Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71348 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71348 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
I took a step toward him as I glared at his nonchalant expression. I pointed my finger at him. “My dad and brother were killed!” I shouted. “I am not pissed! I am … I’m destroyed.”
And I was also in this alone. Saxon had lied to me. If he were my friend, he would have told me Huck was here. Saxon was loyal all right, just not to me.
“When you don’t know the whole story and you assume shit, then, yeah, that can be painful. Maybe if you’d listened to Blaise, you would understand. But you had to act like a fucking female and run off.”
My hands fisted at my sides. I wanted to punch him in the face. I would probably break my hand, or he’d snap my wrist before I could, but the urge was still there.
“NOTHING makes killing my dad and brother okay. NOTHING!”
I spun around to run back into the room I had been using since coming here and locked myself inside. I’d had to get away from him. He was just an extension of Blaise. Every move I made, he would report to Blaise. Just like I now knew Saxon had done.
I was naive. He was right about that. I should have known Saxon and the Houstons wouldn’t go against Blaise. They wouldn’t hide me from him. Why had I thought they would? Kenneth was a part of the damn Mafia. They had never confirmed that, but I was sure he was. Saxon would be, too, just like Trev.
All of them—I had let them in. I had cared about them, and they had all been in on this. They’d all known.
Because I had needed someone to trust, I’d believed they were doing it because Melanie had been my mom’s friend. I questioned a lot of that story now. If they’d been best friends, then my mom hadn’t been real good at choosing friends.
Tomorrow, I would leave. I didn’t know where I would go, and I had no money or car to take. The card they’d left me and the rental car weren’t safe to use. Their generosity was because they believed I belonged to Blaise. I wasn’t a part of the family.
My family was gone.
“Blaise would do anything to protect you. Anything. Even before you knew him. He’s been doing it for fucking years,” Huck called out from the other side of the door.
I paused and glared at the closed door. He was close. Too close. The darkness in his tone wasn’t something new, but the words he’d said bothered me. I knew that Blaise had been watching me for six years, but there was something in the way Huck had said it that made me question what he meant. Until I’d been brought into Blaise’s world, I hadn’t needed to be kept safe.
“Killing my family wasn’t protecting me,” I shouted, not sure if he was still outside the door.
Luke, the man I had thought was my father until recently and Cole who I had always believed was my brother hadn’t been my blood, but they had been my family. Luke had raised me as his daughter, and I was sure Cole had believed, like I had, that he was my biological brother.
Huck said nothing. He had either walked away or he had no response to that. He knew I was right. There was no argument he could have to that simple truth. I started to turn away and walk back to the bed.
“Funny thing about addicts.” His voice was directly on the other side of the door now. He was strong enough to open it if that was what he wanted. “They’ll do things. Bad things to get that next hit. Terrible things to hang on to what they think they need.”
I wasn’t going to respond.
My dad and brother hadn’t been addicts. They had some problems but drug addiction wasn’t one. If that was what Blaise was going to try and get me to believe, he was not going to be successful. My brother might have had a small problem, but it wasn’t bad. My dad was an alcoholic. We didn’t have enough money for them to be addicted to drugs. Sure, my dad wasted money on his cheap beer that we could have used for essential things, like food. He had raised us alone, without a woman’s help. The alcohol was his way of escape from the stresses of being a single parent. I understood it, and I loved him for what he did for us. We were both still living at home and legal adults. Our having jobs and staying there had been to help my dad. At least, it had been for me. They had both needed me just as much as I had needed them.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I stared at the drawer in the nightstand where I had stuck the letter from Blaise. I wasn’t sure I would ever read it. Just seeing his handwriting hurt. I didn’t want to miss him. I didn’t want to feel anything but hate for him. He had said I was his weakness, but I knew he had been mine. I’d let my guard down and been foolish.