Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 91423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
She looks at me with a faint frown.
“Seriously,” Luke says. “He got fucked up. He should be in hospital, but the psycho who took you demanded we all be here, so he came to save you. Even though it could have killed him.”
“Oh,” she says, looking at Leo’s feet. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he says. “Aiden, tan her ass for me, would you?”
“With pleasure,” I say, tugging her over my lap.
“What? Why?”
“Because you need it, and after that little snide outburst, you definitely deserve it.”
Spanking Ella feels like coming home. The curve of her ass fits perfectly in my hand, and the sounds she makes as I smack her are both feminine and chastised. Mr. Red didn’t touch her yet, I don’t think. He thought I was going to take the risk of playing his game. He was wrong. She’s too precious to play with, I realize now. We should never have allowed her to go.
“Ow! Okay! I’m sorry you got shot, Leo!”
I let her up, because I don’t really want to hurt her, and she doesn’t deserve punishment.
“You were brave,” I tell her.
“I was?” She looks confused.
I realize she still has no idea how much danger she was really in, and I think I plan to keep it that way.
“How fucked up is he?” She gets back up and looks over at the doctor.
“Bad enough that he should be in hospital.”
“Why aren’t you there, then?”
“Because you were in danger,” I say, tugging her back down.
“You came while you were dying?” She creeps back up over the seat back, to the point I smack her ass again out of simple frustration. “Why?”
“Because I didn’t want you to die,” Leo says. “In spite of your rudeness, I prefer you alive.”
“That’s so damn sweet, but I was fine.”
“That man has a guillotine in his dining room,” Luke says.
“Really? I didn’t notice that. Then again, we didn’t dine. We had cream teas in his parlor, and then he took me up to see the attic and left me there.”
Ella
“I guess I have a different idea of what danger is.”
“You have no concept of what danger is,” Leo says.
I sit back down and for some reason I can’t begin to explain to myself, tears start coming to my eyes. They run down my cheeks and I try to wipe them away without anyone noticing.
Aiden is the sort of man who always notices everything though.
“What’s wrong?” He asks the question in a low murmur, giving me a little in the way of privacy.
“Nothing,” I say. “I don’t know. I think I’m happy.”
“You’re crying because you’re happy?”
“She’s crying? Why is she crying?” Leo pipes up from the back.
He hates being wounded. I bet it’s killing him not to be able to bound up and see what is going on. Luke is not held back in the same way. Two seconds later, he’s practically in my lap.
“I’m okay. Get off me! I’m happy. It’s nice. Shut up. Don’t talk to me. I don’t want to discuss any of it. I’m fine.”
“I’d believe you if you said one of those things, but saying them all in rapid succession makes me pretty sure none of them are true,” Luke replies, nudging my knee. “What’s going on with you?”
“You all came to get me from the most evil man you know, and you killed the most evil man I knew already. I know you were getting revenge for Teddy, and he deserved it. He’s the worst. Or was. But you came for me, even after I ran. You could have just let me go. It would have been so much easier, and then I would have been with Eric Mandeville, and he would have found some use for me, and…”
“We love you,” Luke says. “We’re always going to come for you. Even Leo.”
“You shouldn’t speak for him,” I say.
“Even Leo,” Leo confirms from behind.
We land at the private airfield the Levin family maintains, and disembark the plane. I am looking forward to being swept back home. Happily ever after is so within reach I can practically taste it—right up until two black vehicles come charging up menacingly. It’s not often you see cars driven in such openly hostile ways, with tires screaming.
“Get down!” Aiden shouts.
It happens so quickly. In the real world it probably all takes place in under sixty seconds. In the moment it seems to last forever.
Gunfire bursts across us, the fuselage of the plane peppered with bullet holes.
I have a strange feeling of being almost entirely calm. I know I should be panicking, and I know that the feeling of out-of-control anxiety will come later. Maybe much later. Maybe years from now it will hit me like one of these bullets, but for now I am calm because my body knows how to keep me safe.
I see the same fixed expressions on everyone else’s faces too. Thank god Leo is still in the back and still strapped in with the doctor beside him.