Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 56628 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56628 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
I’d sent Joey a text to apologize since I knew he wouldn’t answer his phone while he was on a run, but he hadn’t responded to me yet.
“Beating the hell of that punching bag isn’t going to make you feel any better, love,” Jesup stated as he stepped into the workout room, a beer held loosely in his grip as he watched me take out my aggression on the swinging bag in front of me.
I clenched my jaw, hating that he was disturbing me when all I wanted was to just be alone. “It’s better than punching some people in the fucking face,” I retorted, swinging at the bag again.
“You tried talking to anyone instead of just letting all of that aggression simmer inside of you?” Jesup asked as he took a seat on the bench across from me while I continued hitting the bag.
I shook my head. “All I want to do is beat Joey’s face in until he’s not so fucking handsome anymore for locking me in here, but I want him to fucking talk to me as well. We left shit on a bad note.” I swung again as Jesup grunted. “And I also want to beat the hell out of your perfect fucking president and boot him and the rest of you mother fuckers back to where you came from.”
Jesup took a swig from his beer, unbothered by my words. “You mean that?”
I clenched my jaw, grabbing the punching back as it swung back toward me. I turned my head to glare at him. “I was handling myself just fine before Tristan dropped back into my life and snatched me up,” I told him. “Tristan did all of his damage three years ago. He me know how he fucking felt the night of my eighteenth birthday. He should have fucking stayed gone.”
“Tristan has always loved you, Adelaide,” Jesup told me. I snorted. That was fucking laughable. “He never stopped.”
I narrowed my eyes at the VP, clenching my jaw so hard that my teeth audibly ground together. Three years later and that wound was still raw as hell. Tristan had sent me on a downward spiral. The only fucking reason that I was still standing there was because of Joey.
“Could have fucking fooled me when he told me that he was tired of the relationship, that he couldn’t fucking deal with my neediness anymore,” I snarled at him. Jesup sighed as he shook his head. I threw my hands up into the air in exasperation, glaring at Jesup. “Jesup, he fucking kissed some random whore right afterward. I fucking begged him not to do that shit to me, and he fucking did it anyway.”
“He did what he needed to do to keep you safe, Adelaide.”
I released a humorless laugh, throwing my arms out to the sides. “Obviously, I could fucking do that myself if he had just stopped fucking babying me.” Jesup rolled his eyes. “I’ve been taking care of myself since the moment he dumped me and I met Joey. So, don’t you dare try that fucking shit on me.”
“When he broke up with you, Adelaide, you were still young and naïve,” Jesup told me bluntly. I narrowed my eyes at him in a warning. Jesup knew the kind of shit that I grew up in. I wasn’t fucking naïve. I grew up in a goddamn trap house. “You still needed emotional support. You have to admit that. Tristan needed to protect you, and he did what he needed to do for that to happen,” Jesup tried to reason with me.
“From what?!” I finally yelled at him, losing my cool. “What the fuck did he need to protect me from so badly that he had to fucking break me like that?!”
“Vin.” Tristan’s voice rang through the workout room, making my heart trip in my chest. I swung my angry gaze to his. “I was trying to protect you from Vin.”
My eyes widened in shock as I looked up at him, but then, I glared, clenching and unclenching my fists at my sides. “Obviously, you didn’t do a good enough fucking job,” I snarled at him. “Because guess who the fuck is still after me? Fucking Vin.”
Anger flashed in Tristan’s eyes as he narrowed his dark, gleaming eyes at me. “Oh, I did,” he corrected me. “Your precious Joey got you in this fucking situation all by himself. I owed Vin a shit ton of money, and he was threatening those close to me to get what was owed to him.” Tristan stepped further into the room, and Jesup slipped out, leaving me alone with the man who’d broken me. “Remember that day that I didn’t show up to school?” he asked. I swallowed thickly. I remembered it well. I had been panicking all day because Tristan always showed up to school, even if he was so sick that he could barely stand, just to make sure that he was there to protect me from assholes. “When you finally saw me that night when I came home, my face was bruised and bloody.”