Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 79244 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79244 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
I turn back to smile at Damen when a smack to my side comes out of nowhere. Pain reverberates through my insides, and the impact sends me to my knees. Before I even hear the voice, I know it’s Happy.
Motherfucker must have expected I’d be going through here to avoid him.
“Think you can just dump—”
Damen steps forward, deflecting the baseball bat in Happy’s grip so it rolls along his arm without causing any damage. As I collapse to my back, struggling for breath, Damen kick’s Happy’s legs from under him. Once my bastard of an ex is on his knees, staring at me like a rabid dog about to go for my throat, he grabs his head and twists.
I flinch at the crack that reverberates through the air like an off-key note in an otherwise perfect performance, but then Happy drops to the floor, motionless.
The whole thing lasted less than five seconds.
I’m still on the ground, rising to my knees, and unsure what I’m looking at, but the angle at which Happy’s head is makes my stomach twist. “Wha… what…?” I ask, inching toward my ex on hands and knees.
Damen kneels at my side and exposes my skin to the cold air. “Fucker… your ribs might be broken,” he says, pulling me up with no care for the man lying a step away.
My breath quickens, this time for all the wrong reasons. “Is he… dead?” I utter in disbelief. And yet the way he touches me with such tenderness, how he stepped in to protect me without question, make me melt with affection. I’m so fucked up.
Damen doesn’t even bother to look down when he pulls me back to my feet. “Yes. He hit you, how did you expect me to react? Nobody hits my boyfriend.” He cups my face with hands that have just committed murder and kisses me as if any of this makes sense.
I’m becoming painfully aware I know nothing about who this man is.
“Um… yeah… wait till I’m your husband, then they shouldn’t even look at me.” I choke out a nervous laugh to make him feel at ease, but I’m terrified of what I’ve gotten myself into. As soon as I’m out of this back alley, I can try making some noise, alert people, or… something.
Damen’s mouth crooks, and he adjusts my clothes before stepping past Happy as if he’s a branch lying in his way. “Careful. Don’t trip,” he tells me and holds my hand, as if he expects me to need assistance.
Or does he want to make sure he can grab me if I try to flee?
“Do you… need help with him? Do we need to hide the body?” I whisper, looking back.
I’m strangely numb. I don’t feel sorry for Happy. He’s made my life a nightmare in the past few months. Maybe he deserved it. But I’m now holding hands with a killer who wants to take me to ‘the mountains’ tomorrow. I might be positively dick-struck, but I’m not stupid.
Damen looks down and lets me go to put on a pair of leather gloves. “No. It’s better if he is found,” he tells me, then leans down to hold Happy’s bald head. I stare at him, as if this were only a dream, but when he raises his shoulders to slam my ex’s head onto the edge of the step, I fall back with a choked cry.
“There,” Damen says, offering me a smile. “He fell and broke his neck.”
I assess how far away I am from the lit street. I’d need to turn a corner, but if I scream, help might come.
My feet move before my brain can finish that thought, and I run faster than ever before. My legs might be short, but they’ve saved me countless times.
I’m almost at my destination when strong arms pull me back. I thrash in Damen’s hold, attempting to kick at him, but then he presses a small mask to my face, something hisses, and everything goes black.
Chapter 3
Killian
My head is heavy as though it’s made out of cast iron, my eyelids two curtains I can’t seem to open. It takes me minutes to go from making my fingers twitch to slowly opening my eyes, but my mind isn’t connecting what I see with reality.
I was at the club… Then I saw Happy …
Then…
Damen.
My gaze lands on the handsome monster who couldn’t look more put-together if he tried. He sits opposite me in a leather seat, book in one hand, a dainty tea cup in the other, dressed in an elegant brown turtleneck sweater and dark green pants made of tweed. Could this perfect gentleman really be a killer, or was I drunk and hallucinated it all?
I glance to the window next to me and I finally understand where I am when I’m treated to a view of serene clouds on the background of a blue sky.