Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 56628 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56628 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Joey came out of the back from visiting Adelaide. When she had been released from surgery, he was the first person back there to see her, not even letting me back there first. And honestly, after what we’d found out, I hadn’t fought him on it. They both had lost a baby.
His jaw was clenched, and he looked murderous. Like the cold-blooded killer people said Joey really was. “She’s asking for you,” Joey told me, his voice empty.
I shook my head at him. “I can’t go see her right now,” I told him, guilt swirling in my gut. “Not knowing that I fucking let her walk out like that, that I’m part of the reason she’s in this goddamn situation.”
Joey shook his head at me, anger flashing in his eyes. “Tristan, if you don’t go see her, I think it’s going to send her toppling over the edge. She doesn’t even give a shit that she’s lost a baby. She’s at the point of breaking completely, and I don’t want to see her become that kind of monster. Don’t be selfish. Fucking go see her.”
“She won’t,” I told him, getting up from my chair and ignoring the last part of what he said. I couldn’t face her. How the fuck could I?
Joey glared at me, shaking his head. “Then you don’t know that woman at fucking all. She’s destructive, Tristan, and right now, she’s on the verge of shutting it all off.”
I ignored him. Adelaide wasn’t that kind of woman. I just needed a few hours to come to terms with what the fuck had happened, what I had failed to protect her from, and then, I would go see her.
I’d never felt more like an idiot in my life. I should have just fucking listened to Joey, swallowed my guilt, and went to go see her.
Because she fucking disappeared.
I stood with Jesup and Joey as we listened to the doctor, who sounded as baffled as I fucking felt. “She left sometime in the middle of the night,” he informed us. “I don’t know how the hell she managed to walk out, but she’s gone. With her kind of injuries, she shouldn’t have even been able to move off of the bed. I have no idea how she slipped past the nurses on duty either. Security footage doesn’t show anything. It’s like she turned into a ghost.”
I swallowed thickly. Joey chuckled, but it lacked any humor. He shook his head. “I fucking told you, man.” He laughed again, his hands fisting at his sides. “I fucking told you!” he shouted, spinning to face me.
Then, his fist connected with my jaw, knocking me off my feet. He was dragged into cuffs, but he only grinned at me, looking slightly manic, like a man possessed.
“I created that monster to keep her from dying, Tristan.” I spit out blood on the floor. “You should have fucking just listened to me, and maybe she’d still be here,” he snarled at me before he was dragged away by the security officer.
I’d fucked up.
Adelaide was gone, and this time, no one knew where the fuck she’d gone.
Addy, baby, I’m so, so fucking sorry.
She had done exactly what Joey said she would do.
She had shut it all off, and she had left.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tristan
ONE YEAR LATER
Iwalked into the bar where Vin had set up our next exchange. A year had gone by since Adelaide had left, and it was like she’d disappeared off the face of the earth. There was no fucking trace of her anywhere. Honestly, if we couldn’t still find proof of her driver’s license and social security number, I would have thought she was a mere figment of my imagination.
Vin had mellowed out shockingly, but I still had a feeling he knew where Adelaide was, and I also had a feeling he’d been the one to attack her and leave her for River to find. I’d tried to go after Rodney too just in case he’d had a hand in her attack, but someone had beat me to it, leaving him bloody and broken, his limbs bent at unnatural angles. When I confronted Joey about it, thinking he’d been the one to take Rodney out, he’d been as shocked as I’d been. Someone had shut Rodney up before either one of us could, but we just put that down to the dumbass having too many enemies.
So, a couple of months after Adelaide had disappeared, I set aside my pride and formed a truce with Vin in the hopes that I would find Addy before it was too late to save her.
“Fuck, this place is a disgusting ass strip club,” Jesup muttered, following me back to the small booth in the very far corner where it was the darkest, where Vin always decided for us to sit. He didn’t like being able to be seen. He preferred to keep his business in the dark, just like the shady mother fucker he truly was.