Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 144908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
“Maybe you can relax and let me just hold you for a little while. I’m going to be hard anytime I’m around you or thinking of you. That’s the way it’s going to be. If you weren’t so damn sexy it might be different, but you are, and we’re both going to have to live with it.” It came out gravelly, as if he might be annoyed with her.
Another sound, somewhere between laughter and choking, bubbled up. “I can’t imagine that I’m so sexy right now. Bruises on my face. I’m an ugly crier. I’ve got bruises on my hip too. You’re just pretending not to see, and I’m grateful for that.”
“You’re sexy. Settle down. You need rest.”
The slight smile faded immediately. She turned her face fully up to his. “I’m afraid to close my eyes. Talk to me. Tell me about that horrid school. At least it sounds horrid. And the man who gave you good advice.”
“He was a kid when he gave it to me. That was Czar. He was about thirteen or fourteen. He often came out with good advice, although at the time, when he said it, I usually wanted to punch him in the face. I was a pretty violent kid. Had a lot of rage in me.”
“Czar was in that same school?” She rubbed her wet cheek along the heavy muscles of his chest like a kitten.
“Yes. All the original members of Torpedo Ink were in that same school with me. All of them lost their parents in the same way. Sorbacov hated their parents and had them murdered. He hated Czar above all else. He did everything he could to break him.” Master stroked his hand down her hair. She had amazing hair. Soft as silk. How did women get their hair to be so damn soft? Or maybe it was just Ambrielle. He didn’t make it a practice to bury his fingers in women’s hair unless he was fisting it and dragging their heads back while he fucked them.
He tried to puzzle out why he felt so different about Ambrie. He barely even saw the women he paid in the clubs. He registered their faces because he looked for ones that had been around the block a few times. There weren’t a lot of words exchanged. No promises made. No building up to any kind of intimacy. He didn’t kiss. Mostly there was hard, rough fucking. He got them off because he wasn’t a complete dick, but when he came out of prison, that was all he wanted to do, and frankly, he didn’t give a damn who he did it with or even how. Until now.
“Sorbacov sounds like he’s far worse than Walker Thompson, and I didn’t think anyone could be worse.”
“Sorbacov is dead. He was a serial killer drunk on his own power. He was the worst kind of pedophile. He enjoyed brutality, torture and rape. Watching it, doing it and leading others down that same path. The more brutal, the greater his enjoyment. He would get some of the kids in the school to believe he was benevolent. That he would give them extra food for ratting out others for infractions. He never spared them the punishments, but he always convinced them he would. He enjoyed seeing how often they would believe his betrayals. It amused him.”
“Were all of you trained as assassins?”
“All the survivors. Out of two hundred eighty-nine children taken to the school over twenty years, only nineteen survived. I’m one of them. All of Torpedo Ink are survivors of that school.”
She suddenly lifted her head, her eyes meeting his. “Master, do you think Gleb and Denis are survivors from your school? They’re Russian and they weren’t in the same league with Thompson’s other men. Most of Walker Thompson’s personal protectors were bulky men who relied on everyone seeing they had guns. Gleb and Denis and the other two men with them weren’t like that at all. They were very quiet and ten times scarier. Thompson thought he controlled them, but he didn’t. I know he didn’t. They would have turned on him in a minute if he said the wrong thing to them.”
“There were four schools that children were taken to. Three of the schools were legitimate, although extremely violent, and all the children were subjected to brutality while they trained. There are men for hire, they call themselves ‘Ghosts.’ We’ve run across them many times. We believe these men are from one or more of those schools and have banded together and have offices in various major cities where they offer their services.”
“So Gleb and Denis would be from one of the other schools.” She looked to him for confirmation.
Her eyes had gone that incredible shade of electric violet that didn’t look real. Beautiful. Unusual. She reminded him of a glamorous movie star who didn’t belong with a dirty biker who had spent more time in prison than he had out of it.