Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 70518 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70518 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Nate and the men he’d hired were already in jail, and they would be headed to prison from there. We’d gotten a very lucky break when the police discovered the abandoned warehouse had working security cameras, and the footage had been damning for them.
I wasn’t crying around the clock anymore, but now I had a new problem.
“What did he say?” I asked Sawyer as soon as he walked into the house.
He’d gone over to Kon’s house, and since Kon wasn’t responding to any of my calls or texts, it had been hell when Sawyer had left me behind.
“He’s Kon, so…he didn’t say a whole lot,” Sawyer said.
“Don’t play games with me,” I said. “Whatever he said about me, I want to know.”
My brother met my gaze, sympathy swimming in his eyes.
“It’s too much, isn’t it?” I said, my voice catching with emotion. “He doesn’t want to be with someone who has a psycho ex he ends up in jail over.”
“Let’s go sit down in the family room,” he said, grabbing a bottle of water from the refrigerator.
Wondering whether Kon was going to prison had made me physically sick, and I was relieved he was okay on that front, but I’d traded one set of problems for another.
Not only was he not speaking to me, but there was a swarm of reporters camped outside of Sawyer’s house. Now that the story about Kon saving his teammate’s sister from her kidnappers had broken, every media outlet imaginable wanted to interview me. The security guards Sawyer had hired were making me stay inside the house at all times.
No working at the bakery, no running errands, and worst of all—no going over to Kon’s apartment.
“It’s not that,” Sawyer said once we were seated in the family room. “It’s actually the opposite of that.”
“Stop being so cryptic,” I snapped. “Tell me what he said.”
“He said you’re too good for him. That you deserve a man who can protect you but also has restraint.”
I furrowed my brow, confused. “Restraint? With the men who kidnapped me and could have shot me at any moment?”
My brother scrubbed his hands down his face. “Luce, this stuff is complicated. If Kon had been some average guy, the cops and prosecutor probably would have charged him with something. We all could have been charged. We should have let the cops handle it, but…Kon and I just couldn’t. Wouldn’t, I guess. Our team owner’s money and clout got us out of this.”
“As long as you’re out of it, that’s all that matters.”
He gave me a serious look. “We have to be on our best behavior for the next decade or so. We’re damn lucky Rosa Romano values us enough to get us out of this mess and keep us around. Beating people within an inch of their life is bad for PR.”
I looked at the ground, feeling defeated. “None of this would have happened if I hadn’t come here.”
“Yeah, and I’d be passed out on that couch you’re sitting on, putting away a case of beer a day. And Kon wouldn’t have any idea what it’s like to have a relationship with a good person, who doesn’t steal his money and cheat on him.”
I wrapped my arms around myself, thinking about what he’d said.
“You’re the only woman he’s been with besides Svetlana,” Sawyer said. “I mean, for more than one night. And the fact that he thinks you’d be better off without him and you think he’d be better off without you is just proof of how fucked up you both are. You both have exes who did this to you.”
My brother had gone from dazed and drunk to being the voice of reason. He was right, of course. Nate was in jail and I no longer had to live in fear. Svetlana was in another country and Kon was finally free of her. The hard parts were over.
So why were we not together right now?
“How do we fix it?” I said softly. “Or at least, how do I fix what’s going on with me?”
“You stay. You’ve got no reason to leave now, so you stay and give Kon a little time to come to his fucking senses. You remind him what his life was like before you. Trust me, it sucked. That fucker was lonely. And you stop feeling so damn guilty all the time.”
My brother’s words hit close to home, for more than one reason.
“Do you ever feel guilty?” I asked him.
His shoulders sank. “Yeah. The guilt started when Annie got sick. I thought all the time about how it should have been me.” His eyes shone with unshed tears. “She didn’t deserve to suffer like that.”
I remembered the first time I met the beautiful, vibrant woman who would become my sister-in-law. Everything about Annie was good, and she was grateful for the small things in life. She’d loved Sawyer for his heart, not for his money and fame.