Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 67905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
And I just sat there, his hand on my thigh or tucked underneath my dress, always showing his possessiveness.
But I felt like his favorite doll, a toy he loved one moment then chucked across the room the next. I had to compartmentalize all my emotions to make it through the day, but he seemed to compartmentalize everything naturally, loving me one moment then hurting me the next like it was perfectly normal behavior. “I’m going to use the restroom.” I left the chair, feeling his hand slide off my thigh.
Bolton was wasted. “Baby, you know where it is?” His arm moved over the back of the chair as he looked at me over his shoulder.
“Yes, I’ll find it.” I walked off and moved between the tables of men with topless women in their laps, living it up at two in the morning, cigar smoke so thick it was like a London fog. This dress would have to be taken to the dry cleaners to get the stench out. Bolton didn’t smoke that much at home, but it was common for him to smell like a chimney when he walked through the door.
I passed another group of rowdy men then stepped into a hallway, the walls lined with stone and sloping sideways. The floor was uneven, so my heels were a bad idea. Now I understood why the bartenders wore flats. I walked down the dark hallway, and toward the end, two men were talking, leaning against opposite walls as they faced each other, smoking their cigars as they had their quiet conversation.
I turned to the left and opened a door, but it was a closet stuffed with guns.
A quiet whistle came from the guys down the hallway.
I stepped back and looked at them.
One of the guys pushed himself off the wall and pivoted his body toward me. It was dark and he was a distance away, but the tattoos on his face were unmistakable. Black ink all over, the color matching his eyes. “To the right, sweetheart.”
My heart dropped like a stone while a shock slid down my spine.
He leaned against the wall and continued his conversation, clearly not recognizing me.
But I sure as hell recognized him.
I stood in the cramped bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror.
Panic made my breaths increase. Adrenaline made me sweat. My hands rested on either side of the small sink, covered in dirt and hair because no one ever cleaned this place. But I didn’t care, needing a crutch as I processed what I just learned.
Flashbacks of that night struck me like a gunshot. The sound of the door busting open. His fucking head as he stuck it through the crack to look at me. The excitement in his eyes because it was all a fucking game his boss paid him to play.
The fight I heard on the other side of the door when Bolton came to my rescue, just a bunch of stunts like a televised wrestling match. The reason Bolton had gotten there so quickly was because he was parked in his car down the street, waiting for me to call.
“Why didn’t you pick up, Theo…” I released the sink and stepped back, seeing a woman so small she looked like a child. Someone I was ashamed to be. Someone I didn’t know. The attack that traumatized me wasn’t even real. The marriage that had made me so happy wasn’t real either.
Theo could have saved me several times, but I shouldn’t need him to save me.
“Fuck this. I’m gonna save myself.” I left the bathroom and returned down the hallway. The assholes were still talking and smoking. I opened the door and saw the same guns I’d seen minutes before. I found a big rifle with a strap. I tried to grab that one, but it was too heavy to hold as I balanced on my heels.
“Sweetheart, you lost again?” It was the guy with the tattoos.
“Nope.” I grabbed two handguns instead. I wasn’t a proficient shooter, but Bolton had taught me the basics. I made sure the safety was off both of them before I walked out and shut the door.
“What the fuck is she doing?” the other one asked.
“Sweetheart.” He started to come closer, walking down the dark hallway, coming right toward me like I wasn’t a threat, despite the two guns in my hands. “Those aren’t toys. You could really hurt yourself—”
I pointed at his leg and shot him.
“Ahhhh!” He gripped his leg and fell to the floor, the sound of the gunshot like an explosion against the stone walls. Even over the music and the laughter, everyone had to have heard it.
I stood over him and stabbed my heel into his leg. “Remember me, asshole?”
The other guy took several steps back.
“Shoot the bitch!” He tried to kick me off.