Total pages in book: 52
Estimated words: 49989 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 250(@200wpm)___ 200(@250wpm)___ 167(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49989 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 250(@200wpm)___ 200(@250wpm)___ 167(@300wpm)
It wasn’t like this man was her customer.
They were staying here because he’d put her in danger. Or saved her. She wasn’t even sure anymore.
She forced a smile to her lips.
“You’re going to talk my ear off, aren’t you?”
“Probably. It has been a trying twenty-four hours. Or is it forty-eight hours? I’ve had so many men trying to steal me away the past few weeks that I don’t know. The days and weeks are all mingling together.”
“Release me, Cleo. Now.”
She was tempted to leave him, but then she rounded the chair and got to work, unlocking the chains. “I think it’s very sweet of you hunting for me. I’m touched that you would go to such extreme lengths to see that I am, you know, safe.”
“I didn’t mean to make your life hard,” Priest said, finally standing up to his full height. The heavy chains fell to the concrete floor.
Cleo smiled up at him. “Don’t worry about it.”
She stepped away and was about to go to the stairs that led up to the main house. Boss had already given her a tour, and some of the things she’d seen had made her blush. Plus, Harb had already told Boss and the entire room that he was going to go and enjoy some rough anal with one of the pain sluts. It was obscene. She didn’t have a clue how she was going to face him, knowing what he’d done.
Priest grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Cleo frowned. “Okay.”
“You shouldn’t just accept it, Cleo. You don’t have to smile and laugh everything off.”
“I hate to break this to you, Priest, but you’re also putting your life on the line to protect me, and trust me, I don’t even know why. I’m a no one. I’m not important.” She started to chuckle again. “I’m shocked, to be honest. Maybe I am in shock? I mean people can suffer delayed shock symptoms right?”
“Cleo.”
“I’m not important, Priest. I’m not intelligent. I work whatever job I can to pay the bills. I’ve never been special to anyone. I wouldn’t even know how that felt. I’m the kind of woman that if I die, no one will mourn. No one would even come to my funeral or realize I was dead. That’s how damn miserable of an existence I have. I don’t even want to think of what it’s costing to keep me alive. I appreciate it, but if it costs lives, then I’m not worth it.”
She suddenly felt incredibly sad.
Turning away from him, she walked up the steps toward the main door.
“I would come hunting for you,” Priest said, making her stop in her tracks.
Her hand was on the knob, about to twist it, to let herself out of the basement.
She couldn’t have heard that right.
“Your loss wasn’t ignored. I saw it. I came for you.”
She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. Cleo didn’t turn around, too emotional to face him. “Priest, you came hunting for me because you have an obligation. Nothing more.”
Chapter Seven
The room was one of the best. Even though Boss was pissed off, he knew better than to set Priest up in one of the shithole rooms. Just spending the night in this place was bad enough. He walked around, checking out the furnishings and wondering how many women had been fucked on that mattress. Priest glanced out the window to the street below, trying to pull a plan together while still processing what had just happened downstairs.
He hated the fact he’d been played—even Killian was in on this. Priest had been dead set on finding Cleo no matter how much of a blood trail was left in his wake. Her disappearance had all been one of Boss’s games, a punishment for not being a good little boy.
But there was more to it. That tracker in her purse was from the police station, so the mafia knew where he lived. And Boss wasn’t the one to put out a hit on Cleo’s head. He was just punishing Priest for not following protocol. With everything going on, he didn’t even have time to do his own research into the name Boss had given him. The preliminary check came up with nothing. He’d been waiting a lifetime for that lead. Once Priest found that motherfucker, he’d end him slowly.
“It’s better than I expected,” Cleo said.
He’d been too focused on planning his escape and trying to figure everything out that he forgot about the reason he was here in the first place.
“No amount of housekeeping can make up for the fact this is a whore house.”
She shrugged. “We don’t have much choice.”
“There’s always a choice.” He paced the room. The only person in the world who knew his story was Boss. So it pissed him off that he was treating him like a child, even assigning a babysitter to keep tabs on him. Priest was starting to regret being part of Killer of Kings. He felt underappreciated after all the blood he’d spilled in the name of Boss’s empire.