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)
We’ve found many bodies since I took office, but I’ve never seen cuts like these before. It’s almost as if the person didn’t just want them to die but wanted them to suffer too.
I tilt his head slightly to inspect his neck and notice a peculiar red mark on the side. I swipe over it with my thumb and bring it to my face. My eyes narrow as I rub my thumbs together, the redness staining both gloved fingers.
Lipstick?
Was he kissed by a lover before he died?
Or is this…
“Anything interesting?” Trent, another one of my men, approaches. “I’ve sealed off the perimeter.”
“Good. I don’t want anyone sniffing around an active crime scene.”
“Do you think it’s drug-related?” he asks, holding his hand in front of his nose because of the corpse’s scent. “Cartels?”
I pull off my gloves. “Perhaps.”
But perhaps, this could be something else entirely.
Something far more devious than a hit.
I place my hand on the officer’s shoulder. “Find out everything you can about his life. Where he worked, where he lived, who he visited, what brand of car he drives, every second of every hour of the day. I want it all on paper. Stat.”
He frowns. “For a kill?”
My eye twitches. “This wasn’t just a kill, Trent. It was a vendetta.” I squeeze his shoulder, a smirk slowly forming on my face. “We’re going on a manhunt.”
CHAPTER 4
Xavier
I can smell her perfume before I even see her.
I look up from my notebook, my pencil still hovering in my hand, as she waltzes through the classroom doorway. Glitter is splashed across her eyes, lined with kohl, and her lips are stained ombre red, the many earrings dangling in her ears glinting in the light as she locks her dark eyes onto mine.
Oh fuck.
I quickly put my stuff back into my backpack, dropping my pencil in the process. Fuck it, leave it, I don’t care, I have to get out of here before it’s too late.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
“Where are you going?” Orion asks from two seats down as I throw my bag over my shoulder. “The professor isn’t even here yet. Class is starting in like five minutes.”
“Doctor’s appointment,” I lie. “I forgot.”
But when I turn my head around again, I shriek out loud.
Sunny Reed stands right in front of me.
And everyone in class is looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. Maybe I have.
Her presence swallows the remaining oxygen in this room, and my lungs can barely scrape by.
She tilts her head, eyes glimmering with mischief. “Hi.”
My butt cheeks instantly clench.
She spoke to me.
She actually spoke to me.
This is a dream.
It has to be.
Her sparkling eyes narrow. “I said hi.”
There’s no way she’s talking to me right now.
She. The object of all of my desires. She is talking to me like I exist in her world.
“Hi,” I say, my voice breaking tone from sheer nervousness.
Smiling, she steps closer, and I veer backward like a magnet is repelling me, because her being in my vicinity is absolutely terrifying.
“Sit.”
She leans in so close I gulp as my body instinctively moves down along with her incessant gaze, as if to avoid contact as long as possible, until my ass actually hits the seat I was sitting in.
She holds up a phone. “This is your car, right?”
Shit. She took this picture while I was going back up the mountain again.
“I …” I don’t know what to say that won’t make her kill me.
Would she, though? In the middle of this classroom, with all those people watching?
She tilts her leg sideways, revealing her pantyhose and shorts, along with the knife hiding in an inner pocket. “Answer me.”
Yup, she definitely would.
“Could be,” I reply.
The only way she knows that could be my car is …
My eyes widen.
“Don’t play coy with me. I know what you did …” She leans in so close I can practically feel her breath on my skin, and fuck me, I’d almost lick the air just to get a taste. “Xavier.”
The way she says my name has my skin pricking with heat.
Her finger reaches for my chest, and she taps me, each time a little harder than the one before. “You. Watched. Me.”
She touched me.
God, she actually touched me.
I shake my head vigorously.
“Admit it.” Her finger slowly moves from my chest to my throat, and I can’t fucking breathe. “You’re the masked guy, and you watched me.”
“Watched you what?” I mutter.
The grin that spreads on her face is devilish, and she leans in to whisper into my ear, “Kill.”
Shivers scatter all across my spine, not just from the word, but from her breath so close to my skin.
“No, never,” I lie.
How do I talk my way out of this?
She pulls away, still smiling as her fingers slowly wrap around my throat. “Don’t lie to me, Xavier, that’s rude. And you don’t want to be rude to me, do you?”