Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
I wondered if maybe I should have taken him up on the information he’d provided, gone and checked out the church and the area where the addicts used to get high.
No, drugs had never been Jake’s problem. But that didn’t mean it couldn’t have happened. Every single day, someone became addicted to a substance they’d never touched before.
And I could see how, if Jake had gotten hooked on something, he might have let everything else in his life slip away. Even gotten involved with a new crew for some quick cash to chase that high.
That niggled at me, though, on the ride back to Brooklyn.
Because if he was desperate for a fix, why wouldn’t he go to his old apartment? Take and hock his gaming systems? His old TV? Collectibles? Even hit up the too giving and often gullible Bobby for cash?
It didn’t fit.
And he had no reason to sleep in a church when he still had a room at Bobby’s apartment.
It didn’t fit.
The thing was, neither did anything else.
If he was okay, and he’d just hooked up with a new crew to make money—because heaven fucking forbid he have to go out and get an actual job for once—why would his phone be off? Why was he no-contact with Bobby, who he’d been friends with forever?
I was dead on my feet when I dragged myself down the hallway toward my apartment.
I sighed when I heard something falling to the ground inside.
I’d locked in Evander when I’d stopped in to feed him and change after work, not wanting him shrieking on the fire escape all night if I wasn’t around to let him in. Clearly, he was protesting by knocking shit off of my counters and tables.
Luckily, I didn’t exactly have much by way of possessions, so he couldn’t have done too much damage.
It wasn’t until I was already in the apartment with the door closed behind me that I realized something was off.
It was dark.
Pitch-black dark inside of my apartment.
I’d not only left the light on in the living room and the bathroom where his litter box was located, but I’d also left the TV on so he had some noise in case he started to throw a fit about being trapped inside.
Sure, there was a chance that the TV had glitched while streaming and gone back to the home screen. And, yeah, lightbulbs went out.
But not all at once.
My hand shot backward, trying to find the knob in the dark, wanting to just quietly make my way back out. To go where, I had no idea. But I wasn’t about to walk further into an apartment until I had some light. And maybe something heavy to knock someone on the head with.
My hand overshot the knob, though, knocking into it, making a sound that seemed like a thunderclap in the silent apartment.
My heartbeat pounded harder and sweat was beading up in my hairline as I grabbed the knob.
It was right then that the light flicked on.
The one that was attached to the light switch just two feet away from me.
Then there he was.
Towering over me.
With hauntingly familiar piercing blue eyes.
The last time I’d seen them, they’d been leering at me through the hole slits of a ski mask. As he tried to hold me down and remove my pants.
A little whimper escaped me before I could fight it back.
“That’s probably an appropriate reaction,” he said with an evil little smirk as he raised his hand a little higher, showing me the gun he was holding.
I hated that he was attractive.
There should be some genetic rule that your internal ugliness had to be displayed on the outside, so everyone knew who to steer clear of.
But there he was.
Tall, classically handsome with his cut-glass jaw, his rugged bone structure, his blue eyes, and his carelessly tousled brown hair.
“What do you want?” I asked, frustrated with the shakiness in my voice.
I needed to calm down.
This wasn’t the empty meat shop, flanked on either side with other businesses that had shut down for the night.
This was an apartment building filled with people. Most of them home on a weekday night. I could even hear the muffled conversation from the family on the floor above mine.
True, this was the city full of people who minded their own business. I mean, I didn’t call the cops when I heard nasty-ass, top-of-the-lungs fights from couples in the building. That said, there was a difference between a couple of drunks getting pissy and screaming at each other and someone being assaulted.
Someone would call the cops.
I wasn’t going to be raped and murdered in my own apartment, damnit.
Besides, I was right by the door.
If I could just distract him for a second, throw my purse at him or something, I could rip the door open, rush outside, and run for my life.