Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 74655 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74655 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Two of the men walk past me, not acknowledging me at all.
The third one glances at me as he walks by, and I notice he’s quite good looking. Better looking than most men I’ve seen working for my father. Dark blond hair and the most gorgeous honey-colored eyes I have ever seen. It’s his eyes that make him striking. He’s probably a little too skinny, clearly whatever drugs he’s selling he’s also using, and his skin is a little greyish. But I imagine that when healthy, he’d be an incredibly good looking man.
“Hey,” he murmurs as he walks past.
I don’t see him again after that.
But I don’t think I’ll ever forget those eyes.
I bolt upright with a gasp, my hand flying to my chest. No. It can’t be. How the hell didn’t I realize this sooner? I glance over beside me and see Koda staring over at me and those eyes, the color of soft honey, stare back at me. I start panting as realization hits. It all comes crashing into my mind, into my body, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
And I was just too stupid to see it.
I’ve met Braxton. Briefly, yes, but I met him once at Carl’s house. I had forgotten that face, I had forgotten meeting him, and how seeing Koda didn’t trigger this memory sooner, I don’t know, but it’s real.
And that means everything I’ve believed in the last few weeks is so incredibly wrong.
Tears, tears that I haven’t allowed out for so long, burst forth and run down my cheeks, and I shove out of the bed, panting and upset, horrified at how utterly stupid I’ve been. How naïve, how fucking dumb.
“Charlie,” Koda says, getting out of bed, his eyes on me, narrowed with concern. “What’s goin’ on?”
“You ... you ... you ... liar!” I scream.
He startles and takes a step back.
“What the fuck is goin’ on?”
“You’re not here to protect me because you’re passionate about protection, you’re not here because you care, you’re not with me because you genuinely like me, you’re fucking here because of my father, you asshole!”
He stares at me, but I don’t let him keep talking.
“I had a dream, and in that dream, I had a memory. A memory of meeting a young man that looked exactly fucking like you. A young man who was working for my father. A young man that was selling drugs.”
Koda’s face hardens, and I know, I know in that instant that I’m right. I’m so damned right. He knew all along who I was. He knew all along who my father was. And he knew all along exactly why he wanted to be close to me. Because he wants my father. He wants revenge. And he used me to get it.
“You knew ...,” I whisper through my tears. “All along, who my father was. You knew who put the hit out on me. You knew who I was.”
His fists clench.
“You fucking jerk!” I scream.
“He fuckin’ killed my brother,” Koda roars, swinging his fist into a nearby lamp and sending it flying until it shatters against the wall. “He fuckin’ killed him, right in fuckin’ front of me, and left him there to rot for five fuckin’ days before lettin’ me go. Knowin’ I’d live the rest of my fuckin’ life with that image. So yeah, I fuckin’ knew who he was the minute I heard your name. And yeah, I wanted in on this so I could find him and fuckin’ kill him.”
My bottom lip trembles, and my heart does break for Koda for having to see first-hand the kind of heartless monster my father was, but what he did to me was unfair.
“You let me sit here,” I cry, “and tell you the deepest, darkest parts of me, when all along you already knew most of it. You lied to your club, you lied to me, and you fucking betrayed me. I thought this mattered ... I actually thought we had something ...”
“We fuckin’ do,” he roars. “I didn’t expect to care for you, but I fuckin’ do ...”
“Bullshit,” I scream. “You’ve probably been waiting for the perfect moment to use me, to toss me over to my father so you can play out your revenge. You ... God ...”
I turn and run out of the room.
I need to get out of here.
I can’t be here anymore.
“Charlie!” Koda roars, but I’m running.
Hard and fast.
I run out of the cabin and straight ahead into the trees, getting as deep as I can before taking a sharp turn to the left. I can hear Koda’s roars through the trees, telling me to stop, to come back, it’s dangerous.
But I don’t care.
I thought he cared about me.
But he didn’t. He fucking didn’t. He just wanted revenge, and he was willing to do whatever he could to get it.