Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 123212 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123212 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Colton watches me for a short moment before nodding and pulling me back inside the mansion. “You can stay with me as long as you need,” he tells me.
We walk back through the mansion until he’s pushing through to the den. He leads me to the oversized couch and I drop down onto it. Colton disappears for all of two seconds before returning with a blanket and a bunch of cushions and despite the turmoil my heart and soul are suffering through, I feel a smile tugging at my lips.
Colton collapses down on the couch beside me and stretches out with the blanket. “Come here,” he murmurs, reaching for me.
He pulls me into his arms and a sense of comfort finally comes over me and for the first time all day, I finally feel like everything is going to be okay.
Colton is quickly becoming my home and the more time I spend with him, the clearer that becomes. I just wish it didn’t terrify me quite so much. His hand rubs up and down my arm and I’m thankful that he’s not pushing for answers, he’s just content to sit here with me in the middle of the night and hold me until the images in my mind begin to fade, but this time, I don’t think his presence is going to be enough to make it go away. Nothing is going to heal this. What I saw … it’s not something a girl can simply forget about.
I nuzzle my face into his chest and he instantly pulls me in tighter. “Are you okay?” he murmurs into the darkened room?
I shake my head. “I don’t think I’m ever going to be okay.”
His lips brush across my forehead and I close my eyes, trying to pull every ounce of comfort out of his touch. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I shake my head yet still feel the words slipping from between my lips. “I don’t think I can,” I tell him. “The Widows … if they knew I said something …”
“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “You don’t need to tell me what happened, but fuck, Jade. Please explain why the fuck there’s a lump on your head and your elbows and knees are all scratched up.”
I think over what happened and realize that I want to share this with him, at least the parts that aren’t going to put him in danger. He deserves some sort of explanation. One second I was in his office, clearing out a bunch of shit, and the next thing he knew, I was gone.
I curl closer into his side and let out a shaky breath. “I was with Nic and the boys at the Widow’s clubhouse asking them about the whole ownership thing. The papers I found today in your father’s office had their mark on the front and I had to know—”
“Wait. Your father was a Widow?”
I shake my head. “No, that’s just the thing. He wasn’t,” I tell him, skipping over the deeper truth and deciding to keep myself as distant as I can. “I couldn’t understand the connection between the three and I had to know what Nic knew, what all of them knew and it turns out that they’ve been lying to me since the very start. They knew exactly … they knew it all and they kept it from me.”
The fight out front of the compound comes slamming back and I find myself back there, reliving it all as I heard what Kian had to say and I yelled at the boys. That moment is going to live inside my mind, tormenting me until my dying days.
“I was just leaving,” I continue. “I’d just told them all to go to hell. I said that I was done and I had every intention of walking away and never looking back. I’ve never been betrayed like that before and just as I was walking back to your Ferrari, a black SUV came past and opened fire on us.”
Colton flinches and I feel his chest stop rising and falling as he captures his breath, holding it in fear of what I might say next.
“Nic threw me down to the pavement, that’s how I ended up all cut up. I could hear the bullets zooming past me. I’ve never been so fucking scared in my life. It was only a few seconds but it felt like it went on forever and when they were finally gone … Nic’s dad …”
“Fuck, Jade. Tell me this story doesn’t end how I think it does?”
“It’s so much worse.” Colton holds onto me, just letting me be at one with my thoughts and waiting until I’m ready to go on. “Kian’s dead,” I finally say, my tone sounding robotic and completely drained of all emotion. “I should have left after that, but I didn’t think it could get worse. I couldn’t leave Nic when his father’s body was still laying warm on the concrete and Eli … he’d been shot. I just … I couldn’t. I had to make sure they were going to be alright, but then …”