Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 164910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 825(@200wpm)___ 660(@250wpm)___ 550(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 825(@200wpm)___ 660(@250wpm)___ 550(@300wpm)
He shoves her down and grips her throat, digging his fingers in.
“Is it happening yet?” she pants. “Come on, baby. Fuck me up! Come on!”
“Goddammit!” he shouts, throwing her off and stuffing his shit back inside his pants. “She won’t shut the fuck up.”
Del hands him a roll of duct tape. No…
As he bites off a strip and moves it toward her mouth, I take a step, but she’s already launching up. Grabbing the bar light over the pool table, she yanks it again and again, screaming at the top of her lungs. How did she get free?
But I make no move to stop her.
It crashes down, right on top of Milo’s head, and in a moment, she’s bolting off the table. She runs for the nearest door, diving through.
I exhale. She was buying time with that little performance, somehow loosening the band around her wrists enough to escape.
One, two…
“Goddammit!” Milo holds his head, trying to get up.
Three, four…
We help him up, and he tries to bolt to go after her, but I grip him tightly.
“Let’s go!” he cries.
Nine, ten…
I shove his head to the side, checking for bleeding like I give a shit.
Eleven, twelve…
But he pushes past me, and we all run after her. She’s had time to hide.
Or get a good head start, at least.
They race through the door, my strides just a hair slower as I keep the others behind me. We spot her just as she escapes at the end of another hallway, and Vincent runs.
He crashes into something on the ground, and we all tumble over a table she shoved in our way.
Vincent bellows.
“Fuck!” I growl.
We try to stand in the dark, climbing over each other.
“We have to get her before she gets on the green,” Vincent spits out.
“Just fuck it,” I snap. “Let her go.”
“Are you fucking serious?” Milo gripes. “They’re going to come after us hard for this. If I’m gonna bleed, it’s gonna be worth it!”
“We’re not going to bleed anyway!” I bark. “She’s not gonna say shit. Too afraid of our families. Leave it alone.”
I wanted her willing. Maybe coerced but still agreeable.
I don’t want this.
My friend laughs in my face, though. “Not a fucking chance!”
And he runs, the others following him. “Milo!” I shout.
What the fuck did I do? I kick the wall, growling.
I’m a fucking weak piece of shit.
But I run. I pound the cement floors, racing after him. I push past the other guys, coming up on Milo, both of us stumbling out the door to the golf course.
All of us stop, looking up, my stomach sinking immediately.
Liv stands thirty yards away, Clay and several men with her.
Oh, shit.
Liv’s already covered in a flannel shirt, and I don’t know if all of her brothers are here, but Dallas is there. I would know Dallas’s outline anywhere.
They charge toward us. How the fuck did they know we were here? She wasn’t wearing a smart watch. I—
Del and his two friends scatter, the vague movement in the corner of my eye as they dash across the course and the others disappear back into the field house.
Clay holds a knife.
Milo growls, and I almost sigh with relief even as the dread curls through my stomach.
This might actually kill me.
They close in on us, and Milo quickly fumbles with his phone.
Before he can make a call, Dallas swats it out of his hand, and I simply wait my turn. Pulling out a chair from the small lawn table with a closed umbrella, I take a seat and watch them go for Milo first.
Army grabs him from behind, and Macon kicks his legs out from underneath him. He falls to his knees, and I watch, but all I’m really aware of is Dallas positioning himself behind me. I wait for something to hit my head or the feel of his hand around my throat.
“Stop,” Clay tells Macon. “You’ll get in trouble. I won’t.”
Milo chuckles, eyeing her and the knife in her hand, but then his face quickly falls. She raises the blade to his face.
“Clay, no!” he screams. “Ah!”
He winces as she drags the knife across his cheek, from his temple down to the corner of his mouth, and he’s bleeding all right. Just like he said he would.
“Clay…” Liv gasps.
Milo shakes, blood dripping off his chin, and Clay squats down. Tears thicken her throat.
“Now, when you go to get stitches,” she tells him, “you’re going to tell them that you cut yourself shaving.”
I study her. She acts like them now.
Macon watches her, too, almost admiringly.
I don’t even think he ever noticed when I was in the house.
“When your parents ask, you tell them you cut yourself shaving,” Clay goes on. “And when the next woman in your life asks about your scar, you’re going to remember that if I get even a hint that you have done this to anyone else, they won’t find you with another scar. They won’t find you at all.” And then she raises her voice and presses the point of the blade to the other side of his face as Army holds him. “Don’t you ever touch her again! Not a finger!”