Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
“Then tell me.”
He watches me closely and I wonder how much he knows and how he knows and then I think he doesn’t. He can’t know. No one can. No one. The men involved in the kidnapping are dead. I saw their murdered bodies. My father is dead. Everyone involved is in their grave. Everyone but me. And I’m certainly not telling.
He takes my wrists and draws them away from my ears. His hold isn’t hard. He’s being careful not to hurt me.
“Do you remember when you defended your father claiming he never raised a hand to you? Claiming that he wasn’t that kind of man?”
“Let me go!”
“What I don’t get is why you would defend him. He had you and your mother kidnapped.” I shake my head, tug to free myself from his grasp. I need him to shut up. I just really need him to shut up so I can think.
“Your finger? They wouldn’t have gone that far without his permission. Did you know that?”
“You’re wrong! You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know anything! Let me go!”
“Your father allowed it, Allegra.”
“Stop!”
“Hell, I think he ordered it.”
His words echo, bouncing off these too high walls, and the edges of my vision are fully black now, my heart beating too fast, my lungs not getting enough oxygen, my body going into flight mode. This time, when I tug, I manage to pull free and stumble backward with the momentum.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” he continues, coming toward me, catching me before I fall. “Tell me. Tell me the truth. You know the truth. I can see on your face you know.”
He’s still talking, but his words make no sense because my brain can’t process them. I just need him to shut up. I need him to shut up and so I draw my arm back and ram the heel of my hand into his side, hit him exactly where I’d stabbed him just days ago.
The instant I do it, he stops talking, hunching forward. If he wasn’t injured, I wouldn’t be able to hurt him. His expression at first is disbelief. It’s that moment before his brain registers what happened. I know the instant that pain hits and Cassian’s face goes to rage, his mouth tightening into a hard line as red bleeds into his shirt, the wound opening, his hands tightening on me. I push against his chest to get away. Shit. I didn’t mean to do this. I needed him to stop. To shut up. I just needed him to stop.
“That was a mistake.” Cassian’s words are short, his pain written on his face. He’s controlled, and I think that’s when he’s most dangerous.
Before I can respond, he wraps one arm around my middle and pulls me to himself, lifting me off my feet and stalking out of the bedroom. He walks slowly, each step heavy with pain and purpose. I try to pry his arm off, twisting to get away, calling out for help knowing no one will help me, but even injured, he’s too strong and far too determined.
“Where are you taking me?” I demand as we cross the church to a corridor behind the altar. This one is in shadows and when I’d found the door locked and tried to see about a way in, a soldier had stopped me. Now, I see Cassian reach his free arm up. He groans with the pain of extending it and the bloody stain spreads on his shirt as he takes the key from above the frame and unlocks the heavy door. When he opens it, stale damp air hits me, the smell of a closed up underground room, of stone walls filling my nostrils, making me remember his warning that first night.
“If she gives you any trouble, put her in the crypt.”
“No!” I scream, fighting with all I have as we descend stairs where the only light is what is coming from inside the church and in this dark corridor it’s not much. “Stop! No!”
I claw at his forearm, twisting, begging. But he doesn’t stop. He keeps walking, a silent, brutal, heartless beast. The perfect villain. We reach the bottom of stairs carved into the stone. It’s pitch black down here, but he must know it well because he can’t see any more than I can, I’m sure. He pauses, holding on to me with one arm while with the other, he switches on a lantern. The place is suddenly illuminated, and I wish it wasn’t. God, how I wish it wasn’t.
They put you in the basement when you’re of no consequence. When they want to hurt you. But this? This is something else entirely.
I shake my head, clinging to him, taking in the cave-like room, this underground space that houses sarcophagi that, judging from the stone, are older than time. I shudder with cold and when Cassian releases me, I find myself clutching his forearm, refusing to release him as I try to blot out the scene.