Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 148238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
I never expected him hear me.
I only wanted the vow to trickle into his subconscious and hopefully ease some of the affliction inside.
Time ticked past, sleep came for me again.
In the final second before I fell into clouds, a tortured whisper breathed in my ear, “I’m more than afraid, Buttercup. I’m absolutely fucking terrified.”
The truth of his confession trickled into my mind, numbing my heart with horror. I curled tighter in his embrace. “Why?” I murmured.
He took forever to answer and when he finally did, I wished I weren’t awake to hear it.
This was what I was afraid of.
This hell masquerading as heaven.
“Because when you know what I did, Cleo. When you find out what a traitor I am, you’ll leave me. You’ll despise me and curse me; you’ll cut out my heart and disappear.”
His arms clutched me, panic drenching his muscles. “You’ll leave me, Buttercup, and this time, I’ll truly be ruined.
“You’ll destroy me forever.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Arthur
She said she knew me from her nightmares.
I never let on how fucking true that really was.
She thought I was her protector. Her confidant and soul mate.
She believed a lie worse than all the rest I’d spun.
I hated to think how I’d betrayed her. How I’d done something completely unforgivable. I never let on how far I’d fallen.
Every time I came inside her, I wanted to beg for forgiveness.
Every time she touched me or smiled, I wanted to fold to my knees and spill the truth.
I couldn’t tell her what I’d done.
But I couldn’t keep it a secret much longer.
It gnawed at my soul, descending me deeper into darkness. She was my light, my hope, my heart—and I’d ruined it all before I found her.
She thought she’d awoken from her nightmares. That reality would set her free and truth would dispel the evil in her past.
But she didn’t know the worst of them was me.
The one demon she should’ve shot the moment she opened her eyes.
The charade had gone on long enough.
But I didn’t have the strength to end it.
There would be no second chances. No moving past my heinous sins.
She would steal back her love and leave me destitute.
I would have only my anger.
I would have only my vengeance.
But ultimately, I would have nothing.
Eight Years Ago
Some say everything happens for a reason. That bad things happen to good people. That evil comes for the purest of us, and destinies can change in a blink.
I call bullshit.
I say we’re all fucking puppets being controlled by others. There’s no such thing as freedom. No such thing as fate. They’re all carefully maintained illusions.
I believed the lie once. I looked forward to my future. I held hope in my heart.
Now…
My eyes are open.
And I’ll never be so fucking naïve again.
“Take it, Killian.”
My eyes snapped up to latch onto the convict who’d tried to ass-rape me the day I arrived at Florida State. The key word in that sentence being he tried.
And failed.
Painfully and miserably.
Men had jumped on me from all corners. My pants were ripped down. My body pummeled with fists.
I’d lain there—ass naked and ready to be raped—when I’d seen two roads.
So distinct and real, I’d felt the roughness of dirt beneath my fingertips and the gleam of concrete in the sun.
Two choices.
One was to give up and let my life become a series of rapings and beatings until I died from either suicide or murder.
Or…
Kill every inch of the boy left inside me who believed he might one day be free of this life. Destroy any hope of ever having a pristine office overlooking Wall Street. That dream had been stolen the moment the handcuffs sliced around my wrists.
There was no trading for criminals.
My earliest dream had become unobtainable. It was torn away, and no matter what I did I wouldn’t achieve it. So my only option was to join them.
The choice had felt like it took years to make with my bare ass in the air and men fumbling with their waistbands, but in reality it only took microseconds.
I’d chosen the second path.
The one covered in dirt and filth.
The one destined to ruin me.
“Just take the fucking tray, will ya?” The jagged scar across the convict’s cheek was only just fading after a year. I’d done that to him with no remorse or second thoughts. He’d attacked and I’d defended.
Needless to say, I’d been given a wide berth ever since. No one wanted to mess with a man who’d murdered not one but three lives, and all before his eighteenth birthday.
Not even the guards tormented me. They knew I was in here for the long haul—it was best to get along, seeing as they were my family now.
Taking the tray of slop, I grinned coldly. “Thanks, Bradley. Hope there’s no extra in my mac and cheese. Else you and me… we’re gonna have another issue to solve.”