Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 58615 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 293(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58615 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 293(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
This is all so new to Clo, and the circumstances so abnormal. I clearly haven’t shown her just how damn much she means to me. How fucking deeply rooted she is inside me. She is in the very essence of who I am. I can’t bear to think of a life where she’s not at the center of it. I need to tell her and prove to her that it’s only her for us. Make her understand that no one else compares or matters. Let her know that Rachel is as insignificant as a mouse finding its way inside your house.
Finally, the gate clanks open and I hit the accelerator, punching forward the small tin can, pushing its limits. Screeching to a stop in front of the house, I jump out and race up the steps. I wiggle the handle to no avail. It’s locked. No surprise there. I didn’t think to bring keys with me in my mad rush out of there.
Banging my fist against the wooden panel gets me nowhere. Is no one here? I take off around the house and try each door and window, coming up empty. Garage. It has a code lock on the outside. My heart thunders in my chest as I approach the panel and input my old code. When the red light beeps to green, I sag in relief.
It’s eerily quiet when I make it into the main house. No staff litters the halls. My shoes creak over the polished floors, causing an echo. The tiny hairs rise on the back of my neck when I hear a faint sound coming from upstairs. Jack wouldn’t hurt Clo. I believe that deep down. Not with his own hands anyway. She’s going to be in her room sulking, and I’ll scold her for leaving and being reckless and then she will cry and shout at me. I’ll fuck all the hate out of her until she’s brimming with only love. We will all laugh about it on the way back to my house and decide she’s never allowed to take off again. She has to stay, not because she’s our job, but because she’s ours period. Taking the steps two at a time, I follow the hum of voices to Clo’s bedroom. The door gives way under my hand. A cold dread saturates my body before I’m even inside.
Fury unfurls in my chest as I enter. An overbearing ache pulses in my gut as I see straight to her bathroom through the open doorway. There’s some big fucker leaning over the bathtub and Marjorie looking down to whom he has submerged. A roar, wild and unrestrained, tears from my lungs as I take off toward him, colliding with his middle and taking him off his feet. We crash through the glass wall of the shower, shattering the glass and hitting the cold tiles. Marjorie’s shouts echo around me, but all I see is him and the red mist clouding my mind. The guy hits his head with a thud and becomes limp beneath the weight of my body. Rushing to stand, ignoring the pain of glass shredding my flesh, I stumble to the bathtub.
No. No. Fucking no.
Water splashes everywhere as I step inside and pull my girl up from beneath the water. Her lips are turning blue, and she’s as white as a sheet.
No, no, no, no.
“Baby! Baby, it’s okay, I’m here,” I weep, pushing the dark strands of her hair from her cheeks and dragging her limp frame from the bathtub. Her naked body sags in my hold and fear like nothing I’ve ever experienced roots itself inside me like a plague, consuming me.
Focus, Seb.
CPR.
She needs CPR.
I won’t let her die on my watch.
Before I can act, hot, white pain tears through my back, making me almost drop Clo and collapse from the agony of it. Marjorie screeches as she attempts to pry the shard of shower glass from my flesh so she can stab me with it again. Placing Clo onto the floor, I swing my elbow around, finding purchase with Marjorie’s stomach, robbing her of breath. She staggers backward, giving me time to advance on her.
“You fucking cunt,” I roar. “It was you this whole time.”
I should have known. I should have connected this big fucking dot.
She snarls at me. “She’s a whore! She will tarnish all the hard work we’ve put into getting to the White House!” Her eyes are narrowing on me into evil slits.
How could I not see the dormant beast lying in wait within her?
“You hired that motherfucker to run her down?”
“Milo wasn’t hired to kill her,” she sneers. “Just to appear as a threat. It would have been enough too, but the little whore had to go opening her legs for you perverts. After everything I’ve done to get us here, she won’t ruin this. I won’t allow it.”