Total pages in book: 165
Estimated words: 154925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 775(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 775(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
“I don’t want to hurt a kid.” John stepped around Julia. “Come on, kid. Try to remember I’m the one who took you down.”
“Only because you had backup.” Kala’s head came up, eyes going steely. She looked so much like her mother, but that stubborn set of her jaw was pure Ian.
“I still have backup.” John gestured for her to go first. “If we get back soon, I can make us pancakes.”
“Like I would eat poison pancakes,” Kala snorted.
“They’re not poison.” John followed after her, the gaunt guard trailing them and leaving only the pilot behind.
He could take Julia down. He could get the gun she carried and kill the pilot, too, but he didn’t have Kala. If Julia wasn’t alive to pay them, it wasn’t like the mercenaries would throw up their hands and walk away. No. They would try to cover up the crime by killing them both and burying the bodies, and he would never do that to his aunt and uncle. Or his mom and dad.
Where had his death wish gone? For so very long all he’d wanted was to push the world to its limits and go over that edge so he could find the peace he craved.
The peace he craved wasn’t in the afterworld. It was right here. And that peace wasn’t some thing or place. That peace had a name. Mae Beatrice Vaughn.
“You didn’t fight me,” Julia said quietly, studying him with solemn eyes.
“You knew how to get me to move. You don’t need Kala.” He took a step closer to her, staring down. “I’m angry with you, but I think you might be right. I haven’t enjoyed my life lately.”
“You looked like you were.”
“Do you honestly think I could be happy forever with board game nights and hanging out watching Star Wars with a bunch of geeks?” He was a geek. It didn’t matter that he had great abs. He could now have an hours’ long discussion about how Marvel could properly align the X-Men universe with the current MCU. He had achieved geek status. He loved sitting around a board game table trying to figure out how to block Hutch or Deke from getting the points they needed to win.
But Julia would never understand what it meant to have a group of people who loved her, who took care of each other. All she’d ever had was a well-meaning but absent mother and a stepfather who was a fucking monster from what he could tell.
Julia’s lips curled up and she stepped in, coming close and tilting her head up as though waiting for a kiss. “No. I never thought you could be happy in that world. You weren’t meant for it, my love. You were meant for mine. Have you thought about how we could rule The Consortium?”
Yep. There was the bile in the back of his throat. He hated the fact that this had worked on him once. He’d thought she was gorgeous and sexy, and he’d been attracted to her darkness. Now that was all he could see. “I don’t know that I want to rule The Consortium. I don’t know what I want at all except I don’t want my uncle to come in here and kill us. He’ll do it. I assure you he’s out there plotting your painful death right now.”
Julia pouted like a child who’d been called out for some minor bad behavior. “That seems rude of him. Up until now all I’ve done is give the girl an adventure. It’s not like she’s some cry baby. Trust me. She’ll be fine, and when I’m done, Taggart won’t be able to touch me. Now stop talking about the girl who is not your family. You don’t share an ounce of blood with her.”
“You didn’t share an ounce of blood with Don Radcliffe, either.”
He knew he’d made a mistake when she stepped back, her eyes going cold again. “He raised me. He loved me. You were an adult when you met Sean Taggart. It’s not the same thing at all, and I killed him to save you. He was the only person who ever knew who I truly was, the only one who wanted me to be as great as I could be. I destroyed him because I love you. You need to think about that. Don’t try to get me to let go of the girl again. I’m not stupid, Kyle. I know what you’re doing, but what you don’t get is that I will win you back. I’ll peel back all those happy, normal layers you’ve taken to hiding under and I’ll find the man I fell in love with again.”
“And if that man is gone? If I’m exactly who I say I am and he was always the mask?” That Kyle had masked his pain, his fear. Now that he’d faced both, he didn’t need a mask at all.