Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
I needed a second to compose myself, a second to let myself accept her absence before I could look at my brother, a man I’d never known, a man I still didn’t know.
He stepped in front of me, arms folded over his chest as he stared at the floor for a moment. He was neither arrogant nor angry. He seemed to be nothing at all, almost disinterested. But then he looked at me—and he looked different.
I didn’t know how to find the words. I was painfully aware that I couldn’t save Fleur, that even if I’d made it to her, it would have been too late. Now, I was forever indebted to this man I’d called my enemy just yesterday. “Thank you, Godric.” Those three little words simply weren’t enough for what he’d done for me. Didn’t show the gratitude that I felt in my heart. “I owe you for the rest of my life. Whatever you need, no questions asked, I will be there.” I would dispose of a murdered child if that’s what he asked of me.
His blue eyes stayed on my face with no reaction. “That’s not why I did it, Bastien.”
“Then why?” I asked. “He’ll know it was you.”
“I’m sure he already knows.”
“Then we’ll kill him together,” I said. “Now, tell me why.”
He rubbed his arm gently as he looked at me. His gaze wandered for a bit before he found what he wanted to say. “Honestly, I wasn’t going to intervene. I did my part when I warned you. And as a special favor to me, I asked Ivan to give you the opportunity to step down peacefully. I did what I could to look out for you, but you didn’t take those opportunities.” His gaze wandered again and didn’t come back to me. “But then I saw her at the warehouse and saw what they were about to do to her—”
“Please, I beg of you…” I struggled to keep my voice even, to stop it from breaking.
He hesitated before he continued. “I thought about all the women you’d saved…and it was wrong there was no one there to save yours. It was a split-second decision. I killed them all and spared her from your greatest nightmare. Nothing happened to her.”
I had been stuck in that warehouse while my girl had fought for her life and her dignity. No fucking way could I go on after this. “She’s going to leave me, and she’d fucking better.”
Godric didn’t say anything to that. “That night Dad made you shoot that girl…”
I switched my thoughts from Fleur to the past. I gave a nod to tell him I remembered, because how the fuck could I ever forget?
“I shot her, so you didn’t have to. It wasn’t because I wanted to.” His eyes remained averted, like he couldn’t look at me. “I was always cold to you because I didn’t want you there, not because I didn’t like you, but because I wanted better for you. When I was fifteen, Dad pulled me into that world, and I hated every second of it. And I didn’t want that for you. But then you turned fifteen…and I couldn’t stop it.”
I didn’t say a word, afraid I would scare him off like a wild bird. I’d poured my heart out to him, and now he did it to me, told me something I’d never expected him to share, something that finally helped me understand.
“Dad was a fucking asshole.” His eyes finally found mine again. “When I told him I wanted to be a veterinarian to help animals…” He took a breath and looked down, like he didn’t want to relive it. “He laughed at me and then…said animals were meant to be eaten. So he shot Bear and tossed him into the woods so the vultures would eat him.” He breathed harder, pained by the story of the death of our childhood dog even though he was a grown man now.
But he was still a broken boy…just like I was. “Mom told me he got hit by a car.”
He shook his head.
“But you didn’t want me to know…”
“No,” he whispered, still visibly pained, like the memory haunted him all this time later. “I still wanted to be Dad, wanted him to be good to me, so I tried my hardest to be what he wanted. Then you wanted to be the opposite…and we drifted apart.”
“Yeah…”
“I hated you for what you did to him, but then you told me what happened, and…it made me realize how fucked up it all was. The way he treated you. The way he treated us. If it makes you feel any better, he cared about me as much as he cared about you—which is not at all. He was just nicer to me because I did what he asked.”