Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 67905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
I was scared. Scared in a way I’d never been. “You don’t just get to decide—”
“Yes, I do.” His voice rose slightly. “You’re staying. And that’s final.”
“I’m leaving you—”
“I meant what I said!” Now he raised his voice, the first time he yelled. “Please don’t make me hurt you.”
I breathed hard. And harder. I didn’t know how my face looked, but it must have been the color of concrete because I was so sick and so scared…fucking scared. “You—you are a psychopath.”
All he did was stare.
Did Bolton have multiple personalities, and I just never knew? At the restaurant with Theo, he’d seemed like a different person. When we’d come home, he’d shown a side of him I’d never seen. I’d just assumed he was angry and expressive, but I didn’t think he was capable of this.
“Make dinner.” He rose from the chair and walked to the coffee table. There was a gun strapped underneath, and he dismantled it piece by piece just the way he had with the gun at the dining table, leaving the parts on the surface. “By the time you’re done, I’ll be done with this.”
I had been scared when those men broke in to the apartment in the dead of night.
But I was far more scared now, scared of my own husband.
When Bolton was asleep, I grabbed my phone to call the one person who could help me. He’d promised he would always take my call, and I hoped he meant that. I searched for his name in my text messages, but it was gone. I tried to pull it up in my contact list, but it was gone from there too.
Bolton had deleted it.
I stood downstairs and held the phone with shaky hands, feeling my stomach drop when I realized my lifeline had been taken from me. I checked my phone again to find his name, even though I knew it was gone. The only way I could talk to Theo was if I went to his house directly.
I eyed the counter where my keys sat and grabbed them, ready to leave all my valuables behind and flee. I turned around to head to the garage, smacked into a wall, and bounced back.
It was Bolton. He was a handsome man with a handsome face and crystal-blue eyes, but he looked like a demon with horns now. He was surrounded by fire and ash. All he needed was a scythe, and he’d look like the devil himself. He grabbed my wrist with unnecessary force and pried the keys from my closed fingers. “What did I say?” He tossed the keys on the counter.
“You can’t keep me here.”
“Watch me.”
I eyed the knives on display on the counter.
“Please don’t make me hurt you.”
I called his bluff and lunged for them.
He made good on his words and slammed me so hard into the fridge that I bounced off it then dropped to the floor, landing hard on my shoulder and making it pop. The force of his hit knocked the wind out of me, caused pain to radiate across my lower back from the collision. The event only lasted a second, but time slowed down and made it drag on indefinitely.
I remained on the floor, in pain and shock.
Bolton didn’t help me up.
I still couldn’t believe that had actually happened—even though I was crumpled on the floor. I sat up and looked up at him, seeing him standing there with his hands clenched by his sides.
I didn’t stand up. I didn’t know what to do.
He stepped forward.
I flinched.
Then he extended his hand to pull me up. “I hope that’s the last time I have to do that.”
I didn’t take his hand. I dragged my body across the tile until my back hit the cabinets.
He withdrew his hand. “You can go to work and the grocery store. Try to go anywhere else…and you won’t be able to go anywhere at all.”
When I got to work the next morning, it was the first time I’d been alone.
Truly alone.
And that was when my predicament really hit me. I’d sat alone at the dining table and cried about my cheating husband, and now I was a hostage to a very powerful man. It had flipped so fast that my mind couldn’t comprehend it. Bolton was a cheater and a liar, but I’d never thought he was capable of this.
Was I an idiot for not seeing it? Should I have assumed he was dangerous since he killed people? Was I stupid for thinking he would never be dangerous to me? I stared at my blank computer screen and just breathed, grateful that nobody came in when we first opened. My back still hurt from my collision with the fridge. I felt like I’d been in a car accident and my vehicle flipped into a ditch.