Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 82025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
“If I’m not out in fifteen minutes, you leave.”
“What? You want me to leave you here?”
He reaches under the seat and brings out a gun, handing it to me. “Anyone approaches the truck, shoot them.”
I stare at him for a beat, then the gun that I’d rather toss in the nearest bush than use. “You’re serious?”
Without an answer, he slips out from behind the wheel, slamming the door, then tapping on the glass. “Lock it,” he mouths.
I press the locks down, double checking them as my gaze shifts around the parking lot like Hannibal Lecter is about to jump out. Instead, I spot two guys hunched down by some ratty old car, shoving something under the window seal. Jesus, this place really is a shithole. Because that car doesn’t even look worth stealing. A red-headed girl in the smallest skirt I’ve ever seen approaches them, and knees the bigger guy in the ball. While he’s down on the ground, she gets in the car and drives away. Well then… go her, I guess.
My attention shifts back to the front of the bar. I clutch the gun to my chest as if all hell is about to break loose. Jude clearly thinks it is.
With each minute that passes, I wonder if I’m really supposed to leave if Jude doesn’t come out? I don’t know how to get back to his house—I don’t even know where I am.
It’s sixteen minutes before Jude finally shoves the door to the bar open so hard it bangs against the exterior of the building. He has his phone to his ear, and even from here, I can tell he’s pissed.
The locks click, and he gets in, throwing the car in reverse on a rev of the engine. “Marney, get someone to kill John Douglas,” he says. “Bastard didn’t pay, and now he’s really pissed me off.” He tosses the phone to the floorboard, and speeds off. We hit the highway, immediately careening through a red light.
“This is bullshit,” he mumbles, pressing a hand to his thigh. The glow of the dashboard gives just enough light that I can see a dark stain spreading over his jeans.
I slam my palm over the interior light switch, taking in the sight of blood covering his hand. Of course… “You got shot, Jude?”
“No, I didn’t get shot.” His tone is almost mocking. “Just stabbed…”
“Oh, is that all?” I can’t with him. I glance at his leg again. I can’t tell how bad the cut is, but I'd say pretty bad based on the amount of blood. “Pull over, Jude.”
He shoots me a look of absolute defiance, then shifts the gear. The man has a screw loose.
“You’re a dickhead, and you’re going to bleed out.” Not literally. That’s definitely not an artery, but he could definitely pass out. At the wheel.
“Feel like dying tonight, Tor? Because if I pull over, that just might happen.”
I glance at the speedometer. We’re going one-hundred and ten miles per hour down this shitty, empty highway. “You keep going, and you’ll pass out and crash this car.”
“It’s just a fucking cut.”
“Are you a doctor?”
“Last I checked…” I glances at me before taking a hard right. “You weren’t anymore.”
“You know what, Jude. Fuck you! Fine. Die. I don’t care, but I’m not going with you.” I scramble for the gun that’s now on the floorboard somewhere, and the second I grab it, I point it at him. “Stop the car.”
“Well…” The bastard smiles. He smiles at me because I’ve pointed a gun at his head. “Now the blood flow is definitely going somewhere else.”
“You’re so fucked up.”
He speeds onto a ramp, merging onto a busy interstate. Of all the stubborn, reckless assholes in the world that I am absolutely not going to shoot… I toss the gun back to the floor, yank my shirt over my head, and wad it up. He grabs my ponytail and yanks me over the console when I apply a decent amount of pressure to the wound.
“Stop being a baby,” I say.
“You pressing on it fucking hurts.”
“Well, then maybe you should consider a less hazardous career.”
He swerves into another lane, whizzing past an eighteen-wheeler. If he crashes, we’re going to die.
Twenty minutes later, I’m traumatized from reckless driving.
Jude pulls into his drive, parking beside Caleb’s truck. When he stumbles out, he takes my bloodied shirt and chucks it at me. “Put that back on. My brother’s not seeing your tits.”
That’s what he’s worried about? When he’s been stabbed?
I glance at the bloody material covered in God only knows whose DNA. There is no way I’m putting that disgusting thing back on. Caleb can deal with seeing me in a bra–and so can Jude.
I dump the shirt in the trash while I watch him hobble up the stairs like a dick.
Jude glares up at me when he reaches for the door. “Put the shirt on, Tor.”