Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 55039 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 275(@200wpm)___ 220(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55039 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 275(@200wpm)___ 220(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
“I missed a lot,” I reply, gazing back out to the night sky.
“You did, but you’re here now. She will remember that. So don’t fuck it up,” she warns me.
We sit in comfortable silence together for a few moments, then she speaks, breaking it. “What did you do while you were gone? You used to at least answer my calls at the beginning, then stopped.”
“I got a job at a factory, stayed in a motel. For the first six months, I did just that. Nothing else. My hands never touched wood again, not until I came back here.”
“How about Jacinta? How did you meet her?”
I smile at the memory. “She applied for a job at the factory. I was the one who interviewed her. And then, I asked her where she was living. At the time, she was in a home trying to keep her name off everything. So, I gave her a job, found a place for me to live, then asked her if she wanted to move in with me.” I turn to see her watching me. “It never started off as anything other than friendship. It took years to even get anywhere. She wanted to enroll Oliver in school, but not under her name, so I offered to marry her, and she changed her name.”
“Do you miss her?”
“I miss talking to her. She’s a good woman. You two would actually get along. But she knew I never loved her the way she wanted me to. I tried. I really did. But…”
“I tried, too. I tried so many times to move on,” she shares with me. “They say you have three great loves in your lifetime, but what if all my great loves are the same person?”
“I could never be anyone’s great love,” I tell her.
“Am I not yours?”
I reach up and caress her face, and she leans into my touch. “I know I only have one, and you are it. I’ve known it for a long time.”
“So why did you leave?” she asks.
“I wasn’t in my right mind. And staying meant I would have eventually ended up back where I didn’t want to go. I did some dark shit, and I would do it again for the same outcome, rich girl, even if it meant I had to lose you in the process. They took someone from me I will never get back.”
Her head leans on my shoulder. “You could have come back.”
“I was angry for so long. So damn angry. I couldn’t have. And by the time I wasn’t as angry, I had met Mary, and she needed me. You have never needed me, rich girl. You never needed anyone. You had to know that as well.”
“I would have liked the opportunity to need you.”
Leaving my wine glass on the ground while hers is still clutched in her hand, I stand and pull her up with me. “Rich girl.” I push a strand of hair out of her face, and just as I do, a loud bang rings through the quiet night air. Rylee’s eyes go wide, her face turns white, then the glass in her hand falls to the ground and shatters at our feet. I feel her start to drop and catch her before she can fall. “Rylee.”
I hear manic laughter behind her, and what I see tells me I am just about to go back on everything I’ve ever said.
I’m going straight back to prison.
But before I do, Anderson will be going in the ground.
“You took what was mine, so now I am taking what’s yours.” Anderson saunters off like he doesn’t have a care in the world, and I look down at Rylee, whose eyes are wide in fear as she struggles to breathe.
Fuck. I lay her down ever so gently on the ground and pull out my phone, and dial for an ambulance. They tell me they’re on the way as I watch the blood pool around her.
“Rich girl, stay with me.” I hear the sirens and look back to her apartment. Fuck! Winter. Reaching for my phone again with blood-covered hands, I call Beckham, and he answers straight away. “Get to your sister’s, now,” I yell at him through the phone.
“Who the fuck do you think—”
“Rylee’s been shot. Hurry.”
Beckham hangs up, and I know he will be here soon.
The ambulance arrives and Rylee’s eyes are closed, her breathing shallow, as they check her over and start moving. I watch helplessly as they stabilize her, then put her into the back and drive away. I stand there, blood-soaked hands itching to scrub my face.
I can’t lose another person I love.
I won’t.
Not again.
“August.” I raise my head to see Beckham standing in front of me. “No, don’t you dare. Don’t even think about it. Do you want to go away for life and never see Winter again?” he bellows. I realize my hands are in fists and my mouth tight as I breathe heavily. “Winter inside?” he asks, motioning to the house.