Total pages in book: 184
Estimated words: 188108 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 941(@200wpm)___ 752(@250wpm)___ 627(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 188108 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 941(@200wpm)___ 752(@250wpm)___ 627(@300wpm)
“Wait . . . what information did you feed him?” Salem asked. “Information you found from us?”
“Is it your fault our last mission wasn’t successful?” Alexi asked. “Did you tell him about it?”
“Were you pretending to be asleep when Roman and I were talking about it?” Salem asked.
What?
Confusion filled her.
“No! No, I tried to only give him information that wasn’t important. I did my best to protect you and them. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I had to take care of everyone. You don’t understand . . . I tried . . . I tried my best.”
And it wasn’t good enough.
She was never good enough.
What had she been thinking? She was never going to win in this.
All she ever did was lose.
“Who is them?” Salem asked.
“And why? Why did you want to protect us?” Alexei snapped.
“Because somewhere along the way, I came to like you all. And then I ended up falling in love with each of you. Which was the stupidest thing I could have done, but you can’t help who you love. I know you might not believe me. But that’s what happened. I fell in love.”
“You really love us?” Alexei asked hoarsely.
She nodded. God, she loved them so much that it hurt worse than any beating.
“So why did he kidnap you?” Roman asked. “Why beat you up if you’re working for him?”
“Because he’s mad at my betrayal. And I fear what that means for the people I care about. I told you a bit about my background, Salem. My mum died when I was around ten. She was all I had. My father . . . he was in and out of my life as a child. He would visit my mother for short periods, then disappear. I didn’t even realize that he was my father for years.”
She shook her head at the hazy memories.
“One day, she never came home from work. The police turned up on the doorstep to tell us that she’d been in a car accident and hadn’t survived. Mrs. Philips from next door was looking after me. Child services got involved. I told them that I had a father, but I don’t know if they looked for him. Instead, I was taken to live with my Grandpa.”
She’d been terrified. So alone.
“At the time, I was living in Ireland. But Grandpa lived on this island off the coast of Scotland. It was small and cold and barren. There were no other children there. I honestly think that my grandfather had no idea I existed. Some of the people on the island who remembered my mum said that she left when she was eighteen. That after her mum, my grandma died, my grandpa went a bit off the rails. He rarely interacted with anyone. I think she might have run from him and never looked back.”
She took a slow breath in until a sharp pain hit her side. Stupid ribs.
You’ve survived worse.
You just need to be strong enough to take them down and save your guys. Then you can leave this world knowing you’ve left it better.
And hopefully she’d have done enough to make up for the other things she’d done in her life.
“My grandfather . . . he was . . . well, I’m not sure. He was a hard man. It was clear he didn’t know what to do with me. He’d lived alone a long time. He didn’t like me crying, or that I was a girl. He would take me on hunting trips, teach me to be silent and stealthy, how to kill and gut an animal, how to use knives and guns. I think he was ex-army. It was terrifying and I was so lonely and scared. Then I met some of the other people on the island.”
She swallowed heavily. She was so thirsty. “They saved me. They helped get me access the internet as Grandpa didn’t have anything like that. They even found a way to help me with my schooling. I was never the best reader, but I was pretty good at maths. I don’t know if my records were lost or destroyed, but child services never came to check on me. No one cared that I wasn’t enrolled in school.”
He'd likely gotten rid of all that.
“Actually, I think my father destroyed all trace of me. It served his best interests to do that. Having an illegitimate child wasn’t good for his clean image. I don’t know why he didn’t just kill me. Although it meant that he could use me for his own purposes.”
Maybe she shouldn’t say as much . . . but what did it matter now? She was going to die and these guys deserved to know the truth.
“Just before I turned eighteen, Grandpa died, and I didn’t know what to do. But my friends on the island helped me. They gathered up supplies and money. I was going to leave on the next supply ship. But then he came in the middle of the night for me. He drugged me, brought me back here to his island. And he started to train me. I refused at first, resisted, even though his training was far harsher than Grandpa’s.”