Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 135300 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 541(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135300 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 541(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
This scent is quintessentially Kane, and I’m about two seconds away from losing my last thread of self-control.
“Nah,” he says, embracing me. “Nah, he was just angry. Full of mindless pain. Did he hurt you? Are you okay?”
“I’m okay.”
His hand sweeps my hair, holding me against his wall of a chest.
For a second, we both breathe, inhaling each other and the wonder of being alive and in love.
“Got your call,” he says over my head. “I thought he was hurting you.”
“Only a little. He wanted you. I don’t think he planned to kill me.”
“I’m fucking glad he didn’t.” His voice goes pitch-dark.
“Thank you for coming back.” I run a hand up his back and he flinches. “Are you hurt? I’m so sorry you took a beating, I—”
“This?” He leans away and glances at a nasty gash on his forearm before wrapping his arm around my waist. “Just a scrape. Come on, woman. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Even though we’re both okay and I’m so grateful I didn’t have to crush a man’s head, my legs are still weak.
It’s Kane, and only Kane that keeps me standing as we stumble up the stairs.
The rain has slowed to a drizzle by the time we finally surface.
We’re greeted by a reassuring blueberry-cherry flash of lights.
“Better late than never,” I whisper.
Kane chuckles in agreement.
I take a long, rough pull of the cool night air.
It’s over.
This ugly chapter is done, and now comes the rest of our story.
24
HOME TO ROOST (KANE)
One Week Later
Sometimes, I still can’t wrap my mind around waking up next to this fuck-hot woman, alive and whole and hopelessly in love with me.
How?
Just how?
The early morning sun spills through the gaps in the curtains, painting her in soft gold like she belongs in heaven’s VIP room.
Never thought it would be so easy to get her into my bed in New York.
I thought there’d be more to figure out, more time to process the hell we just lived through.
More arrangements, more negotiation to reshape the pieces of our lives to fit neatly.
Surprise. It turns out attempted murder really fucks with a person’s priorities.
And no, we haven’t figured out everything yet.
We’re working on that, one day at a time.
But after everything that went down, we needed to share our space.
We needed to be whole.
And we made it happen, faster than I could blink.
Margot left with me the day after the Babins and Lee Glazkov got taken into custody after endless sit-downs with the police.
Not that it needed much detective work.
Lee had social media posts scheduled with a thousand-word manifesto about what happened and why. What he intended to happen, my murder in cold blood.
Looking back, it felt obvious that his will to kill was weakening.
Yes, he was irate and fighting hard like the depraved psycho he is, but it still takes a special ruthlessness for a man who’s never killed anyone to pull the trigger.
Anger alone can’t always cut it.
Now, though, I wonder if I read him wrong.
Or maybe I just figured out there was a small buried part of him who wanted another chance at life.
I smelled his desperation—too much like mine—even if his was twisted into deranged violence.
Thank God I wore him out before he let his anger shoot first.
One day, after a lot of justice and years of hardcore mental treatment, he might even have a second chance.
I certainly have mine.
Margot snoozes beside me, an eye mask over her face to block out the sun, and her blonde hair splashed across the pillow.
It’s adorable watching her sleep like a kitten.
She shifts in her sleep, pressing against my side with a sleepy groan.
I pull her in and reach for my phone, just like I do every morning.
Margot says it’s a bad habit to read the news before I’ve had coffee. Before the stalker-killer episode in Maine, I wasn’t the kind of guy to get too hung up on social media.
Hell, I know half of it isn’t true, especially the shit they write about me.
But this is different.
None of it feels real yet, and I need to make sure.
With one hand, I punch in the Babins’ names.
There’s not much fresh. Nothing new since yesterday.
But they’re out of the hospital, already in front of a judge for attempted assault, trespassing, arson, and a litany of other charges that’ll keep them locked up for years.
Especially if I have anything to do with it.
The cameras caught everything their confessions didn’t before the Babins took them out. Viola was caught walking into the house with a club, and Joseph doused the front porch in gasoline.
The rain has probably washed it all away by now, if it wasn’t cleaned up by the Blackthorns’ bodyguard, who rushed up there the day we left.
There’s no way they’ll crawl back to their blueberry farm after this.
The Babins didn’t make many friends in Sully Bay.