Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 145942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 730(@200wpm)___ 584(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 730(@200wpm)___ 584(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
I shake my head. “You could have told me and I would have gone. I could have hid out in a run-down hotel until it was safe to come home.”
Carver squeezes my hand, his eyes expressing what he refuses to say out loud. “But you wouldn’t have,” he murmurs, his voice lowering to a near whisper as he meets my eyes with a knowing, broken stare. “You would have come storming back into Ravenwood Heights with a fucking vengeance, demanding retribution. You’re reckless, and while most of the time I absolutely love that fearlessness about you, it would have fucked us all this time. We had to keep you out of it. Dynasty needed to see the real guilt and self-loathing on the boys’ faces when they returned without us. They needed to buy the lie that we both perished in that explosion, and Paris needed to see the fear in yours when you were left behind and the boys blew the cabin.”
“What do you mean she needed to see it? Were you recording it, like her own private snuff film of me being blown to pieces?”
Guilt twists over his face as he slowly nods. “Gray was to film it and send it to Paris as proof of death, but it wasn’t enough for her. She wants to feel your lifeless body in her hands.”
I shake my head, my gaze on the table for a long, drawn out moment. A sigh pulls from my lips. “So, what now?”
Carver shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he says, the raw honesty in his tone crippling my will to go on. “The boys have been working on tracking them and are planning a raid. They’re ready to go at a moment’s notice, but so far, we’ve got nothing. Paris has done a pretty fucking good job at keeping herself hidden. Anything that could have traced their location was removed and destroyed. So at the moment, all we’ve fucking got is that damn picture.”
I throw myself to my feet and start pacing behind him, my head a complete mess. “We have to do something. We can’t just sit here and wait. I mean … fuck. How are you just sitting here?”
“We have no choice,” he reminds me. “One of us had to stay back and watch over you. Who fucking knows if Paris had her men out in those woods as well. Just because she’s got all of our siblings doesn’t mean that you’re miraculously not a target anymore. You’ll keep being a target until we can show her proof of death, but that’s never going to happen. She’ll always be after you.”
“Yeah … until I put a fucking bullet in her head,” I mutter under my breath, meeting his heavy stare with one of my own. “Why you? Why’d you pull the short straw and have to stay back to look after the untrustworthy train-wreck?”
Carver stands and presses into me, hating my conclusion of how they see me, but responding nonetheless. “Because I’m the one who has nothing to lose, no one to mourn for me, no one to grieve when they learn of my death. The boys … their families are already going through so much having just lost their children to a woman like Paris. Me staying behind, it causes the least damage.”
My chin raises. “You’re wrong about that,” I murmur. “The whole fucking world would mourn if it lost you.”
Carver watches me for a long tension-filled moment before letting out a heavy sigh just as our burgers and fries are placed down on the counter. “Come on,” Carver says, scooting back into his seat and patting the space beside him. “Sit your ass down and eat. There’s nothing for us to do. We’ve done our part and now we have to trust the boys to do theirs.”
I reluctantly take my seat, feeling as though the past two days have been a colossal waste of time. The boys should have been upfront and honest about the plan. I would have done anything it took to help get their brothers and sisters back, but the fact that they thought my recklessness was going to destroy their plans, that really fucking hurts.
My stomach rumbles as I take my first bite of my burger and my eyes close in satisfaction. All this running has certainly worked up my appetite, but I didn’t realize just how hungry I was until this very moment. I’ve been focusing on bigger things, things that are now proving to be something completely different.
Within seconds, my burger is gone and I start picking at my fries knowing that I’ll get a stomachache from eating so fast, but I can’t seem to care. I’ll deal with it later, as for now, there are far too many questions plaguing my mind.
“How did you find me this morning?” I ask, glancing across at Carver who hasn’t stopped watching me. “I thought I was being pretty fucking smart going to Karleigh’s place.”