Total pages in book: 176
Estimated words: 167257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 558(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 167257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 558(@300wpm)
“And we’re supposed to believe you?” Joren snapped. “Do you know how that sounds?” He took a threatening step forward, just as Roc had, but before I could react, Rowdy’s head snapped in his direction.
“You must want to die today.” It was all Rowdy said. All he needed to say, apparently.
Joren halted his approach, his shocked gaze flitting between Roc and Golden.
“Join the club,” Roc mumbled bitterly.
I guess he was still understandably raw about his best friend of twenty years choosing me over him.
Still, he and Golden moved closer, placing themselves between Joren and me…like they, too, would protect me from him. Or maybe they were just protecting Joren from Rowdy.
Yeah, that made more sense.
Seething, Joren turned to square off with his boy. “I know we discussed you handling her yourself,” he said to Rowdy, making my heart fall to my stomach, “but fuck all of that. She lied, so she needs to be dealt with. Why are we even letting this bitch explain herself? We shoot first and never ask questions. That’s how this shit works!”
The silence that followed was so heavy that you could hear a pen drop or, more accurately, the sound of Rowdy switching the safety off his gun. “Call her a bitch again,” he said through gritted teeth, “and I’m going to show you how this nine works.”
My breath hitched even as my mind continued to search for a way out. I’d decided I wouldn’t allow myself to hope, even fleetingly, that Rowdy still cared enough not to hurt me or let his friends hurt me. He still didn’t know the worst of it yet.
“Really?” Joren spewed. “You gon’ take her side when she’s been lying to you—and us—this entire time? This ain’t just about you, O. This affects all of us, so you don’t get to decide alone how we deal with this.”
A thousand scathing retorts rose at once, but I swallowed them all down except the one least likely to get me killed.
“Look, I can’t speak to what you should do,” I said in order to bring their focus back to me and keep them from killing one another. “That’s for you to decide. I can only tell you the truth and pray for the best. I didn’t come here with ill intentions toward any of you. I just wanted to start over without any lies.”
The truth was, after falling in love with Rowdy, I hadn’t cared about the reason I was sent here to find them. The truth was, even after everything, come what may, I was glad that I’d come. The truth was, I’d be worse off if I’d stayed in Ossella. If I’d stayed to watch my mom turn me away over and over and my ex and best friend start a life together with me reduced to that unpleasant footnote they both liked to pretend never happened.
“You said you weren’t sure who sent this letter and photo,” Golden spoke for the first time.
“Yeah?”
There was no malice in his gaze or tone when he said, “That means you have some idea.”
“Not really. Only that the sender is definitely female and…” I swallowed. “Owen knows her.”
“What?” His frown deepened as he stared at me.
“I—I saw the letters in your tackle box.”
I saw the silent question in his green eyes at my confession. You read them?
Yes. Every one.
“It took me a couple of days to realize it, but…” I reached into my back pocket and pulled free one of the earliest letters I’d stolen from the box. The one where Unrequited—I still hadn’t learned her name—had confessed her undying love for the love of my life.
I couldn’t be sure the unknown girl in the photo I’d found was Unrequited, or just a coincidence, but I must have studied the youthful curves and angles of her smiling face a thousand times to force her identity from my subconscious.
I handed the letter to Rowdy, whose gaze still hadn’t left mine. “The handwriting and signature are the same.”
Rowdy took the note but didn’t look at it as he ignored the curious looks from his boys and pocketed it immediately. I pursed my lips but said nothing.
Despite Joren being hellbent on blaming me for everything, the cracks in their friendship had started long before I entered their lives. They’d been standing on shaky ground ever since Rowdy fucked Jada.
It had taken me a couple of days to figure that out too.
That the girl Unrequited had been jealous of was Jada. And that boy Rowdy had betrayed had been Joren.
His best friend.
I sucked in a breath as the final note of Unrequited’s twisted symphony slammed into me with all the intensity of a freight train.
“It was never about me,” I voiced quietly.
“What wasn’t?” Roc asked with a confused frown.
“The letters, sending me here…it was never about me.” Unrequited’s last letter suddenly made so much more sense. “It was about you…both of you…or…the three of you.”