Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73191 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73191 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
“I can’t do that.” He shakes his head. “I already agreed not to kill him.”
“You made him agree not to kill me?” Cody shouts.
“She saved your fucking life,” Milo says, then turns and stalks over to Cody. “Now, apologize for talking to her that way.”
“I should have tied you to that bed long before I did,” Cody growls at me, but it’s Milo whose lips start to twitch as he rolls up the sleeves of his long black shirt and steps closer to Cody.
“You tied her to the bed?” Milo grits through his teeth.
“Yeah, and the bitch escaped.”
I wince, and Milo’s gaze flings back to me and moves to my wrists, where I’ve been rubbing them without realizing it. Before I do anything to stop him, he turns back around and kicks Cody so hard I hear a loud snap. Cody falls back to the ground in a heap.
“Oh my God, what did you do?” I screech, my hands covering my face.
“Go back inside, Elizabeth.” A shiver runs down my spine at the tone in Milo’s voice.
“You won’t kill him?” I ask, stepping toward them.
Milo blocks my path. “Not right now, no.” He takes a deep breath, then asks. “You escaped, right? That’s why your wrists were red?”
I look down at my wrists, which are fully healed, and nod.
“You really don’t want me to kill him? I could and would… for you.” His tone softens, and I look into those beautiful eyes, the very same ones that can be harsh and cold to everyone else.
“No, please don’t.” I shake my head.
Milo reaches up, brushes his thumb over my cheek again, then nods. “Okay. Go inside, please.”
I nod like a zombie and turn to head back inside. Not once do I look back to see what they do with Cody. Milo said he wouldn’t kill him, so that’s as much as I can hope for now.
“You okay?” Chastity asks as I round the bar.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure? I can cover for you if you need a little more time.”
I look around at the patrons waiting to be served. “No, it’s fine.” I take a cleansing breath and go back to work.
I didn’t realize sending Cody divorce papers would come to this. To be honest, I had hoped he would just let it all go.
Let me go.
Clearly, I am never going back to him, no matter what. I’m trying to put that part of my life behind me and move on. I can’t do that still being attached to Cody—legally, that is. Physically and mentally, we haven’t been together in two years.
Not only have I concluded that my life with Cody will never work, but Milo has also made me realize that I like to be desired and wanted by someone. I guess I never really had that with Cody. Not that, at the beginning, we did have a sex life, but even then, it was nothing that I’d tell my friends about.
And then, along the way, that stopped as well. I don’t think he loved me. I’m bewildered as to why Cody’s fighting this so hard. We both moved on while we were still together. I used to find him all the time, touching himself, and not once did he ask me to join him.
And then there was the matter of all the women. I get that he made his money by basically pimping them out. And he made it very clear that I had to be thankful that these women were willing to spread their legs to put food on our table.
That’s when I really knew he didn’t love me.
But I stayed like a lovesick fool trapped in an environment I didn’t know how to escape. You read about how women stay in bad relationships and wonder why. But when it happens to you, you don’t always realize it until it’s too late.
I had no one.
He isolated me.
And I let him.
I drifted away from any friends I had growing up until I only had him.
During that time, my sister was nowhere to be found. She was drugged up herself, so it was just Cody.
Despite how much I don’t love him and how poorly he treated me, I don’t want Cody dead, and I think Milo is a man of his word.
At least, I hope he is.
Chapter 27
Milo
“She should have always been mine.”
When the door shuts behind her, I crouch down to look at the piece of shit lying in the gravel at my feet. It’s dark, and the only illumination we have is from the light over the bar’s entrance door, but it’s enough for me to see Cody’s face is red, and he’s knocked out cold.
“Take him out back,” I tell Axe.
I open an app on my phone to turn off the cameras at the back of the bar as he lifts Cody and carries him into the darkness, where no one can see us.