Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
“Just appreciating my excellent taste in clothes and the woman who wears them.”
“Pretty sure you bought these clothes for yourself.”
“Pretty sure they’re too small for me.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.” She crouches, grabbing her quad skates from the side where she always kicks them.
After she shoves them on and ties the laces, she continues to stall in the doorway.
I stall with her. Too close to leave. Too far to pretend I’m not stalling.
“You can just let Jag go, you know,” she says.
“I know.”
She takes me in from head to toe. The eyeliner. The kilt. The way my shoulders set like I’m bracing for impact instead of a conversation.
“You’re wickedly intimidating.” A corner of her mouth lifts. “He won’t know what to do with you.”
“No one does.”
“I do.” She hooks a finger in my corset and pulls me close.
Dear goddess of diesel fumes, I fucking love this woman.
She’s strong without advertising it. Fierce without cruelty. Her quiet doesn’t ask for permission. It just exists.
I don’t want to leave her here. The thought digs into my gut and refuses to be polite.
“I’ll be here.” She straightens the pearls at my throat and traces an exposed scar. “Only a few blocks away.”
“I know. Still don’t like it.”
“Go.” She presses a toe stop into the cement and nudges me backward. “Do the thing.”
“Yeah.” I keep backing up, eyes glued to her gorgeous face. “There’s something I need to do first.”
She stays where she is, framed by the open doorway, sunlight outlining her like heaven’s trying to steal her back.
I keep walking backward, right into the street, and stop dead in the middle of it.
Arms out and boots planted, I yell, “Hey, everyone! I have an announcement!”
People flinch. Heads turn. A guy with a coffee freezes mid-stride. Two tourists look thrilled, like they just stumbled into local entertainment.
An older woman with grocery bags clocks me, makes the sign of the cross, and hurries away like I’m the anti-Christ.
“Ma’am!” I shout after her. “You’re gonna want to hear this!”
She runs away like she absolutely does not want to hear it.
A couple of younger guys linger by the curb, grinning. One of them pulls out his phone.
“Everybody scoot closer.” I wave them in. “This is a group experience. Don’t be shy. I’m fragile but committed.”
Dove covers her mouth, her eyes bright. Oh, no. Does she know what this is? She definitely knows.
I take a big breath. Too big. Then I bellow, “I love this woman!”
The harbor echoes it back.
“Her.” I point at her hard in case there’s any confusion. “Right there. In the doorway. With the skates.”
A guy laughs. Someone claps once, unsure.
“I love her. I love her. I loooooove her!” I spin in a slow circle, addressing the street, the docks, the sky, the entire postal code. “I love her when she’s quiet. I love her when she’s mad. I love her when she’s fixing engines and ignoring me on purpose. I love her all the time.”
Dove laughs, full-bodied and unguarded, with pink cheeks and wet-honey eyes.
She pushes off the doorway on her skates, rolls forward, and cups her hands around her mouth. “I love you, too!”
People cheer. Someone whistles. The guy filming gives me a thumbs-up.
I bow, dramatic and unnecessary, then backpedal out of the road, grinning like an asshole with a pulse.
From the sidewalk across the street, I catch her gaze and blow her a kiss. She snatches it out of the air, licks it, and fires it back at me.
I stay there a second longer, watching her roll backward into the garage. The door yawns wider to take her in. The light shifts. She’s inside, probably already reaching for a tool.
The guards move into place, two at the door, two flanking the lot. Exactly where they belong.
That’s when I turn.
Extra eyeliner. Extra steel. Extra resolve. I head for the tattoo parlor, ready to face whatever Jag Rath thinks he has waiting for me.
A few blocks away, the front door gives way under my hand. Too easy. It should’ve been locked. The shop is closed today.
“Shit.” I pull a knife from my boot and rush inside.
And slam to a stop.
My brain tries to process the mess on the floor.
The blood.
The bodies.
One by the front desk. One half-curled like he tried to crawl. Blood slicks across the concrete, dragged by boots that don’t belong to the people left behind. Throats open. Stab wounds everywhere else.
My chest collapses.
“No.” I step around them, moving deeper into the shop. “No, no, no.”
Another body near the chairs. Another by the coffee machine. Eyes open.
I force myself to look at them, one by one, dread climbing higher with each heartbeat.
Please don’t be him. Please don’t be him.
My hands shake, and my airway pinches shut. Extra eyeliner feels like a joke as I grab wrists, check necks, and examine faces.