Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 93482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
After getting him situated, I set up what I needed. Thankfully, the garage, where most of the gardening equipment was stored, was extremely clean. Raul’s father ran a tight ship, and I could appreciate that. Every tool had its place on the wall, secured with hooks or ties. There was plenty of space for me to set up the little travel-size tripod and light that I had picked up at a convenience store earlier that day.
I usually found social media tedious. No one cared what anyone had for breakfast, but sometimes, the tools of that particular trade were useful.
I set my phone into the tripod and set it to record. The bright light pointed at Raul’s face would not only make sure that he was well-captured in the video, but hopefully between the light and the concussion he would be a little disoriented.
While I waited for him to wake up, I took stock of lover boy. He was handsome enough, in a frat-boy jock, corn-fed kind of way. Blond hair, blue eyes… I understood why my little angel may have fallen for him. But he really didn’t seem like much. His clothing, his mannerisms, even the junk food, weed, and football video game were all just so mind-numbingly predictable.
It couldn’t have been any more cliche if I had walked in on him getting a blow job from a cheerleader Barbie.
This, this was the man that my angel had given her virtue to? No, it had to be a mistake. There was no way that someone so simple could have had someone so awe-inspiring.
I did not have time for this, and the more I looked at him, the more annoyed I got. She said she loved him. She had plans to run away with him. He was nothing.
Patience was a virtue, and normally it was one of the few that I cultivated, but I couldn’t be in the same room with him anymore. I went over to his lax body, grabbed him by the hair, and pulled him to a sitting position, slapping his face until he woke up.
“What, what’s happening?” he said, looking around like an idiot and then trying to shield his eyes from the light.
“What is your relationship with Rose Astrid?” I demanded.
“What business is it of yours?” he sneered, not fully recognizing the position he was in.
“What is your relationship?” I barked again, this time pulling the gun I had tucked in my jacket out and pulling back the hammer.
With the light shining in his face, I doubted he could see it, but I knew he recognized the sound of that click.
“Nothing man, nothing real anyway. It was just a scam.”
“What kind of scam?”
“Nothing. I just made her think I loved her or whatever and that she and I would run away and get married.” His face got paler by the minute, and he started to actually sweat. It only took seconds to break him. This was just pathetic. I put the gun away.
“Were you going to run away and get married?”
“Yeah, of course, but like, it was just a scam. I was going to get her to marry me, stay married for like maybe a year, maybe knock her up or something, and then bounce.”
“You were planning on leaving her with a child?”
“I mean, if I had to. Once I got her to agree to a date to elope, I was going to tell her mom and see if her mom would pay me off. If she wasn’t going to, then yeah, I was going to marry her, knock her up and then file for divorce, leave the kid with my parents and make her pay like child support and alimony and shit. It’s not like the Astrids actually need all that fucking money.”
Jesus Christ, even his scam lacked originality.
“So, like, I told you what you needed to know. You going to let me go?”
“Why would I do that?” I asked, not bothering to point out that I had never tied him up. All he had to do was to stand.
“Because I told you what you wanted to know. I’m assuming that bitch Mary Quinn Astrid is the one that sent you. Probably sent you to get the truth out of me so she can just pay me off and make me go away.”
“Mary Quinn doesn’t know about this,” I said.
“Then why are you here? Why do you care?”
“I’m here for Rose.”
He scoffed. He actually rolled his eyes and scoffed.
“No, you’re not. That bitch wouldn’t dare. She’s too hung up, too addicted to my dick, to think I was pulling anything over her. She’s just some dumb rich bitch princess.”
His words ignited a rage in my body that was almost as intense as the hatred and loathing I felt for Mary Quinn... Almost.
I could play games with Rose, I could mess with her head, take her body, own her pleasure, because I was at the very least her equal. In breeding, in class, education, and intelligence. This asshole could have been a royal fucking blueblood, and he still wouldn’t be good enough for my angel.