Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Although I was sure his time had been cut off too soon, that he’d fully intended to get that charm into someone else’s hands.
Maybe into mine.
I just hadn’t seen it for what it was.
“You tried to save him, Milo. You stood up for what was right. That’s what matters.”
Milo’s throat bobbed beneath his beard, a breath of refusal leaving his mouth. “I fucked it up from the beginning. Made mistake after mistake.”
“My brother made his own.”
Milo’s nod was clipped. “And it cost him everything. Just like mine did me. My wife died because of me, Tessa. Don’t you understand? I did it. I was the one who was responsible. I was the one who made the choice that cost everything.”
I couldn’t bring myself to point out that he’d spared my brother while doing it, or at least had given him more time. Not when Autumn’s life had been the cost. I wouldn’t be so selfish to tell him I was grateful when it’d been the greatest sacrifice, nor would I ask him not to regret it.
But I could ask him to see what still remained on the other side of it.
“But you haven’t lost everything, Milo. Look at what you have. What remains. You saved me.” I squeezed his hand as tightly as I could.
“I almost got you killed, Tessa.” The words were coarse. Riddled with self-hate.
“No.”
“You know that I did. I warned that I would ruin you, just like I did Autumn. I knew I would, and I was the selfish bastard who wanted to keep you, anyway.”
“Because I’m yours.”
His head shook. “No.”
“Yes.”
Slowly, he pushed to his feet.
Tall and towering.
Fierce and soft.
Rough and gentle.
Everything.
But I’d never seen his broken halo as clearly as right then.
What he’d been through.
The reason he’d held himself back. The reason he thought he couldn’t love.
The reason fear clouded his aura in a dark, dingy black.
Dread clamored through my senses. A cold, icy slick of foreboding.
He leaned over and pressed his lips to my forehead. “You are a treasure, Little Dove. You are the light. And I won’t dim that…not any longer.”
He started to straighten, and I grappled for his shirt, curling my fingers in the fabric, pleading, “Please, don’t do this. Don’t walk away from me.”
“I’m doing you a favor.”
“You’re wrong.”
And if it was a favor, I didn’t want it.
He uncurled my fingers from his shirt, and he squeezed them once, heartbreak written all over his face as he carefully set them back on my chest, holding them tight there for an elongated beat. “Shine bright, Little Dove.”
Then he turned on his heel and strode for the door, so big and massive and everything that my soul ached for.
Craved.
My match.
My Beautiful Beast.
“Don’t you dare leave me, Milo. You promised. You promised!”
I shouted it at his retreating form, panic tremoring through my voice.
He stopped at the door with his hand on the latch, his head bowed between his shoulders.
“We’re a team,” I whispered when he finally shifted to look at me from over his shoulder.
Amber eyes bled with remorse. “Not anymore.”
I stared at the laptop screen, watching the clips again and again.
Maybe I was torturing myself, but somehow, it was cathartic.
Knowing Bobby this way. The side of him that I’d never met. The one he’d kept hidden.
No wonder, because I would have kicked his ass myself.
God, what had he been thinking?
It made it more painful to know he’d done it for me.
Gotten involved in these underground fights because it was easy money.
He’d used it to support me.
As a way to pay for my college and my dorm and to ensure that I didn’t start off life with a huge debt.
I’d gladly welcome that debt because the alternative was too steep a price to pay.
I should have known there was no way he could have afforded everything he was paying for.
Working two jobs.
I’d been young and naïve and blind to what was going on.
It wasn’t like it even occurred to me to be suspicious. Bobby had been my hero, and I never could have imagined he’d get involved in something that slanted sinister.
But I imagined, through everything I’d learned, that Stefan had gotten his hooks into Bobby the same way as he’d done Milo.
Twisted the reality.
Manipulated the intentions.
Laid out a plan that had seemed like a no-brainer but had only been a trap.
It turned out the flash drive held my big brother’s secrets. We still didn’t know who’d helped him record the fights, but Bobby had been compiling video after video of the illegal fights, plus documenting a ton of different illegal activities that were also taking place.
I wasn’t sure if he planned to use it as blackmail or if he was taking it to the authorities.
Either way, it had ultimately cost him his life.
Anger pulsed through me at the memory. At everything that had been lost and stolen.