Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 160041 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160041 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
“For what? What did they take from you?”
I’m grinding my teeth so hard I nearly chip a tooth.
He gets up from his seat and gets up close, sitting down on the edge of the table right in front of me. “The cameras are off. No one is watching,” he says. “It’s just you and me right now. You can tell me what happened, from the beginning, and I will listen. I swear. I will bring the people you seek to justice.”
I glare up at him from my seat. “My answer is still no.”
His face darkens too much to my liking. “Then you rot in jail for the rest of your life.”
“I might actually kill you for this,” I reply.
He snorts. “I’m impressed. After all this time, everything we did, you still want to erase me just to keep your plans safe.”
I smile when I catch him stealing a look at my boobs. “And you’re still obsessed with me.”
He puts his hand down on the table to lean in so close I can feel his breath on my skin. “You’re a criminal. You deserve this.”
“And you’re in love with a criminal.”
His hand reaches for my face, fingers gently picking the lost strands of hair off my face, and the sudden softness catches me off guard. “I could’ve given you the justice you seek, if you’d only trusted me from the beginning when I found you in the forest.”
Streaks of blood flash in front of my eyes.
A car.
A knife.
The two men in surgical masks.
The hazy sight of an operating table.
My arms, strapped.
My screams, filling the void.
No one will hear.
I blink. Once. Twice.
“Don’t.”
He curls the strand of hair around his finger. “Is that why you’re hunting them? Are those men who wronged you?”
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six faces.
One the worst of them all.
“Stop,” I hiss.
“What happened to you, Sunny? Who left you there all alone in that forest, bleeding to death?” he whispers near my ear.
“They deserved to die,” I hiss at him.
He stares at me from a hair’s breadth away. “So you killed them.”
What does it matter?
They’re gone. Erased from this world.
Except one.
A single tear rolls down my cheek, and he picks it up with his index finger and brings it to his mouth, sucking on the droplet like it turns him on.
“I know what you are.” He smiles and tips up my chin to make me look at him. His lips are so close, I can almost taste them. “And I would’ve taken them all down for you if you’d asked.”
Fuck. He’d do that for me?
When his lips brush against mine, I finally give him my answer, “Then take down the last one on my list.”
His eyes burst open. “You … trust me?”
I blink just once. “I trust your judgment.” I lean in as far as I can, so our lips briefly touch. “I fell for you for a reason, Atreus. Just like you fell for me.”
He sucks in the oxygen past his teeth. “I’m…”
“Obsessed,” I mutter at the same time as him.
He steals a single, poisonous kiss, groaning before pulling back. “I can’t.”
My nails scratch across the table as I lean back far enough for him to no longer be able to kiss me. “Then you should throw that badge in the garbage because it means nothing.”
His lip still twitches with greed for more. “I take down criminals the right way.”
“No. You just took out the cuckoo in the nest,” I growl. “Me.”
He slowly takes a few steps back as the unyielding darkness returns to his face, then barges off and slams the door shut behind him.
Just like he always does.
Close the door.
End the possibility.
Stop the poison from seeping deeper into the branches of his veins.
A devious smirk slowly forms on my face.
Too.
Fucking.
Late.
CHAPTER 41
Orion
I stare down at the feet shuffling about the wait area, while the chatting next to me continues. The entire family is here: the Riveras, Torreses, Reeds, Carusos, Fletchers, Prestons, and Navarros, of course. Even Melody and her dad are here. Everyone wants to show their support for Sunny … or witness the onslaught that’s about to happen, because our families are being torn apart.
“How long is this going to take? Hmm?” Lana, Sunny’s mother, complains to one of the employees standing at the desk inside the police station. “We’ve been waiting for hours.”
“I can’t believe Sunny got arrested,” Max mutters in the chair next to me. “She was always so careful not to get caught.”
“I thought she was supposed to be the smart one,” Silas jests, but no one is laughing.
“Ma’am, please sit down,” the employee at the desk tells her mother, but she’s not listening.
“What are we going to do?” Levi asks, running his fingers through his hair. “None of this was supposed to happen.”
“Please don’t tell me this has something to do with the phone she borrowed from me,” Elliot mutters under his breath, and everyone looks at him like he just handed the cops a smoking gun. Elliot’s father, Milo, puts his finger against his lips and silences him.