Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 122440 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 612(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122440 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 612(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
“Baby.” One word. Gentle. His voice washed over her like a warm embrace. “You wouldn’t pull the trigger.”
“I would if a child needed protection. I absolutely would, Wilder. You persist in thinking I’m some kind of saintly woman, and I’m not. That man would have been dead had I been his wife.”
He brushed a kiss on the tip of her nose. “I was thirteen when she left. My brother, Jay, was nine. The next few years were hell, but we survived. My father would ‘teach’ us survival skills, including torture and interrogation. We had to practice using weapons and hand-to-hand combat. I figured the training would come in handy, so I threw myself into it. He didn’t neglect our education. He was very exacting with any child up there. They had better be excellent and fast at learning any subject. We had tutors, and we were expected to give one hundred percent at all times.”
Harlow found herself waiting for the worst possible news. It was there in his voice, that calm, flat tone that shouldn’t have given anything away, but she was beginning to read him. She felt the knots in his stomach, the arctic-cold anger that had been pushed down so glaciers covered the volcano beneath, where no one could see.
“He tried to separate us, Jay and me, but I wouldn’t let it happen. I became so good in the woods that his men couldn’t track me, but I could track them. I always found Jay, no matter where they took him. My father would send me down for supplies with a couple of the others and hold Jay there because he knew I would never leave if he held my brother hostage. And I didn’t. I made it very clear to Jay that I would always come back for him.”
There was a grim edge to his tone that warned her. She found herself tense, very apprehensive, so anxious that a part of her was panicky.
“I was seventeen when I came home from a supply run, and my brother was nowhere to be found. Neither were my father or most of his men. I had a bad feeling, and I had learned to never ignore my instincts. I tracked them into a particularly high altitude, but with a drop into a deep ravine. I’d been there once before. It was where my father would go when he was feeling particularly ugly and wanted to hurt someone. That was entertainment to him. Pure enjoyment. You could say he lived for those moments.”
“You knew what you were going to find.”
He tugged at his shirt to expose his neck. “You see those rope marks burned deep? They play a game when they’re up at that altitude overlooking the ravine. The first station for their ‘toy’ is to see who can throw a knife accurately. The goal is to not kill their toy. Depending on how many are playing the game, as many as twelve wounds can be made in various depths. The toy remains tied to the tree while they toast themselves with shots of tequila. That means ants and beetles and all manner of bugs crawl into the wounds.”
Harlow had never conceived of such horror. “That was done to you?”
“Yes. The next round is to see who can waterboard without drowning the toy. Some of the men were extremely enthusiastic. When they were finished with that round, if their toy was still alive, he was thrown onto the ground, still bleeding, still attracting bugs, while they toasted one another with more shots of tequila. The third round was the most dangerous in that they would tie a noose around the neck of their toy and throw or drag him as close to the ravine’s edge as possible. Whoever got the closest, without the toy going over the side, won that round.”
“What was wrong with those people?”
The phone continued to ring and she swiped it off the small table, sending it flying into the grass. Her childhood had been a piece of cake next to Wilder’s. Tossing her phone to escape her father’s annoying, persistent calling felt freeing. He was a criminal, but she was learning there were different calibers of criminal. Her father was guilty of raping and beating women, but he fell far short of the sadistic breed that Wilder’s father and his followers were. She hadn’t ever conceived that anyone could be as vile and inhuman as Wilder’s father.
She knew that didn’t make her childhood any less traumatic, nor did it erase the many triggers she had, but it took away some of the fear she had of the senator. Wilder had served as an officer, and just by being a part of Blom’s team, she knew he had to have a master’s in something. He spoke several languages. He was an extremely educated man.