried too much,” he had the nerve to add.
I don’t know what it said about me that I wasn’t sure if I would rather him go back to ignoring me again or if I enjoyed him being a shit talker.
“You—” He winced. His gaze flicked toward the wall by the door. “Be quiet. Pretend you’re asleep!”
The hell was that tone for? “What? Why?”
“Shut up and pretend you’re asleep!” he hissed before struggling to roll onto his stomach with a low groan that reminded me he still wasn’t doing well.
My heart started pounding. “Is someone coming?” I just about shouted.
My stomach did a sudden, funny, little thing.
But I knew what it meant—nothing fucking good.
I threw myself on top of The Defender a second before the door flew open.
His body went stiff.
My heart was pounding too quickly, and I squeezed my eyes closed and tried my best to pretend to be asleep. Would they not take me if I was unconscious? Did he know something I didn’t? Why had it taken him so long to hear them coming? Should I have laid down beside him? I’d just wanted to protect him….