Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 136791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
"I miss you," I whisper, not sure if I'm talking to Titan or to Cade. Both, I think.
Cade groans wordlessly. "I miss you too, baby girl. So goddamn much, but I've been trying to be good and give you space. I'm about to lose my fucking mind trying, but I am trying." He exhales another breath. "Now that I've had you in my arms again, I don't know how the fuck I'm supposed to sleep without you in them."
"I don't want space."
"Yeah?" His voice drops low, half hopeful question, half male growl.
"There's a lot you don't know. A lot I want to tell you," I whisper, running my finger over the engraving on the pendant in my hands.
“You can tell me anything, January.”
“I know. It’s just...It’s overwhelming, you know?”
“Yeah, I get that.”
I exhale a breath. "Cade, I've been–"
A floorboard creaks in the living room.
"Cade!" I laugh, happiness bubbling up from my soul. He's always been fast as hell, but that was insanely fast. "Did you seriously just run over here?"
"What?"
"I just told you that I don't want space, and now you're in my living room," I say, laughing again. “You could have walked.”
"January, fuck, baby girl. I'm not in your house." The terror in his voice is overwhelming. It sends my heart slamming against my ribcage as fear shoots through me.
"Cade," I whimper, suddenly terrified.
Another floorboard creaks, closer than before.
"Hide, baby girl," he orders, and I can hear him moving.
"Please hurry," I beg him, jumping up from the bed and rushing toward the closet with Titan's pendant still clutched in my hand.
"I love you. I'm coming for you," Cade promises me. "Hide."
Chapter Twenty-Two
Cade
"What's up, boss man?" I ask Ames, staring out my front window like a Stage-Five Clinger, trying to catch a glimpse of January. She hasn't stuck so much as a toe outside except for the few hours she was gone on Friday morning. Being this close to her but not able to see her is driving me insane.
Normally, I'd lose myself in work, but I can't even do that, considering I'm on administrative leave until they know whether or not I'm going to be charged with murder. Needless to fucking say, I'm losing my goddamn mind.
I've scrubbed and repainted the bedroom Kaleo's boys destroyed. I sanded down the hardwood floors to get the paint off and then waxed them. I've replaced all the furniture with new shit. My ass is still jittery with pent-up energy. Even jerking off to thoughts of January riding my cock hasn't settled me down any. If anything, those fantasies only made me miss her more.
"Roman Gregory and Luke Santiago found a gun on Curtis Kaleo's property," Ames says.
A smile slides across my face, satisfaction rolling through me.
"It appears to match the one used to kill Adcock and his buddies. They're sending it off for forensic testing to confirm."
I don't bother to tell him that it'll match. He doesn't bother to ask me if I planted it. We both know it will and that I did, but we dance around that subject just like we have every other day since Hernandez scooped me up from Kaleo's and took me in for questioning. I'm pretty certain Ames knows I'm the one who killed them, but he hasn't asked. For some reason, he's still fighting for my dumb ass. So is Roman.
"Kaleo always was a goddamned idiot," I mutter to Ames. The fucker thought he had me over a barrel with that receipt—which I'm pretty sure he fucking planted. But I haven't kept myself alive and on top for so long by being stupid. Before I left town all those years ago, I took Kaleo's gun and hid it in the shed behind his mama's house, beneath years of accumulated junk I knew damn well he'd never clean up. His prints are the only ones on it.
Still, I was starting to worry they'd never find it, and I would go down for this. I still could. I wore gloves that night and made myself as invisible as possible, but committing murder isn't exactly a risk-free scenario. And I wasn't exactly in a great headspace at the time. I could have fucked up.
Ames grunts his agreement like he knows what's up with Kaleo. Hell, at this point, it wouldn't surprise me to find out he knows all the sordid details about my past. For a long time, I thought I buried the worst of it, but apparently not deeply enough to keep nosy motherfuckers like Ames and Roman from finding out the truth. They know everything—or at least enough to know not to ask me if I did it.
I'm not even mad.
For whatever reason, they've both kept my secret for me. I should probably feel bad that two good cops turned a blind eye to the fact that I killed three people, but Ames and Roman are good cops. If they think I'm worth saving…maybe I'm not as fucking terrible as I always thought.