Total pages in book: 213
Estimated words: 201920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1010(@200wpm)___ 808(@250wpm)___ 673(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 201920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1010(@200wpm)___ 808(@250wpm)___ 673(@300wpm)
Her baby blue eyes plead with me not to stop, to just keep going and never look back. I lean forward, spearing my fingers in her hair and resting my forehead against hers. “I won’t be long, I promise,” I whisper against her lips.
She’s quick to take a kiss, pressing her lips against mine and then pulling away to nuzzle the tip of her nose against mine.
“Kiss me first,” she demands softly, with her eyes closed and her hands on my thigh. Her fingers lay across my jeans and when she tries to scoot closer to me, the sound of her nails against the denim is all I can hear along with my heart beating faster.
It beats fast and steady for her.
“I can tell that you love me when you kiss me,” she whispers, her eyes looking deep into mine as the moonlight caresses her face. “Part of me can. Even if my mind can’t keep up,” she adds.
“Your mind can’t keep up?” I ask her with a hint of a smile on my lip as I cup her chin. My gaze leaves her as I see a shadow on the sidewalk. Carter’s outside and waiting for me.
Chloe shrugs, although it’s a sad movement. “There’s just something about the way you kiss me,” she tells me.
“I love you, Chloe Rose,” I tell her and as she parts her lips to tell me the same, I press my own against hers, slipping my tongue through the seam she gives me. She deepens the kiss, but for only a moment. My heart races and my blood heats.
She was always meant to be mine.
The second our lips part, both of us breathing heavier, she whispers, “I love you too.”
I know she does, and with the parting thought, I open my door and close it as quietly as I can, so I can go to Carter.
My best friend. Only friend. And the only family I ever had.
“I was wondering if you’d come tonight,” Carter says while I’m still a few feet away.
“Is that right?” I ask him as I walk up. Out here is more in the sticks than Dixon Street. All I can hear are grasshoppers and some kids playing ball in the street a block down.
Carter only nods in response and I can’t fucking stand what I’m about to do.
“I have something to ask you,” I start out and then backtrack. “How’s it going? You guys doing all right?”
Carter gives me a weak smile and a half-assed laugh before kicking the ground. “Get on with it, man.” His eyes reflect the way I feel. Like he already knows it’s coming.
“Maybe we should settle the other thing first,” I tell him, more willing to put an end to that shit than I am to say my final goodbye to him.
“Is it done?” Carter asks me the second I hesitate to speak. Standing outside of his house on the cracked sidewalk, he shoves both of his hands in his leather jacket pockets. He looks anxious as his eyes dart between the car and me. “I’ve got this feeling,” he starts to tell me and then swallows visibly, before shaking his head.
I grip both of his shoulders and look him in the eyes. “It’s done,” I tell him with a strength that’s undeniable. “Marcus left the cash yesterday.”
“Cash?”
“I didn’t know either. I thought it was, do what he said or die. I didn’t expect the money.”
Peeking over my shoulder, I take a look back at Chloe, my sweet innocent girl who will never know any of this shit. I’ll protect her from it and from the man I was before her until my last breath. With the stack of cash in my pocket, I reach for it as I watch Chloe stare straight ahead at the dead-end street we’ll never drive down again.
“Here it is,” I say and hand it over to Carter, opening up his jacket and shoving it in before he can tell me he doesn’t want it.
I’m the one who was told to kill them, all the names on the photocopy of the list that Marcus gave me. Marcus told me in the alley behind the butcher shop that he wanted information.
He gave me a list, and I was to get information for him and not say shit to Romano. I wasn’t supposed to ask questions. There are whispers of Marcus, but no one ever sees him. He stays in shadows and they say if you ever see him, you’re dead.
I was scared shitless that he chose me, and I was ready to do whatever he said to stay off his radar.
But her name was there.
It was right fucking there at the bottom of the list. I had to tell him whatever he wanted with this list, it couldn’t be her. I had to beg for her life. He wanted them all dead. Every one of them.